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: S3W-36105

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-34827 by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 July 2010, who is represented on the national scrutiny group announced on 3 June 2010.

Question reference: S3W-36104

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-34826 by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 July 2010, what the detailed remit and operation are of the national scrutiny group announced on 3 June 2010.

The National Scrutiny Group met for the first time on 4 August 2010 under my chairmanship. I have placed copies of the agenda for that meeting, the supporting papers (which include remit and membership) and the minutes of the meeting in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 51640).

The second meeting was held on 9 September 2010 and among other things agreed to develop a process to facilitate the flow of commentaries on individual NHS boards'' workforce plans from local Area Partnership Forums to the National Scrutiny Group. I will make the papers for that meeting available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (under the above Bib. number) in due course, once the minutes have been circulated to group members. The next meeting is likely to be in early November.

Question reference: S3W-36106

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-34828 by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 July 2010, what issues were discussed by the national scrutiny group at its meeting on 4 August 2010.

Question reference: S3W-36018

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 14 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children are home-schooled.

Question reference: S3W-36020

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 14 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what monitoring arrangements are in place for children who are home-schooled.

Question reference: S3W-36019

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 September 2010
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 14 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what duties are required for parents to inform the local authority that a child is to be home-schooled.

Section 30 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 places a fundamental duty on the parent of every child of school age to provide education for them, either by their attendance at a public school or by other means.

Section 35 of the same act requires parents to seek the consent of the local authority if they propose to withdraw a child from a local authority school and home educate them. Section 37 places a duty, this time on the local authority, to take action in respect of any child which is being home educated, where they are not satisfied that the parent is providing suitable education.

Question reference: S3W-35736

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 August 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of calls to Breathing Space are unanswered in an average week.

Question reference: S3W-35734

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 August 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 September 2010

	March 2007		March 2008
Skillset	Head Count	Whole-Time Equivalent (WTE)	Head Count	WTE
Special Helpline Advisors	22	10.35	32	13.03
Breathing Space Service Operations Supervisors	3	2.81	3	2.71
Breathing Space Service Manager	1	1	1	1.00
Breathing Space Development Officer	0	0	1	1.00
Breathing Space National Coordinator	1	1	1	1.00
Breathing Space Support Officer	1	1	1	1.00
British Sign Language workers	-	-	-	-
Total	28	16.16	39	19.74

	March 2009		March 2010
Skillset	Head Count	WTE	Head Count	WTE
Special Helpline Advisors	25	11.57	21	9.28
Breathing Space Service Operations Supervisors	3	2.81	3	2.81
Breathing Space Service Manager	1	1.00	1	1.00
Breathing Space Development Officer	1	1.00	1	1.00
Breathing Space National Coordinator	1	1.00	1	1.00
Breathing Space Support Officer	1	1.00	1	1.00
British Sign Language workers	-	-	2	0.40
Total	32	18.38	30	16.49

Note: In March 2010 a recruitment exercise took place and from this a further 2.4 WTE took up post in June 2010.

Question reference: S3W-35737

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 August 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 7 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that a reduction in staffing at Breathing Space has led to fewer calls being answered.

Breathing Space is currently receiving and answering significantly more calls than this time last year. For example, in July 2010 Breathing Space answered 5,885 calls compared to 3,341 in July 2009, which is a 76% increase.

At the end of 2009, some Breathing Space Staff left, which temporarily reduced capacity available. Shift patterns of the remaining staff were reviewed to ensure that resource was aligned to incoming call demand patterns. This combined with Supervisors also taking calls contributed to more calls being answered.

A recruitment campaign took place in March 2010 to recruit a further 2.4 whole-time equivalent to bring the service back to previous staffing levels. Those staff started in June 2010. NHS24/Breathing Space continually reviews its workforce and capacity planning, and is now considering how the service needs to adapt to any increase in call demand approaching the winter season.

Question reference: S3W-35735

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 13 August 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many staff are employed in Breathing Space.

The number of staff currently employed within Breathing Space is as follows:

Skillset	Headcount	Whole-Time Equivalent (WTE)
Special Helpline Advisors	30	11.48
Breathing Space Service Operations Supervisors	3	2.81
Breathing Space Service Manager	1	1
Breathing Space Development Officer	1	1
Breathing Space National Coordinator	1	1
Breathing Space Support Officer	1	1
Total	37	18.29

Plus: 2 (0.4 WTE) British Sign Language (BSL) workers for Deaf pilot ending in November 2010.