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-35199

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any potential savings from consolidating or abolishing underperforming public bodies.

The Scottish Government is progressing the Public Sector Reform Programme to ensure public services are sustainable, efficient and effective. Our work in this area is expected to save up to £280 million over a two year period by the end of 2024-25.

We have already streamlined the public sector landscape by reducing the number of Scottish public bodies under our control from 199 in 2007 to 131 as at 1 December 2024.

Accountable Officers for all public bodies have a personal responsibility for the propriety and regularity of the finances under their stewardship and for the economic, efficient and effective use of all related resources. This includes being personally answerable to Parliament for the exercise of their functions. This is set out in the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000 and the Scottish Public Finance Manual.

Question reference: S6W-35147

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its freedom of information (FOI) release FOI/202400433327 (Scope of Practice and Medical Associate Professionals), when the Medical Associate Professionals Programme Board will make its recommendations regarding the development and implementation roles of (a) physician associate and (b) other medical associate professional roles in NHS Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-35137

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) physician associate and (b) other medical associate profession roles there are in NHS Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-35141

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) physician associates and (b) people in other medical associate profession roles were dismissed by NHS Scotland in 2023-24.

Question reference: S6W-35196

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many new non-departmental public bodies, also known as quangos, have been created since 2007, and how many have been abolished.

The national public bodies directory contains a full list of non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) and shows their creation date. The national directory can be viewed at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/pages/executive-non-departmental-public-bodies/.

Since 2007, the following public bodies have been established as NDPBs:

Care Inspectorate

Children’s Hearing Scotland

Community Justice Scotland

Creative Scotland

Ferguson Marine

First-tier Tribunal for Scotland

Historic Environment Scotland

Independent Living Fund Scotland

Judicial Appointments Board

National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board

Poverty and Inequality Commission

Redress Scotland

Scottish Canals

Scottish Commission on Social Security

Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel

Scottish Futures Trust

Scottish Land Commission

Scottish Legal Complaints Commission

Scottish National Investment Bank

Scottish Rail Holdings Ltd

Skills Development Scotland

South of Scotland Enterprise

Upper Tribunal for Scotland

Zero Waste Scotland

Since 2007, the following public bodies no longer operate as NDPBs, due to merger, abolishment, or reclassification:

Additional Support Needs Tribunals for Scotland

Advisory Committee on Sites of Special Scientific Interest

Building Standards Advisory Committee

Children’s Panel (x32)

Deer Commission for Scotland

Fisheries (Electricity) Committee

General Teaching Council for Scotland

Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland

Lands Tribunal for Scotland

Learning & Teaching Scotland

Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland

Police Complaints Commission for Scotland

Private Rented Housing Panel

Public Transport Users Committee for Scotland

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland

Scottish Arts Council

Scottish Charity Appeals Panel

Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care

Scottish Industrial Development Advisory Board

Scottish Local Authorities Remuneration Committee

Scottish Police Services Authority

Scottish Records Advisory Council

Scottish Screen

Scottish University for Industry

Question reference: S6W-35179

Asked by: Richard Leonard, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the attrition rate of staff employed by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service has been in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-35139

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) physician associate and (b) other medical associate profession students graduated in the 2023-24 academic year.

Question reference: S6W-35118

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the outcomes of the long COVID support service pilot that took place across Edinburgh in 2022-23, including whether it considers it to have been successful.

Question reference: S6W-35116

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the outcomes of the £10 million that it designated in 2023-24 to support people with long COVID, including how this was spent.

The Scottish Government’s £10 million long COVID Support Fund was announced in September 2021 and resource has been allocated from the fund from the financial year 2022-2023 onwards. The following table provides an overview of funding recipients from the start of the financial year 2022-23 to 28 February 2025. Allocations to NHS boards are made in tranches across the financial year to account for any slippage in programme delivery. It is anticipated that further allocations will be made to NHS boards from the fund before the end of this financial year, and in the financial year 2025-26.

The 2025-2026 budget outlines £7.586 million for the ‘Long Covid, ME, Chronic Fatigue and other similar conditions’ budget line. This represents a £4.5m uplift to the 2024-2025 long COVID budget line.

