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-31192

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that more than a quarter of a million calls to the NHS24 service in Scotland were not picked up in 2023.

NHS 24 is committed to providing safe and effective care to our patients across Scotland 365 days of the year. During times of peak demand staff work hard to answer as many calls as quickly and safely as possible.

Calls to the 111 service can be unanswered for a variety of reasons, including callers choosing to end their call after being connected to the automated messaging service and hearing the options available to them.

These include accessing self-care advice via NHS Inform or contacting another area of the health service which may be more appropriate to meet their needs.

The Scottish Government continues to support NHS 24's on-going work to help reduce unanswered calls, including recently revising NHS 24's key performance indicators to help better reflect and understand the current demands on the service.

This work allows the Service to capture any unmet demand, and any potential risks where callers have made multiple attempts to access 111 without success.

It will also allow the Service to continue to make improvements to service delivery moving forward.

Question reference: S6W-31208

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government of how many deaths was pulmonary fibrosis cited as the cause, in each year since 2016, also broken down by NHS board area.

Table 1: Deaths registered in Scotland in which the underlying cause of death was 'other interstitial pulmonary diseases with fibrosis’ by NHS Board area, 2016-2023

NHS Board area	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Ayrshire and Arran	27	36	35	34	44	35	29	36
Borders	8	4	13	9	8	11	14	20
Dumfries and Galloway	9	13	9	9	9	16	8	8
Fife	28	41	29	34	32	31	27	37
Forth Valley	25	29	24	24	26	23	32	26
Grampian	36	28	47	36	30	38	47	28
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	93	105	103	93	85	75	91	78
Highland	20	27	27	24	17	22	27	37
Lanarkshire	64	70	64	71	51	51	40	52
Lothian	67	62	63	66	50	53	61	50
Orkney	2	3	2	3	5	0	2	3
Shetland	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	4
Tayside	39	46	49	35	36	29	40	41
Western Isles	4	1	2	1	3	3	2	2

Source: National Records of Scotland

Question reference: S6O-04023

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported comments from the director of the human rights charity, Making Rights Real, that "the long arm of the government often stretches to silence organisations that receive funding from the state".

Question reference: S6W-30833

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the average class size has been for each primary school year group in each year since 2016.

Question reference: S6W-30834

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many children have been educated in category (a) C and (b) D school buildings in each of the last eight years.

Question reference: S6W-30831

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the pupil-teacher ratio has been in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in each year since 2019.

Question reference: S6W-31194

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the Ardrossan-Brodick ferry route is still viable, in light of reports of further delays to the MV Caledonian Isles return to service.

Question reference: S6W-30832

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much each local authority has received from the Attainment Scotland Fund in each year since 2016.

The Attainment Scotland Fund has been providing funding to local authorities and schools since 2015 with the aim of using education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.

The Scottish Attainment Challenge began in 2015, when funding was distributed to targeted local authorities through the Schools Programme and Challenge Authorities. In 2017, the Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) was introduced, providing funding direct to schools. In 2018, the Care Experienced Children and Young People fund (CECYP) began, providing funding to local authorities to enable them to target initiatives, activities, and resources that will improve the educational outcomes of this group of young people.

In 2022, the Scottish Attainment Challenge was refreshed, and the ‘Schools Programme and ‘Challenge Authorities’ funds were replaced by Strategic Equity Funding (SEF) which provided grants to all 32 local authorities.

The total amount provided to each local authority within these funding programmes in each financial year* since 2015-16 are as follows:

