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-12836

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 15 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its preferred (a) geographical and (b) membership makeup of care boards in the National Care Service would be.

Question reference: S6W-12829

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 15 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to seek external legal advice on the transfer of staff to the National Care Service under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) regulations.

Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) / Cabinet Office Statement of Practice (COSOP) principles will apply if the delivery of services is transferred from local authorities to care boards. If that is the case, the TUPE process would be followed. Decisions on whether any staff transfers take place will depend on decisions taken at a local level. Legal advice will be sought as required and external legal advice commissioned as necessary.

Question reference: S6W-12827

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 15 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much it expects the transfer of staff to the National Care Service to cost under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) regulations.

Question reference: S6W-12898

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 15 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported comments by Donald Macaskill, of Scottish Care, that between 30% and 40% of care homes could be on the verge of closure by spring 2023.

The Scottish Government are aware of the severe pressures that exist in our health and social care system and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care has established the Ministerial Advisory Group to ensure that we collaborate effectively to meet the challenges. Scottish Care are represented on this group.

Many of the policy and economic levers that would alleviate pressures on care homes and other businesses are reserved to Westminster and the Cabinet Secretary recently wrote to the UK Government (and the other UK nations) to again raise these matters. Within our remit, we are increasing our support for SMEs by investing £300,000 to expand the capacity of the Business Energy Scotland advice service, and doubling the energy efficiency cashback element of the SME Loan Cashback scheme to £20,000. The Scottish Government has also set out £600 million of total investment to support winter resilience across our health and care system. This includes £144 million to support the December 2021 uplift to £10.02 per hour, as well as a further £200 million to increase the minimum rate of pay to £10.50 per hour for adult social care workers in commissioned services.

Question reference: S6W-12910

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 12 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been awarded to businesses in the South Scotland region from the Regional Food Fund, in each year since the Fund was established.

Question reference: S6O-01624

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it still plans to launch a National Care Service in the current parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6O-01569

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to expand rail infrastructure in the South Scotland region.

Question reference: S6W-11187

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 3 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many complaints from (a) passengers and (b) staff have been received by ScotRail regarding train services in the South of Scotland in 2022, broken down by the (i) reason for the complaint and (ii) local authority area.

ScotRail does not record passenger complaints data by region or local authority area, but by rail route. The following table shows ScotRail’s complaints data for routes which serve the South Scotland region from 1 April 2022:

Complaint Type	April	May	June	July	Aug	Sept	Oct
1st Class	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Assisted Travel	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
Capacity	3	3	7	5	1	0	3
Environment	2	2	4	3	6	3	2
Information Provision	1	1	0	0	0	2	2
Policy And Product	6	5	2	0	3	2	1
Rail Replacement	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
Safety & Security	2	0	0	1	0	0	1
Smartcard	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Staff	4	4	5	3	3	4	6
Station Facilities	2	0	0	0	0	1	0
Ticket Buying Facilities	1	0	0	0	2	1	1
Timetable	0	2	0	5	1	0	2
Train Service Performance	5	17	9	4	2	7	9
TOTAL	28	34	29	21	18	21	27

ScotRail has confirmed that the routes detailed below were included in this data. The member should note that the data reflects complaints which may have occurred at any point on the route:

Ayr - Glasgow
Barrhead - Glasgow
Carlisle - Glasgow
Dumfries - Glasgow / Edinburgh
Edinburgh - Dunbar
Edinburgh - North Berwick
Edinburgh - Tweedbank
Girvan - Glasgow / Edinburgh
Glasgow - Kilmarnock
Glasgow - Lanark
Glasgow - Stranraer
Kilmarnock - Carlisle
Kilmarnock - Dumfries

ScotRail does not record staff complaints and therefore the information is not available.

Question reference: S6W-11557

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 3 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to the Audit Scotland report, Self-directed support: 2017 progress report, which of the recommendations were (a) completed in full, (b) partly completed and (c) not completed.

Audit Scotland’s 2017 progress report made seven recommendations for the Scottish Government. Since then, two of the recommendations have been completed in full, four have been partially completed and one has not been completed.

The SDS Implementation Plan 2019-2021 built on the learning from the Audit Scotland report and incorporated the inputs of third sector organisations, COSLA and people with lived experience. The implementation of this plan was disrupted by the emergence of COVID19, and efforts to respond to this included publishing SDS pandemic guidance in July 2020.

The Scottish Government will issue a significant update of the SDS Statutory Guidance later this month, and is currently working with COSLA and a national group of stakeholders to develop an SDS improvement plan to drive improvements in SDS implementation covering the years leading up to the establishment of the National Care Service. This will take into account the recommendations of the Audit Scotland report of 2017 as well as from reports published since then, including the Feeley report of 2021.

Question reference: S6W-11189

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 September 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 24 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of public bridges that are closed in the South Scotland region, broken down by the number of years that they have been closed for.

The Scottish Government has not permanently closed any trunk road bridges in the South of Scotland regions. Decisions on the closure or re-opening of Local Authority bridges is a matter for the relevant Local Authority.

Following consultation, Local Authority colleagues have indicated the following local bridge closures:

Local Authority	Route Number	Location	Bridge	Closure
Dumfries and Galloway Council		Kirtle Water	Cove Footbridge	1 Year
Dumfries and Galloway Council		Over River Annan	Cuthbertson Memorial Footbridge	1 Year
Dumfries and Galloway Council		Over River Annan	Diamond Jubilee Footbridge	1 Year
Dumfries and Galloway Council	B725	Nithsdale)	Brow Well Road Bridge	3 Years
Scottish Borders Council		Kalemouth	Kalemouth Suspension Bridge	2 Years