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-00799

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 May 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it takes to promote and develop credit unions.

Question reference: S4W-00800

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how it is ensures financial inclusion for less- well off families.

Responsibility for the delivery of financial inclusion lies with community planning partnerships and a comprehensive and responsive range of support and intervention services exists across the country funded through the Local Government Settlement.

Supporting the provision of welfare rights and money advice is a key aspect of the Scottish Government’s approach to tackling poverty. The Achieving our Potential budget funds national infrastructure for the sector, this year for example:

Citizens Advice Direct continues to receive core funding of £400,000 and an additional £80,000 to provide telephone benefit checks to those people referred through the Energy Assistance Package and Home Insulation Scheme;

The Child Poverty Action Group provides a second tier advice service and has received £408,000 this year to deliver the Second Tier Advice, Information and Training Services, and the Benefits for Students Training, Advice and Information Service. This offers advice, training and support to frontline staff that are in contact with households that are likely to be entitled to benefits and tax credits, and

MATRICS, a collaboration between Citizens Advice Scotland and Money Advice Scotland, will receive £191,600 towards training and support for the money advice sector.

Scottish Government has also invested in a number of innovative local services, for example:

Link Housing Association are receiving £300,000 to continue their Older People’s Advice Service, which provides an outreach support and advice service in Glasgow, Falkirk, Clackmannanshire, North Lanarkshire and West Lothian to vulnerable older people with a particular emphasis on clients who have health problems, or who live in remote areas, and

Macmillan Cancer Support has been allocated £406,500 this financial year to continue to provide benefits advice and support across the five cancer treatment centres in Scotland and in two NHS boards for patients with long-term conditions.

In addition, a number of organisations and initiatives receive Scottish Government funding to provide a wide range of support to individuals and families which includes welfare rights and money advice, for example the Lone Parents Helpline, Parenting in Scotland, Contact-a-Family, National Debtline and the Family Nurse Partnership programme.

Question reference: S4F-00087

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 27 June 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 June 2011

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government will take in response to figures showing that one in 10 care homes have been assessed by Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland as weak or unsatisfactory in at least one area of inspection.

Question reference: S4W-00831

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how it ensures the quality of care for older people.

Scottish ministers are required to prepare and publish standards for regulated care services including care homes. There is already a specific set of National Care Standards in place for this type of services setting out the quality and standards of service that users should expect from their provider.

Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (SCSWIS) inspects and regulates services against the requirements and criteria set in legislation as well as the National Care Standards.

I also refer the member to the answer to question S4F-15 on 2 June 2011. The answer to the oral parliamentary question is available on the Parliament’s website, the official report can be viewed at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/apps2/business/orsearch/ReportView.aspx?r=6271&mode=html.

Question reference: S4W-00815

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on the BMA's view that lifting the cap on international students studying medicine would be "wholly counterproductive" in terms of workforce planning.

We are well aware of the problems associated with this issue. Extensive work around the analysis of the factors relating to the appropriate level of medical undergraduates is being undertaken, of which the BMA is aware, having been invited to sit on the reference group examining this issue. Any decision to change the number of international medical students studying at Scottish universities will take due regard of workforce planning.

Question reference: S4W-00814

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the NHS workforce demand for doctors was in 2010-11 and is for 2011-12.

NHS board projected staff in post (whole-time equivalent) changes in 2010-11 were published on 3 June 2010 at:

http://www.scsotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/06/NHSWorkforce2010.

National Services Scotland Information Services Division are due to publish the national NHSScotland workforce statistics up to 31 March 2011 on the 28 June 2011.

We are in the process of requesting from NHS boards their projected staff in post changes for 2011-12 and plan to publish consolidated workforce projections for NHSScotland when this information is available.

Question reference: S4W-00885

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people the NHS has employed in each year since 1999, expressed as (a) headcount and (b) full-time equivalent.

Question reference: S4W-00811

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on the BMA's view that the Scottish Government's workforce planning projections reveal "stark anticipated medical oversupply in Scotland".

Workforce planning projections indicate that over the next three to four years there are likely to be more doctors completing training than there will be consultant posts available to employ them. The issue to be tackled is not necessarily one of simple medical over-supply but one of how to employ these newly trained doctors in an affordable, appropriate, and sustainable manner.

The Scottish Government’s response to this issue has been to take steps to move towards a service predominantly delivered by trained doctors, rather than doctors in training. Moving to a trained doctor service provides an opportunity to enhance the service’s capacity to deliver high quality care and to achieve better value for money. A trained doctor service will necessarily consist of a “mixed economy” of existing and future consultants and Specialty Doctors, with a role for other healthcare professionals which makes the most of their potential.

Question reference: S4W-00813

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many undergraduate places for medicine were and are available in (a) 2010-11 and (b) 2011-12.

The number of undergraduate places available for medicine in 2010-11 and 2011-12 are as shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Medical Undergraduate Intake Targets

Table 1

University

AY 2010-11 Intake Targets

Home/EU

Overseas

Total

Aberdeen	162	13	175
Dundee	143	11	154
Edinburgh	202	16	218
Glasgow	223	18	241
St Andrews	104	8	112
Total	834	66	900

Table 2

University

AY 2011-12 Intake Targets

Home/EU

Overseas

Total

Aberdeen	162	13	175
Dundee	143	11	154
Edinburgh	202	16	218
Glasgow	223	18	241
St Andrews	104	8	112
Total	834	66	900

Question reference: S4W-00798

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to protect less well-off families experiencing higher than average increases in their day-to-day living costs.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing essential household costs for low income households via a range of measures, for example by:

Alleviating the effects of rising energy prices, through the Energy Assistance Package and Home Energy Hotline;

Working with partners through the Access and Affordability Expert Group to determine the evidence on food poverty in Scotland and to build a long term strategic programme for a stronger community food and health sector, in order to improve access to affordable and healthy food for vulnerable groups;

Extending free school meal criteria to all parents in receipt of qualifying benefits;

Committing to delivering an average 6000 affordable homes per year over the lifetime of this Parliament;

Continuing to reduce the essential costs of living through measures such as freezing council tax, and abolishing prescription charges, and

Analysing the impacts of changes to the welfare system on people in Scotland, making representations to the UK Government on these impacts, and working with stakeholders to contribute to, and influence the debate.