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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 8895 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-20619

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 14 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 11 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide additional funding to chronic pain services, in light of the reported closure of pain relief clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting increase in waiting times for appointments.

The 2023-24 Scottish Budget delivers record funding of £19 billion including increases in funding for community and primary care health services such as GP practices where the vast majority of people with chronic pain seek support. Detail on how funding has been used specifically for the assessment and treatment of chronic pain would require to be requested from NHS Boards. NHS Boards and healthcare professionals locally have responsibility for both service delivery and people’s care.

After being temporarily paused in March 2020, chronic pain services started to resume in September 2021 as part of the planned remobilisation of services. Referrals are now back to pre-pandemic levels and we’re working with all health boards to understand the challenges and improvement opportunities to address longer waiting times as boards deal with extremely challenging circumstances.

Question reference: S6W-20620

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 14 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 11 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much was spent on the Pain Management Task Force and its subsidiary committees in 2021-22, and what the money was spent on.

Question reference: S6O-02500

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to urgently address the reported maintenance backlog in GP practices.

Question reference: S6W-20852

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 31 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding was provided to each of the 31 alcohol and drug partnerships in each financial year from 2019-20 to 2023-24.

Funding provided to each Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP) for 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 is available at: Alcohol and Drug Partnerships: funding allocations - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government’s direct, recurring funding to support ADP projects is transferred to NHS Boards via their baseline allocations for onward delegation to Integration Authorities (IAs) to be invested, in their entirety, through ADPs. Where there is more than one IA, the level of funding is agreed jointly by the IAs within the Health Board area. Scottish Government provides details of what the ADP allocation of this funding would be using the NRAC formula as an indication of funding at the ADP level. However, precise allocations are a matter for Integration Authorities as the information requested is not held centrally.

Programme funding to ADPs is also transferred via NHS Boards, however, Scottish Government provide the level of funding for each IA that the Board delegates.

Funding transferred in 2022-23 is shown in Table 1. In 2022-23, a total of £106.8m was available to Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships – up on the previous year.

Due to a significant increase in reserves carried forward from previous years, ADPs utilised unspent reserves in 2022-23. ADP funding requirements were fully met in 2022-23, through the use of both unspent reserves and in year funding allocation.

Table 1: Funding transferred to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) for financial year 2022-23

NHS Board Name	HSCP Name	Programme Funding Transferred	NHS Board Baseline contribution	Total Funding Transferred
Ayrshire & Arran	East Ayrshire HSCP	£535,000	£1,349,987	£1,884,987
	North Ayrshire HSCP	£826,078	£1,533,565	£2,359,643
	South Ayrshire HSCP	£1,154,689	£1,282,913	£2,437,602
	NHS Ayrshire & Arran (programme management)	£67,000		£67,000
Borders	Scottish Borders HSCP	£715,639	£1,201,071	£1,916,710
Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries and Galloway HSCP	£1,425,667	£1,690,165	£3,115,832
Fife	Fife HSCP	£3,297,868	£3,848,534	£7,146,402
Forth Valley	Clackmannanshire and Stirling HSCP	£861,934	£1,449,271	£2,311,205
Forth Valley	Falkirk HSCP	£666,900	£1,626,858	£2,293,758
Grampian	Aberdeen City HSCP	£159,000	£2,153,676	£2,312,676
	Aberdeenshire HSCP	£2,017,754	£2,378,721	£4,396,475
	Moray HSCP	£678,291	£968,613	£1,646,904
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	East Dunbartonshire HSCP	£880,459	£1,047,418	£1,927,877
	East Renfrewshire HSCP	£747,361	£898,962	£1,646,323
	Glasgow City HSCP	£2,234,918	£6,739,656	£8,974,574
	Inverclyde HSCP	£916,038	£921,201	£1,837,239
	Renfrewshire HSCP	£141,000	£1,918,939	£2,059,939
	West Dunbartonshire HSCP	£611,000	£1,021,676	£1,632,676
	NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (programme management)	£132,000		£132,000
Highland	Argyll and Bute HSCP	£703,253	£1,074,381	£1,777,634
Highland	Highland HSCP	£2,217,072	£2,649,567	£4,866,639
Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire HSCP	£2,796,714	£3,583,140	£6,379,854
Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire HSCP	£2,456,894	£3,345,404	£5,802,298
Lothian	East Lothian HSCP	£349,402	£1,050,084	£1,399,486
	Edinburgh HSCP	£1,821,000	£4,726,576	£6,547,576
	Midlothian HSCP	£338,133	£909,677	£1,247,810
	West Lothian HSCP	£993,996	£1,770,988	£2,764,984
	NHS Lothian (Programme management)	£132,000		£132,000
Orkney	Orkney Islands HSCP	£69,000	£283,193	£352,193
Shetland	Shetland Islands HSCP	£67,000	£275,919	£342,919
Tayside	Angus HSCP	£415,854	£1,220,457	£1,636,311
	Dundee City HSCP	£914,013	£1,636,913	£2,550,926
	Perth and Kinross HSCP	£1,354,811	£1,554,838	£2,909,649
	NHS Tayside (programme management)	£66,000		£66,000
Western Isles	Western Isles HSCP	£0	£377,637	£377,637
Total		£32,763,737	£56,490,000	£89,253,737

In 2023-24, a total of £112.9m is available to Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships – an increase on 2022-23. Funding transferred in tranche 1, as at 31 st August 2023 in financial year 2023-24 is shown in Table 2. The second tranche will be allocated later in 2023 and will reflect the forecast spend for the remainder of the financial year.

