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: S5W-36000

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 5 May 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided for research on (a) strokes, (b) heart disease, (c) cancer, (d) hearing loss and (e) sight loss in each year since 2016.

Funding provided by the Scottish Government (Chief Scientist Office) for research falls into three broad areas of activity, i.e. research studies, capacity building and supporting infrastructure. The specific amounts provided by condition are set out below although it should be noted that research studies (funded by non-commercial and third sector organisations) would also have benefited from the provision of service support costs and other generic resources which are not routinely recorded by condition.

Research Grants/Scheme

Chief Scientist Office supports response mode grant committees and a small catalytic grants scheme (2016-19). The committees which comprise independent experts as well as public representatives consider applications across broad research remits to address health and care challenges in Scotland. Applications are subject to independent expert peer-review with funding recommendations made by the committees. It should be noted that funding rounds were significantly impacted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic which saw a significant research response.

	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
(a) stroke	£85,339	£865,540	£645,018	£920,831	£0
(b) heart disease	£766,921	£248,008	£312,147	£55,649	£0
(c) cancer	£1,788,652	£1,718,367	£584,977	£979,022	£299,412
(e) sight	£0	£31,226	£0	£0	£0

Capacity Building

Over period 2016-2020 a number of capacity building schemes were active. Each scheme has separate Panels which consider applications.

The funding awarded for relevant projects is shown below:

	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
(a) stroke	£213,517	£0	£289,810	£0	£0
(b) heart disease	£37,000	£20,000	£142,252	£144,278	£70,000
(c) cancer (including cancer prevention research)	£533,000	£268,990	£766,111	£713,000	£676,935
e) Sight loss	£0	£60,000	£0	£0	£0

No projects were recommended for funding by Capacity Panels over the period 2016-2020 in the area of (d) hearing loss.

Infrastructure

Dedicated infrastructure support which was open to all eligibly funded research studies was as follows:

	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
(a) stroke	£598,000	£604,000	£616,000	£616,000	£616,000
(b) heart disease	£62,000	£64,000	£64,000	£66,424	£66,424
(c) cancer	£442,000	£447,000	£456,000	£456,000	£456,000
(d) hearing loss	£356,152	£342,651	£391,752	£394,924	£398,924
e) Sight loss	£12,000	£14,000	£14,000	£14,404	£14,404

Question reference: S5W-36001

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 29 April 2021

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how many and (b) what percentage of people in the NHS Grampian area who were referred for cancer treatment in (i) 2020 and (ii) 2021 received this within the 62-day target.

Data published by Public Health Scotland covering the period 1 January 2020 to 30 September 2020 shows that in NHS Grampian 83.7% of eligible referrals started treatment within the 62 day standard, representing 1082 of 1292 eligible referrals.

Further breakdown of this data can be accessed at Cancer waiting times 30 March 2021 - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org)

Data on 62 day standard performance for 2021 has not yet been published by Public Health Scotland. Data for Q1 2021 (January - March) will be published by PHS on 30 June 2021.

To support cancer services NHS Grampian received £987,000 in this financial year of 2020-21. Our Effective Cancer Management Consultant also provides weekly enhanced performance support to ensure patients are moving through the pathway as safely and swiftly as possible.

Cancer services across NHS Scotland has and will remain a top clinical priority.

Question reference: S5W-36002

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how many and (b) what percentage of children in the NHS Grampian area who were referred for mental health treatment in 2020 received this within the 18-week target.

The latest published data for CAMHS waiting times was released on 2 March 2021 by Public Health Scotland and contains data up to 31 December 2020. For ease of reference NHS Grampian CAMHS waiting times data is detailed below.

a) Between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2020, 1,359 children and young people started treatment in CAMHS within NHS Grampian (see Table 1). Of these, 1,188 started treatment within the 18-week target.

b) This represents 87% of new patients starting treatment within 18 weeks of referral.

Table 1: CAMHS Waiting Times for NHS Grampian (1 Jan 2020 – 31 December 2020, aggregated)

	2020
Children and Young People starting treatment	1,359
Children and Young People starting treatment within 18 weeks	1,188
Children and Young People starting treatment within 18 weeks (%)	87%

Source: https://beta.isdscotland.org/media/7928/waiting-times-tables.xlsx

Full publication: https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/conditions-and-diseases/mental-health/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times/

Question reference: S5W-36004

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 23 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how much compensation ScotRail awarded to passengers and (b) how much estimated unclaimed compensation there was in each four-week period in (i) 2019-20 and (ii) 2020-21.

ScotRail is required through the Franchise Agreement to provide a delay-repay scheme to passengers, which offers compensation when their journey is delayed by more than 30 minutes.

The Delay Repay scheme operates on a railway period reporting basis from April to March.

