Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-02720

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 November 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has any plans to introduce whole-life orders, in light of the UK Government’s announcement that it will expand their use in England and Wales.

Question reference: S6O-02731

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 November 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether schools should publish monthly reports on any reported incidents of abusive and violent behaviour.

Question reference: S6W-22462

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the effectiveness of Auditory Verbal therapy in improving outcomes for deaf children whose families want them to learn spoken language.

NHS Health Boards and local authorities are responsible for the provision of, and funding for, services for deaf children. This includes the provision of specific therapeutic approaches.

The Scottish Government funds the Scottish Sensory Centre and CALL Scotland to provide advice and training to school staff on support, including the use of assistive technology, for children and young people with specific communication and sensory needs.

Question reference: S6W-22500

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it expects to launch the national digital academy.

Scottish Government and Education Scotland are currently developing options for a National Digital Academy. Details of timescales and funding will be available when these are complete.

The National e-Learning offer (a range of live, recorded and supported resources, funded by the Scottish Government and delivered in partnership with Education Scotland, ADES, the 6 regional improvement collaboratives, and EIS) continues to be delivered.

Question reference: S6W-22400

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what objectives it set for the funding it provided to the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum in 2022.

STAF received £184,200 (2021-22) and £193,200 (2022-23) in core funding via the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention & Adult Learning & Empowering Communities (CYPFEI & ALEC) third sector fund. For both these financial years, the agreed outcomes from this funding were:

That the wellbeing and success of young people leaving care across Scotland is indistinguishable from that of their peers in the general population.
That there is a significant and measurable shift in culture and improved understanding by all corporate parents working with young people from a care experienced background leading to improved outcomes

That young people from a care experienced background are informed and empowered to stay in care longer if that is what they wish in placements that meet their needs.
That STAF increases its influence on behalf of young people and our stakeholders.

In addition a grant of £27,200 was paid to staff for the financial year 2021-22 through the Children and Young People Summer Programme, the objectives of the grant were:

Provide targeted opportunities for care leavers and those who support them to reconnect with each other and to explore local outdoor wild spaces;
Design activities with young people with lived experience to ensure that the programme is relevant to their needs; and
Provide opportunities that promote and support improving physical and mental health in woodlands and forests with young people participating in activities relevant to the wild spaces they are in.

Question reference: S6W-22522

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many incidents of violence on trains have been reported in each year since 2016.

Question reference: S6W-21859

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the comments by the then Cabinet Secretary for Justice, during the stage 1 debate on the Culpable Homicide (Scotland) Bill on 21 January 2021, that the Scottish Government wants to work with bereaved families to produce a bill that could help to address the issues raised, but in a way that is within the Parliament’s devolved competence, and in light of Health and Safety Executive statistics on work-related fatal injuries in Great Britain in 2023, what its position is on whether the higher fatality rate in Scotland can be attributed to a greater proportion of people working in higher risk jobs; which employment areas it considers to be higher risk, and what sector-specific action it can take to address any increased risk.

The Health and Safety Executive (the HSE) operates across the UK including in Scotland under governance from the Department of Work and Pensions within the UK Government. The HSE is responsible for helping people be safer at work.

As part of their responsibilities for workplace safety, the HSE publishes workplace safety statistics for Scotland. In November 2022, they published the latest statistics:

Workplace health and safety statistics for Scotland, 2022 (hse.gov.uk)

In presenting these statistics, the HSE indicated that '... this report represents a profile of workplace health and safety in Scotland and its primary purpose is to provide Scotland specific equivalents of the statistics for Great Britain published across HSE’s Health and Safety Statistics pages. The figures also enable comparisons between Scotland and Great Britain to be made. However, any such comparative analysis should be interpreted with caution since any differences in health and safety outcomes are likely to be at least in part driven by differences in the industry sectors and occupations people work in.'

More specifically, the HSE has carried out a statistical analysis of fatalities in the workplace across the nations of the UK. On page 15 of their November 2022 report, they indicated the following:

'Over recent years, the fatal injury rate in Scotland has been consistently higher than that of Great Britain, but there is no difference in the rate of non-fatal injuries. One explanation is that in Scotland, a greater proportion of workers are employed in higher risk industry sectors or higher risk occupations, compared with Great Britain as a whole. It is possible to standardise fatal injury rates by adjusting them to account for differences in industry composition between countries and regions and a recent research report shows the effect this has on the relative rates of the countries and regions of Great Britain.

