- Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 October 2024
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 7 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its work regarding the Social Isolation and Loneliness Strategy, particularly in relation to rural areas ahead of the winter months.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 7 November 2024
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how many people were living with secondary breast cancer on the last date for which figures are available.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information. We are currently working with Public Health Scotland to review options for a national approach to data collection for secondary breast cancer.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 17 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Paul McLennan on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on cladding remediation, broken down by local authority.
Answer
Information on the level of spend by the Cladding Remediation Programme is proactively published and broken down by local authority.
Latest published data shows the aggregated spend by local authorities on single building assessments, fire risk measures and remediation is just over £9m to the end of quarter one 2024-25; spend is updated quarterly, the next update will be proactively published in quarter three 2024-25. Single Building Assessment programme: spending information (gov.scot).
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-25949 by Mairi McAllan on 13 March 2024, whether it has now assessed potential public expenditure or contingent liability implications for its Budget to de-risk or otherwise sufficiently underwrite private investment in nature recovery, as part of contributing to reducing carbon in the atmosphere.
Answer
Scottish Government is currently assessing alternative spending models for natural restoration that will seek to encourage greater responsible private investment while maximising the value of public spending.
Assessment of the public expenditure or contingent liability implications of these models is ongoing.
- Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the findings in the report, The Ethical Basis of the Scottish Health and Wellbeing Census, 2021-22, by Lindsay Paterson, Emeritus Professor of Education Policy at the University of Edinburgh, which outlines ethical failings in how data was gathered, how it will give all children and families the right to request deletion of their data, and whether it will commit to deleting all data gathered, in light of the reported concerns that it is unfit to be used by ethical researchers.
Answer
The Scottish Government takes the privacy of citizen’s data very seriously and is committed to ensuring that the personal data we hold complies with the Data Protection Act and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
The UK GDPR gives individuals the right to have personal data erased, and requests for deletion can be made to the data controller(s) of the personal data. However, the right is not absolute and only applies in certain circumstances.
The right to erasure does not apply if processing is necessary for some specific purposes, including for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority, or for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific research, historical research or statistical purposes where erasure is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of that processing.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 21 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether any crimes of drug possession will be recorded, for the purposes of recorded crime statistics, for those who enter the safer drug consumption facility in Glasgow in possession of substances deemed illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1972.
Answer
As a harm reduction service, there is no intention that staff would record or report suspected crimes in relation to the possession of drugs. The service will collate information on the substances being reported by service users but this will be anonymous and for the purposes of the city’s drug harms agenda in relation to gathering intelligence to support wider service responses. Staff working in the service are not expected to determine whether a crime in relation to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is being committed.
Police Scotland will record any crime in the usual manner, there is no change to either Police Scotland or crime reporting where they find people to be committing a crime, including those under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
- Asked by: Roz McCall, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how many people who died (a) by suicide, (b) prematurely from non-natural causes and (c) from alcohol-related causes in each year since 2016 were care-experienced.
Answer
Regulation 6 of The Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 states that Scottish Ministers should be informed of the death of a child who is looked after. In addition, the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 inserted a statutory duty in the Children (Scotland) 1995 Act requiring local authorities to notify Scottish Ministers and the Care Inspectorate of the death of a care leaver in receipt of a Continuing Care or Aftercare service.
Data from the Care Inspectorate states the confirmed causes of death from 2016 to 15 October 2024 of any young person who was looked after or a care leaver receiving an Aftercare or Continuing Care service.
Year | Cause of death -Suicide | Cause of death – non natural causes | Cause of death - Alcohol related |
2016 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
2017 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
2018 | 4 | 3 | 0 |
2019 | 5 | 10 | 0 |
2020 | 7 | 10 | 0 |
2021 | 3 | 10 | 0 |
2022 | 6 | 4 | 0 |
2023 | 5 | 7 | 0 |
2024 (up to 15 October 24) | 6 | 1 | 0 |
There were no deaths that were solely reported as alcohol related. While some records indicated alcohol as a contributing factor, it was associated with a range of complex issues faced by the individual rather than being identified as the direct cause of death.
- Asked by: Ariane Burgess, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 17 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how many landholdings in public ownership are (a) 3,000 hectares or more, (b) 1,000 to 2,999 hectares and (c) 500 to 999 hectares.
Answer
Within the scope of the size thresholds stated in the question there are a total of 355 land parcels in public ownership in Scotland. The following table breaks this down by the size thresholds requested.
Land parcel size threshold (ha) | Number of land parcels in size threshold |
500-999 | 112 |
1,000-2,999 | 165 |
3,000+ | 78 |
These land ownership data relate to land owned or managed by Crown Estate Scotland (CES) and the following five public bodies:
1.Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS);
2.NatureScot;
3.Ministry of Defence (MoD);
4.Scottish Ministers Crofting and Farming Estate; and
5.Scottish Water.
The data analysed in providing the response to this question have been provided by the respective public bodies themselves, who collate and update their own data independently, so the data used here may be slightly out of date.
- Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what information it (a) currently makes available and (b) plans to make available to the Scottish Parliament for the purposes of evaluating the efficacy of community mental health funding.
Answer
The Scottish Government has published the following reports relating to the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults.
Year 1 (2021-2022)
Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund: year 1 - monitoring and reporting summary - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
External Evaluation of Year 1
Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults: evaluation - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Year 2 (2022 -2023)
Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults: year 2 - monitoring and reporting summary - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Year 3 (2023-2024)
Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults - year 3: monitoring and reporting summary - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Year 4 of the Fund opened for applications on 30 September 2024. As with previous years, data in respect of Year 4 will be published when it is available.
In addition, we are currently working with Third Sector Interface organisations to gather information on the impact of the Fund and we intend to make key findings available in due course.
In relation to the children and young people’s community mental health and wellbeing supports and services funded by the Scottish Government, the Scottish Youth Parliament conducted an independent evaluation which was published in August 2023 and is available at https://syp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Independent-Evaluation-of-Community-Mental-Health-Supports-and-Services-April-2023.pdf.
Local authorities also report annually on data including numbers of people accessing support, age and gender of service users, reasons for presenting at the services, and numbers of people reporting an improved outcome. Summaries of this information are published retrospectively by the Scottish Government at https://www.gov.scot/publications/access-to-counsellors-in-secondary-schools-and-children-and-young-peoples-community-mental-health-services-summary-reports/.
- Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 30 October 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-29611 by Jenny Gilruth on 20 September 2024, what evaluation it has carried out regarding the impact on educational performance of providing around 280,000 free digital devices and 14,000 connectivity packages to learners, and for what reason it did not provide this information in its answer.
Answer
The Scottish Government provision of devices and connectivity packages during the pandemic was an emergency response to ensure disadvantaged learners could remain in contact with schools, teachers and learning during the periods when schools were closed.
The remainder of the devices have been funded, procured and distributed by local authorities themselves, in line with local learning strategies. Local authorities are ultimately responsible for delivery of education, including decisions around how, when and why to deploy any technology. Therefore, it would be for local authorities to undertake any evaluation of local device rollout programmes.
