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: S6W-14133

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has developed a (a) commercial and (b) procurement strategy that covers all national, regional and local approaches to (i) developing and (ii) buying digital products for health and social care.

Question reference: S6W-14070

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether the Parliament has faced any challenges in preparing for the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-14067

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christine Grahame on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what potential impact the proposals in the Scottish Government consultation, Restricting alcohol advertising and promotion, would have on the Parliament shop, including on the sale of alcohol such as Parliament-branded whisky and gin.

Question reference: S6W-14143

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it has done to expand the specialist digital, data, design and technology (DDAT) professional workforce within health and social care.

Question reference: S6W-14093

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how much it has spent on enabling people to (a) book/rearrange appointments, (b) order prescriptions, (c) update their details and (d) generally conduct all routine "transactions" online.

Question reference: S6W-14149

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how much it has spent on training health and social care staff to ensure that they have the essential digital skills that they need to do their job, broken down by NHS board.

The development and maintaining of digital skills across the workforce is the responsibility of individual employers and academic institutions. We do not hold information centrally on the amount spent by health and social care organisations on development of digital skills. At a national level, we are supporting the provision of materials, resources and courses to support digital skills via the Digital Skills and Leadership Programme. This programme is led by NHS Education for Scotland, and from October 2021 to December 2022 the Scottish Government spent £790,637 on this national programme.

The Building Digital Skills and Leadership Programme enables the delivery of Priority 4 of the refreshed Digital Health and Care strategy where ‘Digital skills are seen as core skills for the workforce across the health and care sector’, and associated commitments in the Health and Social Care: national workforce strategy. The associated programme priorities are found within the Care in a Digital Age Delivery Plan 2022-2023.

Question reference: S6W-14146

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how much it has invested in information governance and cyber skills within health and social care.

The Scottish Government is supporting staff to develop digital skills through the Building Digital Skills and Leadership Programme.

Specifically, to support IG and cyber security across health and social care, the Scottish Government has provided funding to NHS boards for programmes of work specifically relating to Information Governance and Security. For example:

The National IG Programme
The Digital Workforce Programme
NIS Competent Authority for Health.

This is in addition to bespoke spends on this topic area, such as the Public Sector Cyber Upskilling fund, which was targeted at Emergency Services, Local Authorities, Health Sector, SEPA and Scottish Water.

As these programmes often rely on appropriate use of allocated funding to NHS boards, we do not hold information centrally on the amount specifically on the development of information governance and cyber skills.

For more information on the Building Digital Skills and Leadership Programme, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14150 on 2 February 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Question reference: S6W-14069

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Claire Baker MSP on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how much has been spent in preparation for the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme.

Question reference: S6W-14117

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, which health and social care organisations it has provided support to in order to have access to the basic resources required to develop as digital organisations.

Question reference: S6W-14342

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 February 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what guidelines it has given to local authorities regarding the welcoming of Ukrainian refugees into their housing services.