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: S4W-17293

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 7 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what budget will be allocated for Home Energy Efficiency Programmes for Scotland in the (a) 2014-15 draft budget and (b) 2015-16 budget plans and whether this will be sufficient to eradicate fuel poverty by 2016.

The Scottish Government spending plans of 11 September announced funding allocations of £79 million to tackle fuel poverty for each of the next two years ,2014-15 and 2015-16.

The Scottish Government is committed to eradicating fuel poverty and is doing everything within its limited powers to achieve this. We will continue to use this funding for the Home Energy Efficiency Programmes for Scotland to lever in private sector funding from the energy companies seeking to meet their obligations under ECO, to ensure the future of our £200 million fund to tackle fuel poverty.

Question reference: S4W-17296

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 7 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what meetings of the Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum have taken place in the last year and whether these were attended by the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities.

The Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum is an independent Ministerial advisory body which Ministers attend when invited. In the last 12 months, the Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum has met six times, on the following dates:

9 October 2012

12 December 2012

12 March 2013

9 May 2013

18 June 2013

18 September 2013

Further information on the Forum and its meetings is available on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/warmhomes/fuelpoverty/ScottishFuelPovertyForum.

I attended the meeting on 12 December 2012 and confirmed that Scottish Ministers believe the Forum should continue to challenge the work of the Scottish Government when appropriate and continue to work with Ministers and Scottish Government officials to tackle fuel poverty.

Question reference: S4W-17289

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 7 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the assertion in the Scottish House Condition Survey of 2009 that for every 5% rise in fuel prices an estimated 46,000 more households would go into fuel poverty and whether fuel poverty is now affecting around 900,000 households.

Question reference: S4W-16578

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 August 2013
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 7 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing agreed to be pictured with ATOS to announce its sponsorship of the 2014 Commonwealth Games and when the request was made.

The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee invited the Deputy First Minister on 9 February 2012 to participate in the event to announce their sponsorship agreement with Atos, which took place on 16 March 2012.

All Games Partners including representatives from Glasgow City Council, Commonwealth Games Scotland and the Scottish Government attended the event to mark the significant contribution which Atos sponsorship will make towards the successful delivery of the Games.

Atos is providing technology that will be used for accreditation services, volunteer recruitment and the instant relaying of results, all of which shall enhance the Glasgow 2014 Games experience. All Games Partners were pictured to mark the announcement.

The SG has every sympathy with individuals and families who have been adversely affected by the UK Government’s welfare reforms. Whilst appreciating that an assessment process is necessary, the alarming stories of peoples’ experiences suggest that what is in place just now is causing a great deal of undue stress and hardship to people across Scotland.

That is why Housing Minister, Margaret Burgess, wrote recently to the UK Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, highlighting the Scottish Government’s concerns at Atos and DWP’s administering of the Work Capability Assessment process and urging him to take the necessary steps to ensure that the very worrying cases that are being reported are never repeated.

Securing sponsors is a matter for the organising committee and it should be acknowledged that Glasgow 2014’s contract with Atos do not relate in any way to the services it provides on behalf of DWP. In addition, securing sponsorship is vital to the success of the Games and to reduce the need for additional public funds to stage them.

Question reference: S4W-17440

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 3 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many children with (a) formal, (b) informal and (c) other kinship care arrangements have been placed on the child protection register in each of the last three years.

The Scottish Government does not hold data centrally on (b) informal or (c) other kinship care arrangements. Individual-level child protection data is only held centrally as at 31 July 2012, so data for (a) formal care is not available over time.

On 31 July 2012 there were 149 children with formal kinship care arrangements who were also on the child protection register.

Source: Scottish Government Looked after children and child protection data 2011-12.

Question reference: S4W-17446

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 3 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many children in kinship care have siblings in (a) residential and (b) foster care.

Question reference: S4W-17159

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether levels of poverty and deprivation are greater in black and minority ethnic communities and, if so, what action it is taking to address them.

People from minority ethnic (non-white) groups are more likely to be in relative poverty (before housing costs) compared to those from the “White” groups (28% and 15% respectively).

Table 1 - Percentage of people in relative poverty (before housing costs) by ethnic group: Scotland 2009-10 to 2011-12

Ethnic Group	Percentage
White - British	15
White - Other	19
Asian / Asian British	24
Mixed, Black / Black British, Chinese & Other	32

Total White	15
Total Minority Ethnic	28

Source: Family Resources Survey, Households Below Average Income datasets - figures aggregated from three years of data from 2009-10 to 2011-12 inclusive.

We are committed to promoting race equality in Scotland and working with others to do so. We are providing £5.3 million of funding in 2012-15 to address issues around race equality in Scotland. In April we published our current thinking on how race equality should develop over the next three years, and in Spring 2014 we intend to publish an updated Race Equality Statement, providing more detail on how we intend to take forward our plans in practice.

Alongside this, the Child Poverty Strategy for Scotland expresses our commitment to tackle the long term drivers of poverty through early intervention and prevention. That commitment includes a range of actions such as harnessing over £125 million across government and our agencies to support young people towards and into work across Scotland.

Question reference: S4F-01596

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 30 September 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 October 2013

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on the decision taken at the COSLA leaders meeting to back the petition from the No2Bedroom Tax campaign calling for £50 million to mitigate the impact of the so-called bedroom tax.

Question reference: S4W-17280

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 27 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to foodbanks.

Question reference: S4W-17281

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 27 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is aware of the location of foodbanks.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-15751 on 27 June 2013. The member may wish to note that the Scottish Government recently commissioned a study exploring the provision of emergency food-aid in Scotland. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.