Table 2: Funding transferred to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) to date for financial year 2023-24

NHS Board Name	HSCP Name	HSCP Total Programme Funding Transferred	Agenda for Change Uplift	NHS Board Baseline contribution	Health Board Total transferred
Ayrshire & Arran	East Ayrshire HSCP	£944,716	£257,000	£3,789,617	£7,073,741
	North Ayrshire HSCP	£1,067,056
	South Ayrshire HSCP	£968,452
	NHS Ayrshire & Arran (programme management)	£46,900
Borders	Scottish Borders HSCP	£826,129	£134,000	£1,124,102	£2,084,231
Dumfries & Galloway	Dumfries and Galloway HSCP	£1,147,696	£116,000	£1,640,586	£2,904,282
Fife	Fife HSCP	£2,655,958	£301,000	£3,531,931	£6,488,889
Forth Valley	Clackmannanshire and Stirling HSCP	£1,016,305	£283,000	£2,841,957	£5,266,033
Forth Valley	Falkirk HSCP	£1,124,772	£283,000	£2,841,957	£5,266,033
Grampian	Aberdeen City HSCP	£1,582,909	£779,000	£4,831,740	£9,508,165
	Aberdeenshire HSCP	£1,662,131
	Moray HSCP	£652,385
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	East Dunbartonshire HSCP	£717,478	£1,218,000	£15,507,311	£25,823,773
	East Renfrewshire HSCP	£639,336
	Glasgow City HSCP	£4,887,260
	Inverclyde HSCP	£701,392
	Renfrewshire HSCP	£1,361,492
	West Dunbartonshire HSCP	£699,103
	NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (programme management)	£92,400
Highland	Argyll and Bute HSCP	£722,919	£100,000	£3,049,625	£5,679,738
Highland	Highland HSCP	£1,807,194	£100,000	£3,049,625	£5,679,738
Lanarkshire	North Lanarkshire HSCP	£2,507,543	£107,000	£5,810,158	£10,784,994
Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire HSCP	£2,360,293	£107,000	£5,810,158	£10,784,994
Lothian	East Lothian HSCP	£901,529	£999,000	£9,518,120	£16,592,319
	Edinburgh HSCP	£3,349,297
	Midlothian HSCP	£537,285
	West Lothian HSCP	£1,194,688
	NHS Lothian (Programme management)	£92,400
Orkney	Orkney Islands HSCP	£187,874	£10,000	£457,364	£655,238
Shetland	Shetland Islands HSCP	£185,406	£82,000	£495,017	£762,423
Tayside	Angus HSCP	£834,764	£615,000	£4,453,918	£8,499,201
	Dundee City HSCP	£1,456,965
	Perth and Kinross HSCP	£1,092,355
	NHS Tayside (programme management)	£46,200
Western Isles	Western Isles HSCP	£249,060	£18,000	£568,350	£835,410
Total		£40,319,643	£5,019,000	£57,619,796	£102,958,439

Question reference: S6O-02460

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 September 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to support the tourism sector.

Question reference: S6W-20440

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 29 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when it expects the data on the operation of the 2022-23 Young Patients Family Fund to be published.

Data in relation to the Young Patients Family Fund is not routinely published however, latest information for 2022-23 shows that 8,415 claims were submitted under YPFF and that this equated to 3,740 young inpatients being claimed for.

This information was provided in answer to parliamentary question S6W-17130 on 17 May 2023 on and it continues to be the latest position with 13 of 14 territorial Health Boards having provided relevant information to the Scottish Government. NHS Borders are yet to provide a YPFF data return for 2022-23 and the Scottish Government is working with them to ensure 2022-23 data is recorded appropriately.

Question reference: S6W-20442

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 29 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S6W-17129 and S6W-18948 by Jenni Minto on 2 May 2023 and 21 June 2023 respectively, whether it will provide an update regarding what percentage of applications to the Young Patients Family Fund has resulted in the award being granted in 2022-23.

Question reference: S6W-20441

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 29 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S6W-17128 and S6W-18949 by Jenni Minto on 2 May 2023 and 21 June 2023 respectively, whether it will provide an update regarding what the average amount was claimed through the Young Patients Family Fund in 2022-23.

Question reference: S6W-18619

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 28 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it reportedly informed the Drug Research Network Scotland that its funding would be halved at a time when drug-related deaths remain high in Scotland.

In establishing the Drug Research Network Scotland (DRNS) in 2017 the intention was to provide seed funding through the Scottish Funding Council to allow the network to develop and become self-sufficient through developing other income streams with associated research co-ordination fees. Initially this was agreed for a period of 3 years and was then extended for a further 3 years.

Whilst Scottish Government recognise that a model of full self-sufficiency is not a viable option for the network, officials worked with DRNS to explore a number of funding options. Within the context of a challenging economic situation, it was considered that the DRNS was now an established network and could therefore focus on knowledge exchange and capacity building within the drug research community whilst continuing to develop and maintain connections across the research community.

Question reference: S6W-18620

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 August 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 28 August 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its assessment is of the value of research carried out by the Drug Research Network Scotland.

The aims of the DRNS are not to carry out research but to to develop a Scottish drugs research strategy to build capacity, maximise research investment and deliver robust, high-quality research evidence to inform policy and practice relevant to problem drug use and recovery in Scotland. As well as facilitating collaboration across Scotland, they also develop links with leading researchers elsewhere in the UK and in other countries.

We recognise the value of this work which is why we have continued to support them beyond their initial seed funding stage.