Organisation	Purpose	Funding allocated 2022-2023	Funding allocated 2023-2024	Funding allocated 2024-2025 (as of 28 Feb 2025)
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	Assist provision of healthcare support to people with long-term effects of COVID-19.	£131,288	£143,152	£131,288
NHS Borders		£35,509	£50,727	£38,319
NHS Dumfries and Galloway		£55,598	£55,598	£55,598
NHS Fife		£124,636	£124,636	124,636
NHS Forth Valley		£99,414	£133,896	£99,414
NHS Grampian		£178,393	£254,847	£178,393
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde		£416,618	£583,446	£416,618
NHS Highland		£83,749	£167,586	£117,310
NHS Lanarkshire		£320,007	£320,007	£224,005
NHS Lothian		£260,551	£378,412	£268,168
NHS Orkney		£14,716	£14,716	£10,301
NHS Shetland		£9,573	£9,573	£9,573
NHS Tayside		£194,620	£194,620	£138,330
NHS Western Isles		£19,988	£19,988	£13,992
NHS National Services Scotland	Operation of National Strategic Network for long COVID.	£101,498	£180,916	£126,641
NHS National Services Scotland	Procurement of C-19 YRS digital tool.	0	0	£124,781
NHS National Services Scotland	Clinical safety assessment of C-19 YRS digital tool.	0	£49,728	0
NHS National Services Scotland	Evaluation of data gathered through C-19 YRS digital tool.	0	£62,500	0
Smarts	Production and editing of NHS inform case study videos.	£5,112	£5,676
Progressive Partnership	Recruitment of participants for NHS inform user experience research and case study videos.	£9,450
Leith Agency	Development of creative brief and options for potential marketing campaign	£9,174
Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland	Integration of long COVID support application within Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland’s case management system.	£28,904
Covid Aid	Delivery of long COVID advertising and signposting activity, development of mobile phone application for Covid Aid Support Community, delivery of Covid Aid/ Let’s Get on With it Together (LGOWIT) Self-Management Programme, development of online support community for people with long COVID	£144,095
Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland	Delivery of long COVID Support Groups within Glasgow City and West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership areas.	£13,345
Long Covid Scotland	Investment in systems and equipment required to widen organisation’s impact. Administrative capacity to support development of educational resources.	£25,000
Scottish Ballet	Delivery of the ‘Emerge’ programme.	£3,035
Scottish Opera	Expanding course capacity on the ‘Breathe Cycle II’ project.	£86,892
Thistle Foundation	Delivery of a ‘Good Conversations’ training programme for healthcare staff and expansion of national Self-Management and Rehabilitation programme.	£106,343
Total		£2,477,508	£2,750,024	£2,077,367

An analysis of Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) data provided by 701 patients accessing NHS long COVID support showed they reported that they got somewhat better in symptoms and abilities over the first six months. Despite improvements, many reported that they still had major health issues compared to before having COVID.

The report notes that long COVID can be a fluctuating condition, meaning there is not necessarily a linear trend of improvement or deterioration in the symptom burden, functional disability, and overall health of patients. Therefore, care needs to be taken in drawing any conclusions changes in PROM scores, particularly when over a short space of time. The full report is accessible at NHS Scotland Service Evaluation of Long-COVID Services – Long COVID.

Question reference: S6W-35228

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 6 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much public funding has been given to fossil fuel companies in each year since 2021 for the development of carbon capture and storage technology.

The Scottish Government and its enterprise agencies have provided £1,354,000 for the development of carbon capture and storage technology in 2025.

The Scottish Government has committed £2m of grant funding support to the National Gas Transmission SCO2T Connect Project and to date, £1,345,000 of this funding has been provided.

The Scottish Government remains wholly committed to supporting the development and deployment of CCUS, including the Acorn Project and the Scottish Cluster. Unfortunately, the UK Government continue to delay making a final decision on the Acorn Project which is risking billions of private sector investment and thousands of jobs.