The following table shows estimates of the unstandardised and standardised country-specific fatal injury rates for the period 2015/16-2019/20 (the full report can be found at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/adhoc analysis/updated-standardised-fatals.pdf) .

Number, un-standardised rate and standardised rate of fatal injuries per 100,000 workers (2015-16 – 2019-20)

Country	Number of Fatalities	Un-standardised rate of fatal injuries per 100,000 workers	Standardised rate of fatal injuries per 100,000 workers
Scotland	88	0.65	0.57
England	529	0.38	0.39
Wales	58	0.81	0.65
Great Britain	675	0.42	NA

The standardised rate for Scotland is lower than the un-standardised rate, demonstrating that its different industry composition does have an effect on the comparison between Scotland and Great Britain. However, even after standardisation the rate is still significantly higher in Scotland. It is likely that other factors, such as a different occupational distribution and other factors not related to employment, are also affecting the comparison. However, at present there is insufficient data available to enable the quantification of these effects.'

The Scottish Government will work with the HSE in any aspects where devolved issues arise to help the HSE deliver their reserved statutory responsibilities in the area of workplace safety.

Question reference: S6W-22510

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been charged with selling cannabis in each year since 2016.

A total of 13,697 accused were reported to COPFS for the period 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2023 with charge(s) which fall within the Scottish Government Classification of "Drugs – Supply, and where it can be identified that cannabis was the relevant controlled drug.

This can be broken down as follows:

		Financial Year Reported
2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23
2,096	2,143	2,011	1,915	2,085	1,767	1,680

The information is provided under the caveat that: COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis, and the information within it is structured accordingly.

The numbers were arrived at following an interrogation of relevant charges however a manual review was not conducted to confirm accuracy.

Question reference: S6W-22433

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its reported decision to downgrade neonatal services at University Hospital Wishaw, whether an implementation working group has been established; if so, what any such group’s (a) terms of reference, (b) membership and (b) timescale for completion of its work are, and whether its papers will be published.

Scottish Government has asked Health Board Chief Executives within each region to nominate a lead Chief Executive to plan and deliver the changes to neonatal intensive care through the Regional Planning infrastructure. Health Boards will submit detailed implementation plans to the Best Start Programme Board and the NHS Chief Operating Officer, with the expectation that the National model is rolled out by 2025. To support planning, the Scottish Government has commissioned national modelling and capacity work.

The Best Start Implementation Programme Board is considering the future role of the Perinatal Sub Group (which undertook the Options Appraisal Process) to support implementation.

It is the responsibility of the Regional lead Chief Executives to determine whether they will set up implementation working groups and set their terms of reference and membership, and whether they will publish their papers. Timescales for completion of implementation have been set by the Scottish Government.

Question reference: S6W-22416

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S6W-21728 and S6W-21745 by Patrick Harvie on 23 and 24 October 2023 respectively, which stakeholders it (a) has had and (b) plans to have discussions with on approaches to retrofitting traditional and listed buildings.

The Scottish Government is committed to decarbonising Scotland’s buildings in line with our climate targets for net zero by 2045. We recognise it may be more challenging for some traditionally built homes and buildings to meet any energy efficiency and heating standard we propose, especially those granted listed status.

This is why officials have met with a variety of organisations with an interest in the retrofit of traditional and protected buildings. These include Historic Environment Scotland, Built Environment Forum Scotland, Under One Roof, Federation of Master Builders, and Historic Houses. The workshop on Traditional and Protected buildings, undertaken by the Tenements Short Life Working Group in October 2022 was attended by a range of stakeholders, including Changeworks, Church of Scotland, Local Energy Scotland, MAST Architects, National Trust for Scotland, Royal Incorporation of Architects Scotland (RIAS), and South Seeds.

Officials plan to continue engagement with key stakeholders alongside the planned consultation on proposals for a Heat in Buildings Bill. This engagement will be vital in helping us develop cost-effective and technically feasible solutions to improve the energy efficiency and transition Scotland’s traditional and listed buildings to climate-friendly heating. We are committed to ensuring that we do this while respecting and preserving the special characteristics of our buildings and places and considering the health and wellbeing of Scotland’s people.

Chamber and committees