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-14025

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13529 by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023, whether the Scottish Public Health Workforce Development Group has agreed any priority actions to date, and, if so, what they are.

Question reference: S6W-14072

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-12396 by Jenny Gilruth on 5 December 2022, whether it will provide an update on how many young people have now received a free bus pass through the Young Persons’ (Under 22s) Free Bus Travel scheme, broken down by local authority area, based on the latest information available.

The table below shows the number of cardholders under the Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme as of the end of the day on 31 December 2022, broken down to local authority level.

This data is supplied by the National Entitlement Card Programme Office (NECPO). NECPO support the 32 local authorities by assisting with the integration of various national and local public services on the National Entitlement Card (NEC) and are the joint controller with local authorities of this data. The table includes travel products collected from the Transport Scot Pass Collect mobile application.

Total	564,483
Aberdeen City	24,772
Aberdeenshire	27,427
Angus Council	10,432
Argyll & Bute	6,492
City of Edinburgh	69,071
Clackmannanshire	3,269
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	1,610
Dumfries and Galloway	9,724
Dundee City	19,440
East Ayrshire	15,400
East Dunbartonshire	9,885
East Lothian	12,573
East Renfrewshire	10,221
Falkirk	10,798
Fife	48,147
Glasgow City	60,225
Highland	16,660
Inverclyde	11,158
Midlothian	9,928
Moray	7,927
North Ayrshire	17,729
North Lanarkshire	34,805
Orkney Islands	1,540
Perth & Kinross	13,713
Renfrewshire	19,255
Scottish Borders	9,971
Shetland Islands	2,639
South Ayrshire	8,739
South Lanarkshire	34,508
Stirling	7,900
West Dunbartonshire	10,345
West Lothian	18,180

Question reference: S6W-14026

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13529 by Maree Todd on 16 January 2023, when the baseline audit will be complete, and whether that information will be publicly available.

The initial baseline audit of the public health workforce should be completed in 2023. However, given the diversity of public health roles in the domains of health improvement, health protection, healthcare public health and associated research, data and intelligence, the collection and analysis process will have to be refined before the data is suitable for publication. Our ultimate aim will be to publish it alongside the other NHS Education for Scotland workforce data.

Question reference: S6W-13991

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, what it is doing to support people to embrace existing, new and emerging technologies in health and care.

The use of digital tools is a choice and the Scottish Government is very mindful that introducing more Digital into the Health & Care system will need to be proportionate to ensure that nobody is left behind. The Scottish Government’s Connecting Scotland Programme, which is looking to support households to get online, is a key part of supporting people to embrace technology, including to access health and care. In addition, individual programmes of work and individual services, such as those set out in the answer to question S6W-13989 on 31 January 2023, are responsible for ensuring patients and service users are sufficiently supported to meaningfully use technology.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answer

Question reference: S6W-13986

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, whether it has developed an online triage system, and, if so, how many patients have used the system, and what services they have been directed to, broken down by NHS board.

The Scottish Government supports the further development and implementation of online triage, rather than the development of a single online triage system. An example of this is the recent publication by NHS 24 of their ‘NHS 24 Online’ app, and the Self Help guides on NHS Inform.

We are aware as well of a number of online platforms being used by some GP practices which support triage, and we will continue to develop principles of good access to General Practice through the General Practice Access Short Life Working Group, after which further consideration will be given the use of online triage systems.

Other key developments such as the Digital Front Door will also support enhanced access to services and information to help people better manage their health and care.

Question reference: S6W-14000

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of how much funding it has provided to Zoho Corporation Private Limited to manage the GlobalScot network website for each year since it entered into partnership with the company.

Question reference: S6W-13972

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government on how many occasions (a) ministers and (b) its staff have flown (i) out of and (ii) in to Prestwick Airport since 2013, broken down by year.

Question reference: S6W-14111

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the commitment in its Digital Health and Care Strategy, how much it has spent on providing a single and secure way for health and care staff to sign in to clinical and care systems and data.

At a national level, the Scottish Government continues to support and prioritise the full use of the capabilities offered by the Microsoft 365 platform, under the national NHS-wide tenancy including secure access to systems. The responsibility for managing individual access to clinical and care systems is a matter for individual employers.

Since October 2021, Scottish Government has contributed £2.4 million to the Microsoft 365 Programme for NHS Scotland. As part of this investment, we are continuing to develop identity solutions for health and social care staff.

Question reference: S6W-14074

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any correlation between the number of potholes and road cycling accidents.

The Scottish Government has not carried out any assessment between the number of potholes and road cycling accidents on the trunk road network.

An analysis of injury collisions for all severities on the trunk road network for the most recent full 3 year period (8 November 2019 to 7 November 2022) identified a total of 78 collisions involving a pedal cyclist. This makes up approximately 3.6% of the total number of injury accidents on the trunk road during this period. Of these 78 accidents, none were identified with a contributory factor “Poor or defective road surface”.

Question reference: S6W-13985

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 31 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has invested in providing digital access to health and care services through asynchronous communication since the publication of its Digital Health and Care Strategy.

As mentioned in answer to question S6W-13982 on 31 January 2023 a number of programmes being taken forward in Scotland that support the use of asynchronous communication. Whilst it is therefore not possible to give an exact figure related to asynchronous communication only, since the publication of the Digital Health & Care Strategy in October 2021 to December 2022, the Sottish Government has invested around £2 million in relevant systems.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Calendar year	Ministers	Officials
2013	0	2
2014	1	1
2015	0	1
2016	0	0
2017	0	0
2018	0	0
2019	0	0
2020	0	0
2021	0	0
2022	0	0

Calendar year	Ministers	Officials
2013	1	2
2014	0	0
2015	0	0
2016	0	1
2017	0	0
2018	1	1
2019	0	0
2020	0	0
2021	0	0
2022	0	0