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: S5O-00619

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how it supports food banks.

Question reference: S5W-06200

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 25 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government which local authorities it has met to discuss their plans for building new homes.

Question reference: S5W-06199

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 25 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how it is monitoring the progress of new build homes toward meeting its 50,000 target for new homes.

The Scottish Government regularly meets with local authorities, developing housing associations and other partners across Scotland to monitor progress towards meeting its target to deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes.

We have set out through the More Homes Scotland Approach how we aim to increase housing delivery across all tenures, through funding, but also through joint working as shown by the Joint Housing Policy and Delivery Group (JHPDG) action plan.

The delivery and monitoring process which successfully delivered and exceeded the previous 30,000 affordable housing target is also being employed again through the use of Strategic Local Programme Agreements (SLPA). SLPAs are developed between local authorities and the Scottish Government and detail the projects that have been agreed by both as priorities for housing investment funding, including existing projects which have not yet completed, new planned projects and future pipeline projects.

This supports an approach to dealing with need that is identified and addressed at local authority level using local knowledge and input from stakeholders to deliver housing in the right numbers and in the right place to ensure sustainable communities.

Question reference: S5W-06195

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 25 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what the criteria will be for counting the number of new build completions as part of its 50,000 target for new homes.

Question reference: S5W-06196

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 25 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of all funding initiatives designed to assist toward meeting its 50,000 target for new homes.

The Scottish Government has set out, through its More Homes Scotland approach, the real commitment needed to deliver its ambitious target of delivering at least 50,000 affordable homes supported by at least £3 billion of investment, use of grants, loans and guarantees.

The funding initiatives designed to contribute towards the affordable homes target are: grant funding homes for social rent; grant funding homes for mid-market rent; National Housing Trust initiative; Local Affordable Rented Housing Trust; Mid-Market Rent invitation; Town Centre Empty Homes Fund; Rural and Islands Housing Fund; Partnership Support for Regeneration; Open Market Shared Equity Scheme; New Supply Shared Equity Scheme; and the Home Owners Support Fund.

Question reference: S5W-06197

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 25 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when it will announce allocations to local authorities for housing support.

The Scottish Government is acutely aware that Councils need long term certainty of funding to put in place the plans for affordable housing in their areas. To permit the necessary advanced planning, council areas have been advised of their initial minimum resource planning assumptions for the three years from March 2017 to March 2020. Local authorities will be informed in the coming weeks of their full Resource Planning Assumptions for their areas for 2017-18.

Securing optimal outcomes from the programme requires long-term planning which is why we have also committed to a new offer of resource planning assumptions through to March 2021 for all councils following the 2016 spending review.

Question reference: S5W-05871

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 12 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what public sector contracts (a) it and (b) its agencies have awarded to (i) the Pennon Group and (ii) its subsidiary company, Viridor.

The Scottish Government and its agencies have spent sums with the Pennon Group through its subsidiary Viridor as detailed in the following table.

Authority Name	Financial Year	No. of Transactions	Value	Type of Service
Scottish Government	2013-14	1	£55.00
Historic Environment Scotland	2014-15	1	£1,530	Waste disposal
Scottish Government	2015-16	2	£400
Historic Environment Scotland	2015-16	1	£480

Question reference: S5W-05813

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 10 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether there is a budget allocation to assist rough sleepers.

There is no specific budget allocated to assist rough sleepers. Local Authorities have the statutory responsibility for the delivery of housing and homelessness services in their area, including allocating budgets.

The local government finance settlement for 2016-17 amounts to over £10.3 billion. The vast majority of the revenue funding is provided by means of a block grant from the Scottish Government. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Question reference: S5W-05818

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 10 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the number of people who have been sleeping rough in each of the last three years.

The Scottish Government collect information on homeless households from Local Authorities. Local authorities ask homelessness applicants whether they have slept rough in the previous 3 months and if they slept rough the night before approaching the Council and this is recorded and published.

	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
All applications for homelessness	36,824	35,949	34,662
where slept rough: at least once during the last 3 months	2,728	2,558	2,378
% of all applications	7%	7%	7%

where slept rough the night before	1,515	1,436	1,352
% of all applications	4%	4%	4%

Source: HL1 dataset as at 25/05/16

(http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables/Homelessness201516)

Question reference: S5W-05819

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 10 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that there is a minimum number of places available for emergency accommodation for rough sleepers in each local authority.

Scotland’s strong housing rights for homeless households mean that nobody should have to sleep rough. Local Authorities have the statutory duty for the delivery of housing and homelessness services in their area. This includes the provision of emergency accommodation for those sleeping rough, taking account of local circumstances and priorities.

Homelessness statistics indicate that the number and proportion of homeless applicants in Scotland reporting that they had slept rough before applying has decreased year on year over the past five years. However, we recognise that some rough sleeping will result from more complex needs and we are working with partners in Health and the Third Sector to ensure we have better information on rough sleepers and their needs to help address this issue.