	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
Aberdeen City	£115,254	£328,243	£3,264,876	£3,409,052	£4,021,781	£4,113,976	£4,777,267	£4,163,137	£4,302,373
Aberdeenshire	£0	£0	£2,569,200	£2,906,520	£3,430,600	£3,233,185	£3,823,272	£3,909,227	£4,226,527
Angus	£0	£0	£2,113,200	£2,118,240	£2,394,880	£2,382,431	£2,815,731	£2,718,079	£2,919,059
Argyll & Bute	£16,665	£19,879	£1,340,202	£1,425,495	£1,563,762	£1,473,413	£1,746,517	£1,637,110	£1,776,791
Clackmannanshire	£482,208	£1,242,458	£3,108,000	£3,151,211	£3,427,165	£3,264,342	£3,570,907	£3,186,389	£2,924,359
Dumfries & Galloway	£43,936	£60,481	£2,998,509	£3,109,671	£3,435,706	£3,316,675	£3,883,445	£3,879,174	£4,175,854
Dundee City	£701,329	£3,135,370	£10,045,244	£10,568,958	£11,150,976	£11,181,281	£12,442,488	£10,325,609	£9,181,564
East Ayrshire	£291,470	£814,836	£5,897,260	£7,090,299	£7,621,819	£7,565,208	£8,250,453	£7,224,930	£6,594,511
East Dunbartonshire	£0	£0	£1,564,800	£1,588,440	£1,782,434	£1,788,723	£2,120,338	£1,986,260	£2,119,730
East Lothian	£0	£0	£1,569,600	£1,565,160	£1,823,557	£1,814,715	£2,134,716	£2,175,877	£2,384,767
East Renfrewshire	£0	£0	£1,370,400	£1,412,040	£1,556,240	£1,442,825	£1,721,026	£1,719,495	£1,842,830
Edinburgh City	£304,535	£742,935	£8,257,293	£8,276,495	£9,547,788	£9,164,717	£10,540,094	£9,377,776	£9,976,813
Eilean Siar	£0	£0	£274,800	£290,880	£338,391	£327,413	£388,016	£476,241	£477,189
Falkirk	£73,000	£169,463	£3,797,974	£3,835,057	£4,263,853	£4,177,157	£4,935,327	£4,602,820	£4,948,309
Fife	£416,112	£666,213	£10,750,302	£11,151,018	£12,023,174	£11,660,123	£13,609,549	£12,045,243	£12,846,433
Glasgow City	£1,389,969	£7,537,018	£29,022,634	£30,200,152	£33,197,000	£32,416,002	£36,713,592	£32,941,570	£32,577,601
Highland	£91,269	£385,146	£4,695,262	£5,269,590	£5,699,886	£5,509,668	£6,346,310	£5,545,507	£5,536,773
Inverclyde	£580,092	£1,512,219	£5,154,900	£5,399,265	£6,013,910	£6,028,744	£6,517,856	£5,503,244	£4,767,926
Midlothian	£0	£0	£2,272,800	£2,315,195	£2,513,155	£2,415,784	£2,837,045	£2,766,037	£2,924,641
Moray	£0	£0	£1,270,800	£1,341,960	£1,575,607	£1,564,920	£1,833,754	£1,812,530	£1,970,831
North Ayrshire	£635,530	£2,670,922	£8,513,518	£9,906,960	£10,841,444	£10,523,195	£11,382,620	£9,284,763	£8,153,571
North Lanarkshire	£1,340,200	£5,539,184	£15,052,052	£15,519,383	£16,411,949	£17,266,164	£19,078,558	£16,749,486	£15,683,771
Orkney Islands	£0	£0	£206,400	£232,200	£252,280	£270,404	£310,786	£379,394	£380,038
Perth & Kinross	£0	£0	£1,608,000	£1,661,520	£1,983,400	£1,930,393	£2,268,976	£2,359,726	£2,611,357
Renfrewshire	£177,272	£850,670	£7,611,801	£8,796,635	£9,753,471	£9,439,188	£10,321,570	£8,902,256	£8,099,877
Scottish Borders	£36,500	£24,462	£1,986,781	£2,075,633	£2,146,802	£2,130,518	£2,486,595	£2,299,996	£2,552,944
Shetland Islands	£0	£0	£188,400	£233,880	£264,800	£256,116	£295,476	£374,749	£372,732
South Ayrshire	£150,400	£296,668	£2,822,323	£2,812,723	£3,152,671	£3,075,598	£3,531,679	£3,146,264	£3,258,733
South Lanarkshire	£548,690	£1,008,444	£9,595,144	£9,901,641	£10,354,517	£10,802,098	£12,479,203	£11,052,369	£11,076,881
Stirling	£39,261	£118,916	£1,598,425	£1,660,079	£1,906,328	£1,809,478	£2,095,137	£1,808,754	£1,938,886
West Dunbartonshire	£778,595	£1,674,611	£5,393,508	£5,469,695	£5,883,735	£5,593,331	£6,248,668	£5,518,428	£5,207,971
West Lothian	£24,750	£172,829	£5,304,893	£5,538,606	£5,836,535	£5,619,145	£6,611,595	£6,172,245	£6,551,661

*CECYP funding is distributed across the academic year rather than financial year.

Question reference: S6W-30858

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much basic payment scheme funding has been awarded to crofters in each year since 2016, also broken down by what proportion of the scheme's budget this represented.

Details are as follows:

Scheme Year	Basic Payment Scheme	Greening	Young Farmer Payment	Total Payments	Percentage of Budget
2016	£13,159,516.98	£8,034,413.77	£82,710.65	£21,276,641.40	5.3%
2017	£14,717,656.80	£8,346,051.08	£100,820.05	£23,164,527.93	5.4%
2018	£15,897,839.65	£8,341,637.76	£104,294.50	£24,343,771.91	5.7%
2019	£16,706,540.21	£8,297,249.49	£104,464.03	£25,108,253.73	5.9%
2020	£17,464,866.57	£8,473,816.01	£96,699.60	£26,035,382.18	6.1%
2021	£17,419,003.61	£8,418,431.75	£87,894.17	£25,925,329.53	6.1%
2022	£17,303,035.99	£8,356,501.06	£82,654.19	£25,742,191.24	6.0%
2023	£16,190,430.99	£7,790,318.31	£68,886.59	£24,049,635.89	5.6%
2024*	£14,867,321.75	£7,165,412.11	£386.82	£22,033,120.68	5.2%

*Note: 2024 payment processing is ongoing.

Question reference: S6W-31069

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 19 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to a recent report from Public Health Scotland, which shows that there are currently more than 5,000 people in Scotland waiting for a social care assessment.

The Scottish Government recognises the value of social care support to all who require additional support in living independently at home or in the community.

Under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships have a duty to assess the social care support needs of people and decide, in light of that assessment, whether to arrange any services, and if so, which services.

We know that the system needs to work better for everyone in Scotland and we are continuing to work with partners and people with lived experience on ongoing improvement and reform.

These statistics show the fewest amount of people waiting for a social care support assessment this year – a reduction of 12% since January.