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-16168

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 June 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 15 July 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of the changes to jobseeker's allowance announced in the 2013 Spending Review on (a) poverty, (b) child poverty, (c) food poverty and (d) temporary poverty in Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-16166

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 June 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 15 July 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of the welfare reforms announced in the 2013 Spending Review on (a) poverty and (b) child poverty in Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not produce projections of poverty and has published no formal assessment of the Spending Review 2013 impacts on poverty.

However, the distributional analysis published alongside the Spending Review sets out the cumulative impact of the Spending Review 2013 and changes introduced by the UK Government since 2010. The Scottish Government assessment of this is that the changes introduced by the UK Government are regressive, and will have the greatest impact on households towards the bottom end of the income distribution. The bottom 20 per cent is estimated to lose on average £930 per year.

Question reference: S4W-16167

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 June 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 15 July 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the cumulative impact of welfare reforms announced since 2010 on (a) poverty and (b) child poverty in Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not produce projections of poverty and no specific assessments have been made of the impacts of welfare policies on poverty levels. However, an assessment of the cumulative impact of welfare reforms over the five years to 2014-15 has estimated that the Scottish welfare bill will be reduced by over £4.5 billion over this period. It is estimated that around £1 billion of this relates directly to children in Scotland. This will inevitably impact on low income households: analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggests that an additional 70,000 adults and 50,000 children will be living in relative poverty (before housing costs) in Scotland by 2020 because of welfare reform changes since 2010. Updated IFS analysis is expected shortly, taking into account more recent budget decisions.

Sources:

Scottish Government (2013) UK Government cuts to welfare expenditure in Scotland: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/welfarereform/analysis/welfareexpenditurecuts

Institute for Fiscal Studies (2013) Child and Working-Age Poverty in Northern Ireland from 2010 to 2020: http://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/r78.pdf

Question reference: S4O-02248

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 June 2013
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 12 June 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what support it gives to the Scottish Association of Local Sports Councils and its member councils.

Question reference: S4T-00394

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 June 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 June 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the new system for disability living allowance will have on poverty in Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-14741

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2013
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 21 May 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-10983 by Kenny MacAskill on 21 November 2012, how many (a) liabilities in relation to tribunals and (b) complaints against serving officers were taken over, broken down by transferring authority.

Question reference: S4O-02130

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 May 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the process is to appeal a historic finding of the Lands Tribunal for Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-14287

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 2 May 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many one-bedroom properties there are, also broken down by tenure, and how many of these are allocated to people deemed to be homeless.

There are an estimated 312,000 one bedroom properties in Scotland, 165,000 of which are in the social rented sector. The following table provides a further breakdown by tenure.

An estimated 20,000 one-bedroom properties become available for let each year in the social rented sector. In 2011-12, it is estimated that 9,120 of these properties were allocated as permanent lets to people deemed to be homeless. It is estimated that a further 760 homeless households took up one bedroom lets in the private rented sector.

Information on the allocation of one bedroom properties to homeless households is only available for housing association/Co-Ops, from the SCORE data collection. The estimates for local authorities and the private rented sector are derived by applying the same rate of one bedroom allocations as a proportion of all allocations to homeless households, as recorded for housing associations/Co-Ops in SCORE.

	Local Authority	Housing Association /Co-op	Private Rented Sector	Owner Occupier	Social Rented Sector Total
One bedroom stock¹	75,000	90,000	65,000	82,000	165,000
One bedroom stock becoming available to rent/buy during twelve month period²	10,000	10,000	30,000	10,000	20,000
Number of one bedroom properties allocated to homeless households during 2011-12³	(5,320)⁴	3800	(760)⁴	0	9,120

Notes/Sources:

1. Social Rented Sector Stock Statistics (SG & SHR) and Scottish Household Survey 2011

2. Scottish Household Survey 2011 - Churn Rate

3. SG Homelessness HL1 Data 2011/12 combined with SG SCORE data for Housing Associations and Co-Ops

4. Applying same SCORE rate as for housing associations/Co-Ops allocation rate

Question reference: S4W-14113

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 April 2013
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 30 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to enable people with restricted vision to access computer aids for visually impaired people.

There is a range of services available to support and assist people with a visual impairment to access computer aids.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, as amended, places duties on education authorities to identify, plan, make provision for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. A child or young person with restricted vision could have their needs assessed to consider the support that is required to help them with their learning.

The Student Awards Agency for Scotland administers the Disabled Student’s Allowance which provides support to students with disabilities studying a course of higher education. Students with a disability such as visual impairments may be eligible to apply for the allowance while on their course to help with the cost of equipment to help them study.

It is for local authorities to assess and decide what services and support to provide to their local population, using their eligibility criteria.

However, the Scottish Government issued guidance on the Provision of Equipment and Adaptations in 2009. The guidance states that “The ability to read and write is seen as a basic human right. For individuals with a sensory impairment or communication needs, access to equipment to enable them to achieve or maintain this function should be given a high priority.”

To enable the delivery of a person centred, outcomes focused advice and service provision, it is essential that equipment (including sensory impairment equipment) is incorporated into mainstream community care and children’s services.

The Scottish Government has very recently issued a draft Scottish sensory impairment strategy for consultation. The draft strategy can be found on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/04/2067.

Question reference: S4O-02022

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for East Kilbride, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met South Lanarkshire Council and what was discussed.