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-07148

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 21 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will include prison data in the 18-week psychological therapies waiting time standard.

Psychological Therapies (PT) delivered in any service setting is already included within the 18-week PT waiting time standard and delivery of PT in forensic services should be counted in the PT standard. This is not consistently happening at the moment and to help ensure that services deliver and measure Psychological Therapies across in a more standardised way across Scotland a new national standard for Psychological Services and Therapies is currently under development with a publication date of Summer 2022.

Additionally, in order to ensure consistency in the quality of service delivery across Scotland, Scottish Government has worked with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to produce the Psychological Therapies 'Matrix' - a stepped guide to planning and delivering evidence-based psychological therapies within NHS Boards in Scotland. Matrix - A guide to delivering evidence-based psychological (scot.nhs.uk)

The Matrix is published by NES, in partnership with the Scottish Government and provides a summary of the information on the current evidence base for various therapeutic approaches, guidance on well-functioning psychological therapies services, and advice on important governance issues.

Question reference: S6W-07146

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 21 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting NHS boards to plan for and develop forensic community mental health teams.

The Independent Review into the delivery of Forensic Mental Health Services in Scotland, published at the end of February 2021, made 67 recommendations for improvements to the delivery of forensic mental health services, including several on community forensic mental health.

The Scottish Government supports the recommendations of the review, agrees that community provision is a crucial component of the forensic mental health system and that forensic community mental health teams are key to supporting mental wellbeing in the community. Recommendations 18 and 19 of the Review recommend that work be undertaken to define the service remit of community forensic mental health teams and to ensure they are appropriately resourced to meet demand. The Forensic Mental Health Services Managed Care Network is gathering information on current provision to establish a baseline to take this work forward.

Question reference: S6W-07147

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 21 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the equity of provision of clinical psychology services across the prison estate.

The Scottish Government takes seriously the responsibility to ensure those going through the criminal justice system with mental health issues are appropriately supported, treated and cared for, while ensuring their rights are being maintained, especially during these challenging times that may have a significant impact on people’s mental wellbeing.

A new national standard for Psychological Services and Therapies, which will describe what good quality psychological care looks like, is currently under development with a publication date of Summer 2022. This will include describing the provision of care in forensic and prison services. This will help ensure that Psychological Therapy services and therapies are delivered and measured in equitable ways across the prison estate in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has invested £9 million in 2021-22 for Psychological services in Scotland to grow the Applied Psychology, and Psychological Therapies workforce. Further funding will be provided for 2022-23 to support services to provide Psychological care to all clinical areas of care detailed in the Psychological Services and Therapies standard.

Question reference: S6W-06955

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 11 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 17 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has a strategy to increase the number of retained fire and rescue service personnel.

Question reference: S6O-00901

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how its policies across government will support people living in Glasgow to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S6W-06961

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 15 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has made of the impact of fire appliances, both those staffed by wholetime and retained firefighters, being taken off the run due to staffing levels.

Question reference: S6W-06959

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 15 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether additional funding will be made available to help the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in its response to the climate emergency, and, if so, how much funding will be made available.

The Scottish Government has increased the funding for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) by £9.5 million for 2022-23. The Grant In Aid provided to SFRS is not allocated for specific purposes, it is an operational matter for SFRS to decide how the resources should best be used to keep communities safe.

Over the last two years SFRS has received £3.4 million in Grants from Transport Scotland and the Energy Savings Trust, to invest in electric vehicles and charging infrastructure to assist in the transfer to a low carbon light fleet. SFRS also received additional Capital Budget of £0.5 million from Transport Scotland in 2021-22, to invest in a low carbon fire appliance proto-type.

Question reference: S6W-06958

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 15 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much it estimates that it will cost to ensure that all fire station buildings are in a good standard of repair.

Question reference: S6W-06951

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 15 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) wholetime, (b) retained and (c) control firefighters have been employed by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in each year since it was created.

Recruitment of firefighters, whether whole-time, retained or control is a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service therefore figures on recruitment are not held centrally.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) came into being as a national service on 1 April 2013. In its first year of operation (2013/14) employment statistics were collated by the Scottish Government and at 31 March 2014 SFRS had, by headcount, 4,001 whole-time, 2,940 Retained, 223 control, and 961 support employees and 359 volunteers. For reporting year 2014/15 and onwards, SFRS has been responsible for producing these statistics and employment figures are published annually on the SFRS website www.firescotland.gov.uk as part of its Organisational Statistics.

Prior to 2013-14 fire and rescue services were provided by the 8 regional fire and rescue services which formed part of local government. Statistics on the number of employees in these services are not held centrally.

Question reference: S6W-06950

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 15 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what additional budget has been allocated to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service for the coming years.