The following tables summarise a) the actual compensation ScotRail awarded to passengers in each four-week period for (i) 2019-2020 and (ii) 2020-2021:-

Reporting Period	2019-2020	Reporting Period	2020-2021
1	£91,429	1	£2,223
2	£73,876	2	£883
3	£72,288	3	£765
4	£86,506	4	£3,834
5	£98,904	5	£15,861
6	£133,842	6	£16,983
7	£91,281	7	£10,114
8	£91,614	8	£9,500
9	£85,064	9	£6,016
10	£80,167	10	£5,846
11	£66,172	11	£5,749
12	£91,145	12	£9,705
13	£67,690	13	£0
Total	£1,129,976	Total	£87,480

Concerning part (b) an estimate figure for unclaimed delay repay is not something that is held by Transport Scotland or ScotRail.

Question reference: S5W-36005

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 19 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the average annual local authority (a) block grant and (b) total funding is, broken down by per head of population, and how this compares with how much each local authority receives.

The information requested is set out in the following table.

Revenue Only
Local Authority	Block Grant	Block Grant (per head)	Total Settlement	Total Settlement (per head)
	£m	£	£m	£
Aberdeen City	343.729	1,510	395.485	1,738
Aberdeenshire	444.768	1,701	503.335	1,925
Angus	213.070	1,836	237.882	2,050
Argyll & Bute	201.044	2,331	223.597	2,592
Clackmannanshire	98.287	1,912	110.277	2,145
Dumfries & Galloway	297.682	2,001	330.231	2,219
Dundee City	302.885	2,036	342.253	2,301
East Ayrshire	238.165	1,955	267.101	2,192
East Dunbartonshire	194.723	1,798	215.943	1,993
East Lothian	179.979	1,701	203.638	1,925
East Renfrewshire	187.570	1,971	202.130	2,124
Edinburgh, City of	769.893	1,485	900.461	1,737
Eilean Siar	97.107	3,619	108.133	4,030
Falkirk	290.875	1,814	340.521	2,124
Fife	674.181	1,813	753.384	2,026
Glasgow City	1,268.372	2,025	1,482.770	2,367
Highland	472.656	2,007	530.552	2,252
Inverclyde	169.418	2,168	188.618	2,414
Midlothian	167.155	1,830	191.305	2,094
Moray	167.067	1,749	188.791	1,976
North Ayrshire	282.899	2,091	304.488	2,251
North Lanarkshire	640.148	1,882	717.988	2,111
Orkney	72.073	3,248	87.812	3,957
Perth & Kinross	264.351	1,747	307.223	2,031
Renfrewshire	322.477	1,814	364.074	2,048
Scottish Borders	218.056	1,892	265.379	2,302
Shetland	82.965	3,609	102.550	4,461
South Ayrshire	210.278	1,868	232.736	2,068
South Lanarkshire	582.076	1,825	649.314	2,035
Stirling	174.454	1,849	197.306	2,092
West Dunbartonshire	193.294	2,169	209.024	2,345
West Lothian	330.637	1,815	365.664	2,008
Undistributed	114.979		137.142
Scotland	10,267.311	1,888	11,672.433	2,146

Question reference: S5W-36003

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 18 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of pupils meet the national satisfactory standards in (a) reading, (b) writing, (c) listening and talking and (d) numeracy, also broken down by the percentage in the (i) Aberdeen City. (ii) Aberdeenshire. (iii) best performing and (iv) worst performing council area.

The Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence Levels publication provides information on the number of publicly funded school children in Primary 1, Primary 4, Primary 7 and Secondary 3 who have achieved the expected Curriculum for Excellence level in the literacy organisers (reading, writing and listening and talking) and numeracy.

The latest data, for 2018/19, can be found here: Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2018-19 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) with local authority level data, including for Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire, available for each stage and organiser in tables 10.1 to 10.5 (see 'Supporting files'). When making comparisons between local authorities we recommend keeping in mind the context of the authorities and their approach to assessment.

Question reference: S5W-36006

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 18 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many unfilled teaching posts there are in (a) Aberdeen, (b) Aberdeenshire, (c) Angus and (d) Dundee, and what action it is taking to reduce the number of these posts.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information as the recruitment and deployment of all staff in local authority schools is a matter for individual Councils.

We are firmly of the view that we will need all possible teaching resources at our disposal to compensate for any loss of learning suffered since the start of the pandemic, as well as to bring much needed resilience to the education system at this challenging time. Since the start of the pandemic we have committed over £375 million to education recovery. This includes a combination of spend to support learning, including investments to support the recruitment of additional teachers and support staff.

Question reference: S5O-05112

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 March 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Nestrans and Transport Scotland regarding road infrastructure improvements in the North East Scotland region.

Question reference: S5O-05072

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 February 2021
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to meet its target of building 50,000 affordable homes.

Question reference: S5O-05063

Asked by: Tom Mason, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 February 2021
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to reduce the backlog of elective surgical procedures that have arisen in the NHS Grampian area due to the COVID-19 pandemic.