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: S4W-19874

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 6 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will list each of the (a) outcomes achieved and (b) action plans developed as a result of the Scottish Government Race Equality Statement.

Question reference: S4O-03012

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 March 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what assistance is available for homeowners and council tenants when structural defects are identified in their homes.

Question reference: S4W-19663

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 4 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-19645 by Alex Neil on 7 February 2014, when it expects the warning letter process to be completed.

The Vale of Leven Hospital Inquiry is an independent inquiry. The procedure and conduct of an inquiry is determined by the inquiry’s chairperson in accordance with his or her duties under the Inquiries Act 2005. All warning letters have now been issued and Lord Maclean, Chairman is unable to predict when this process will be completed until all of the responses have been received and considered. The Vale of Leven Hospital Inquiry website will be updated once this process has completed.

Question reference: S4W-19877

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many people from ethnic minority backgrounds serve on each public body and what percentage of all public appointments this represents.

We cannot provide figures for individual public bodies as this information is sensitive personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998 as, due to the small numbers of people on each public body, it may be possible to identify individuals.

For those ministerial appointments regulated by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland 2% of current board members are from a minority ethnic background, rising to 2.2% when you remove those who chose not to record this diversity strand.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the diversity of Scotland’s public boards. For those ministerial appointments regulated by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland in 2012-13, 4.1% of applicants came from a minority ethnic background, with 2.9% being appointed.

Source:

Baseline diversity exercise of all regulated boards carried out by Scottish Government Public Appointments Centre of Expertise in April 2013.

Public Appointments in Scotland 2012-13 – Regulated Ministerial Appointments

Question reference: S4W-19746

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 3 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how much the public inquiry into the Clostridium difficile outbreak at the Vale of Leven Hospital has cost.

As the Vale of Leven Hospital is an independent inquiry, it is for the chairman to decide on the procedure and conduct of the inquiry. The chairman has indicated that he will publish full costs at the end of the inquiry. However, the information held on costs to date by the Scottish Government is currently being collated with a view to publishing them in the near future. I will write to the member as soon as the information is available and a copy will be placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib number 55691.).

Question reference: S4W-19520

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2014
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 27 February 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) prevalence and (b) severity is of female genital mutilation.

(a) It has been estimated that 3,000 women and girls are at risk in Scotland. This figure for Scotland is a pro rata projection based on research by FORWARD in England and Wales in 2007.

According to the 2001 Census data, there were 2,946 women between the ages of 0 -49 living in Scotland and born in one of the 29 countries in which female genital mutilation (FGM) is reported to be a traditional practice.

We will consider data from the 2011 Census which is scheduled for release in the first part of 2014, and that will allow a more-up to date prevalence estimate of FGM to be calculated. However initial data from the census shows that the number of people resident in Scotland who were born in Africa has more than doubled since the 2001 Census (from 22,049 to 46,742), and so the number of women and girls estimated to have undergone FGM is also likely to have increased.

That does not mean that all those women who were born in a country where FGM is prevalent have been abused in this way, only that they may be at risk.

(b) FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation as ‘all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons’. The Scottish Government does not hold any information on severity of such ‘procedures carried out.

Question reference: S4W-19522

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 26 February 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what specialist services are available for women who have experienced female genital mutilation.

Twelve of the fourteen Territorial NHS boards report that they do not offer dedicated specialist services for women who have experienced female genital mutilation (FGM). Of the boards that offer specialist services, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have two clinical staff within Plastic Surgery based at Glasgow Royal Infirmary who provide defibulation (reconstruction/reversal) services for women who have undergone FGM. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde also has a link midwife who specialises in supporting asylum seekers and refugees. This role helps ensure that the clinical and emotional needs of women who have undergone FGM are addressed during and following pregnancy, including supporting them to access defibulation services and educating and advising midwifery staff on best practice on FGM.

NHS Lanarkshire have a specialist gender-based violence trauma service that works with women who have experienced FGM and other forms of violence against women. This includes specialist advocacy and therapeutic services.

Question reference: S4W-19521

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 26 February 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what female genital mutilation clinics are available in each NHS board area.

Question reference: S4W-19523

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 31 January 2014
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 26 February 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what community awareness raising and prevention work is undertaken with women from cultures that practice female genital mutilation.

A number of methods are used to raise awareness and encourage the reporting of female genital mutilation (FGM) including engaging with individuals and minority ethnic women’s organisations such as Dignity Alert Research Forum (DARF), Saheliya and Shakti Women’s Aid, all of who provide services to women who come from communities affected by FGM.

The Government also works in partnership with health professionals, voluntary organisations, social services, education departments and the police to support victims, engage with communities for the prevention of FGM, and to share good practice and promote awareness across Scotland for the prevention of FGM.

Scottish Government is providing funding to the Scottish Refugee Council and the Women’s Support Project, to carry out a project to produce a baseline of information which will inform work to tackle female genital mutilation. We will be looking closely at all findings and recommendations from that report (due for publication September 2014) to ensure that what we are doing and what we are developing meets our shared objective of tackling FGM.

FGM is addressed within the violence against women policy area and will be included in the Violence Against Women Strategy that is currently being developed and scheduled for publication summer 2014.

Question reference: S4W-19428

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 26 February 2014

Our current and planned spending will invest at least £258 million over the period 2013-14 to 2015-16 to limit the damage of the UK Government’s welfare policies on Scotland.

Details are as follows:

Welfare Reform Mitigation activity	2013-14 £million	2014-15 £million	2015-16 £million	2013-2016 £million
Scottish Welfare Fund (£33 million plus admin)	38	38	38	114
Other Welfare Reform Mitigation	7	7	7	21
Council Tax Reduction scheme	23	23	23	69
“Bedroom tax” mitigation*	20	34.85		54.85
Total	88	102.85	68	258.85

*Funding for bedroom tax mitigation for 2015-16 will be determined once Department for Work and Pensions funding for Discretionary Housing Payments is known (estimated to be late 2014 or early 2015).