Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6O-02098

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 March 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what discussions it has had in relation to access to translation services for cross-party groups.

Question reference: S6O-02095

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 March 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body when it will next meet with representatives from the GMB trade union MSP staff branch.

Question reference: S6W-15827

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that 180 Freedom of Information requests to the Scottish Government regarding Ferguson Marine and Scotland's ferry network remain outstanding, with many not being processed within the statutory timeframe.

The Scottish Government regrets any instance in which the statutory 20 working day deadline for responding to information requests is not met. It remains committed to its obligations under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act to ensure openness and transparency. The Scottish Government is working at pace to deliver the actions in its FOI Improvement Plan, including the target agreed with the Scottish Information Commissioner of answering 95% of requests on time.

The Scottish Government has received and responded to a large number of requests relating to the topics the Member highlights. The figure quoted by the Member relates to the number of such requests which remained outstanding in August 2022. Considerable progress in responding to outstanding requests has been made since that time.

Question reference: S6W-15847

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has invested in digital technologies within the cultural sector in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government has invested in digital technologies within the cultural sector through direct funding, programmes and sponsorship of public bodies such as Creative Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland. Therefore, what follows is not an exhaustive list.

Digital technologies are vital to all businesses in realising their ambitions and supporting the growth of the Scottish economy. Through our Digital Development Grant and Digital Development Loan, £7.1 million of funding went directly to over 500 businesses that recorded themselves to be within the Culture sector over the last five years.

In March 2021, the Scottish Government launched the Creative Digital Initiative (CDI), a £1 million digital support programme for creative and cultural businesses. It was developed in partnership with Creative Scotland, the Enterprise agencies and Skills Development Scotland. CDI supported creative and cultural businesses to develop their digital capabilities, improve their digital skills in and enhance their creative opportunities as they responded to the challenges imposed by COVID-19.

During Covid-19, the Museums and Galleries Scotland Digital Resilience Fund supported adoption of digital technologies within the culture sector and was administered by Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS). This funding provided much needed support for the sector to support the purchase of equipment necessary to enable work from home and provision of digital access to museum collections and activity. It paid out £110,806 to 67 museums in 2020.

Digital and digital engagement is also a key area of work for Creative Scotland. An overview of projects funded with a focus on digital activity is compiled in their Annual Reviews. Creative Scotland is currently finalising the review for 2021-22 and it is due to be published shortly.

In 2020-21, Creative Scotland funded 188 projects with a focus on digital activity, with a total award of £5.2 million. This is an increase on 2019-20 – when 21 projects with a focus on digital activity were funded, to a total of £847,993.

In 2018-19, Creative Scotland funded 36 projects with a focus on digital activity, with a total of £935,471.

In 2017/18, Creative Scotland made 40 awards through our Open and Targeted Funding programmes to the value of £1.2 million, with one third of those focussed on work with children and young people using digital tools creatively.

These awards are a mix of both Scottish Government Grant in Aid funding and The National Lottery.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government delivers support for the historic environment through sponsorship of Historic Environment Scotland. As Historic Environment Scotland’s spending on digital technology for the historic environment is an operational matter for them, I would invite the member to write to HES Chief Executives Office at [email protected] to request the information.

Question reference: S6W-15884

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government on how many occasions a Litter Abatement Order has been issued in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S6W-15792

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the confirmation of both the scope of the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill and of the national service specification for secure transport, jointly developed with COSLA, what plans it has to (a) regulate and (b) improve monitoring of the use of restraint in children, including those in care, by secure transportation providers.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with COSLA to develop solutions for secure transport - to advance our commitment to the UNCRC and the requirements within The Promise. A sub-group of the National Secure Care Group has been set up to develop solutions to these issues.

The service specification for secure transport is still in development. Multi-agency discussions are ongoing about how that will be used in local authority commissioning arrangements.

We will consider the implications of changing the legislative and regulatory framework to make it possible to bring scrutiny of secure transport arrangements within the remit of the Care Inspectorate.

Question reference: S6W-15817

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been provided to date to each hospice by Integration Joint Boards under the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 to plan and commission services for their area using the integrated budget under their control, including palliative and end-of-life care services.

Question reference: S6W-15735

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the Deposit Return Scheme, whether any producers that have registered after 1 March 2023 have been registered in accordance with regulations.

Question reference: S6W-15612

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the response to the members' business debate on motion S6M-03777 (MND Scotland Report, No Time to Lose: Addressing the Housing Needs of People with MND) by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government on 21 June 2022 (Official Report, c. 85) that she planned to have a discussion with COSLA, what the outcome was of any such discussion.

I met with Councillor Maureen Chalmers, the COSLA Spokesperson for Community Wellbeing on 22 March. We had a productive meeting and discussed how good practice in providing rapid help for people living with MND can be shared across local authorities. I will also follow up directly with MND Scotland with a meeting currently being arranged. Additionally, I can confirm that MND Scotland is a member of our recently formed Accessible Housing and Independent Living Stakeholder group. The group had their first meeting at the end of 2022, giving constructive feedback to our Housing for Varying Needs review. My officials are arranging further meetings of this group to seek views and opinions on housing and independent living issues including the adaptations review and the new Scottish Accessible Homes Standard.

Question reference: S6W-15964

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) analysis it undertakes and (b) data it (i) holds and (ii) publishes on (A) tracking and (B) monitoring the successful sustainment, or otherwise, of the "positive destinations" of school leavers.

Information on the initial destinations of school leavers three months after the end of the school year (i.e. in October) is published in the Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations publication released in February each year. Information on the destinations of the same cohort of school leavers nine months after the end of the school year (i.e. the following April) is then published in Summary Statistics for Follow-up Leaver Destination each June.

Chart 4 of the follow-up leaver destination publication provides information on the percentage of school leavers whose follow-up destination was the same as their initial destination whilst table L1.8 of the associated supplementary tables provide more details of the percentages of school leavers who had sustained their initial destination or moved into another destination by the time of the follow-up data cut - i.e. 9 months after leaving school.

The information used to produce these destination statistics is sourced from the 'Opportunities for All' shared dataset. This dataset contains information on the activities undertaken by young people in Scotland and is managed and hosted by Skills Development Scotland (SDS). SDS supply the Scottish Government with two snapshots from this dataset throughout the year - in April and October.