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-03620

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 September 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to protect families who have been affected by domestic abuse.

Question reference: S5W-25377

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 19 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much each local authority has been allocated from the Town Centre Fund, also broken by how this has been spent.

The £50 million Town Centre Fund was developed in partnership with COSLA and launched on 1 March. The fund has been distributed across all local authorities to enable them to stimulate and support a wide range of investments which encourage town centres and city neighbourhoods to diversify and flourish.

It is for local authorities to decide how to allocate funding in the context of the Town Centre First Principle and Town Centre Action Plan and, more recently, the Place Principle. These decisions should be based on an understanding of town centre performance and ownership, shared visions and plans; with the involvement of local communities, partners and stakeholders.

Town Centre Fund – Local Authority Allocation

Local Authority	Allocation
Aberdeen City	£1,351,000
Aberdeenshire	£3,286,000
Angus	£1,080,000
Argyll and Bute	£1,242,000
City of Edinburgh	£2,613,000
Clackmannanshire	£683,000
Dumfries and Galloway	£1,529,000
Dundee City	£735,000
East Ayrshire	£1,701,000
East Dunbartonshire	£944,000
East Lothian	£1,275,000
East Renfrewshire	£981,000
Falkirk	£1,976,000
Fife	£4,335,000
Glasgow City	£3,010,000
Highland	£2,965,000
Inverclyde	£660,000
Midlothian	£910,000
Moray	£1,233,000
Na h-Eileanan Siar	£223,000
North Ayrshire	£1,418,000
North Lanarkshire	£3,250,000
Orkney Islands	£200,000
Perth and Kinross	£1,983,000
Renfrewshire	£1,459,000
Scottish Borders	£1,421,000
Shetland Islands	£205,000
South Ayrshire	£1,064,000
South Lanarkshire	£2,506,000
Stirling	£1,077,000
West Dunbartonshire	£859,000
West Lothian	£1,826,000
Scotland	£50,000,000

Question reference: S5O-03525

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to support Highlands and Islands businesses experiencing losses due to cuts in rural banking services.

Question reference: S5W-23993

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 18 July 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish the results of the Good Food Nation consultation.

Question reference: S5W-23719

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 10 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action NHS boards are (a) taking and (b) expected to take to increase the diversity of their workforce.

Action NHS Boards are (a) taking and (b) expected to take to increase the diversity of their workforce are matters for each individual NHS board within the framework of the current legislative requirements under the Equality Act 2010, and the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012.

This includes a Public Sector Equality Duty that requires NHS boards to have due regard to advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not.

The Scottish Government is taking action to increase the diversity of our NHS workforce by funding partnerships with the Business Disability Forum and Stonewall Scotland. We have also committed to delivering an NHS Scotland wide campaign to promote more effective equalities outcomes.

Question reference: S5W-23717

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 10 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what figures are used for benchmarking NHS boards equality and diversity data, and whether the figures are nationally or locally based.

Data on equality and diversity is published on an annual basis in June within the workforce section of NHS National Services Scotland's Information Services Division (ISD) website: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/ .

This data is broken down nationally, regionally and by NHS boards to provides figures for benchmarking and comparison purposes.

Decisions relating to benchmarking equality and diversity data are matters for each individual NHS board within the framework of the current legislative requirements under the Equality Act 2010 and the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012. This includes a Public Sector Equality Duty that requires NHS boards to have due regard to advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not.

The Regulations impose specific duties on Scottish public authorities to publish a set of Equality Outcomes at four yearly intervals and thereafter to report on progress every two years.

Question reference: S5W-23718

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 10 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS boards have published annual workforce data for (a) 2017-18 and (b) 2018-19.

Question reference: S5W-23416

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 7 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to (a) ensure the health of and (b) maintain farmland biodiversity, and how it will ensure that this work will be able to meet the expected scale of future biodiversity challenge.

In response to the recent report by the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on the state of global biodiversity, the Scottish Government has committed to carrying out a thorough analysis of the report’s findings and policy options. As part of this process, we will examine what we are already doing to protect and promote biodiversity, where we need to do more, and what we need to do differently. We will write to the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee with our initial assessment by the end of 2019.

The Scottish Government, through the Farm Advisory Service, also helps farmers and crofters consider how to support and enhance biodiversity on their land. The service features free events, publications, videos and online tools that transfer knowledge, enhance understanding and promote uptake of practices. It also offers farmers and crofters access to expert consultancy support to develop an Integrated Land Management Plan tailored to their business that includes a biodiversity review.

Question reference: S5W-23415

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 7 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out of the biodiversity that is dependent on farmland landscapes.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) is in the process of tendering a contract for the ‘Evaluation of the Biodiversity outcomes of the 2014-20 Scottish Rural Development Programme Agri-Environment Climate Scheme through a selection of case studies’. Scheduled to conclude by late spring 2020, the work will build on monitoring undertaken from 2013 to 2020, which included monitoring for biodiversity measures. Further details are available via the following link:

https://www2.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00492399.pdf

SNH is also developing a project to pilot an outcomes-based approach to agri-environment support in Scotland. The project will test the effectiveness of the delivery of a range of environmental outcomes related to biodiversity, climate change, soil, water and flood management.

The development of the current Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) involved a process of analysis, identification and selection of biodiversity priorities. As part of that process, an expert group was established to inform the targeting of options in consultation with a range of organisations and the public and, ultimately, AECS was scrutinised and approved by the European Commission.

Question reference: S5W-23417

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 7 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out of the health of the country's natural pollinators.

The Scottish Government co-funded the development of a National Pollinator Monitoring Scheme which was commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in 2014. The project, led by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), developed and tested sampling methods, survey protocols, analytical techniques and implementation options to strengthen monitoring of pollinators and pollination services. Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) provided technical advice for this project, resulting in the inclusion of several Scottish monitoring sites. The project report was published in 2016 and can be accessed via the following web link:

http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Module=More&Location=None&ProjectID=19259

The Scottish Government and SNH are continuing to work in partnership with Defra on the next phase of work, which commenced this year, to strengthen existing surveillance and implement new techniques to detect changes in abundance, diversity and distribution of pollinating insects.

Through grants to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and Buglife Scotland, SNH analyse recording and reporting information to assess the status of pollinators. The Pollinator Strategy Progress Report, available at the following link, details work underway to assess the role, contribution and status of our pollinators.

https://www.nature.scot/sites/default/files/2018-11/Pollinator%20Strategy%20for%20Scotland%20-%202018%20Progress%20Report.pdf