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-05443

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 8 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress is being made in relation to the implementation of strategies by all public bodies to award at least one contract to a supported business or factory, as outlined in the Sustainable Procurement Action Plan.

This is a matter for individual public bodies. To help make it easier for Scottish public bodies to award contracts to supported businesses the Scottish Government has worked with the British Association for Supported Employment (BASE) to publish guidance for buyers on working with Scottish supported businesses. We have also developed new functionality on the Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) portal which alerts public sector buyers to the possibility of buying from supported businesses whenever they create a notice on PCS for goods or services that a supported business could provide. We are also working with BASE to establish national framework agreements reserved for supported businesses, providing public bodies in Scotland with easy access to the wide range of high quality goods and services that supported businesses provide.

We intend to consider what further measures might be appropriate to assist supported businesses in Scotland as part of the Sustainable Procurement Bill which we have committed to introducing during the lifetime of this Parliament.

Question reference: S4W-05403

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 8 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many jobs have been secured for disabled people through contracts awarded using Article 19 of the EU procurement directive following the publication of the Sustainable Procurement Action Plan.

Question reference: S4O-00737

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 1 March 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what support it is providing to local authorities to ensure sufficient availability of supply teachers.

The government conducts an annual teacher workforce planning exercise to determine how many teachers to train to ensure sufficient availability of teachers, including supply teachers.

The recruitment and deployment of teachers is a matter for local authorities.

Despite UK funding cuts, local government’s share of the 2011-12 Scottish Budget was preserved at 2010-11 levels following year on year increases since 2007-08.

Question reference: S4W-05580

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 29 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether a reduction in the size of its estate will be sufficient to meet its energy consumption target of 12.6% by March 2012.

Question reference: S4O-00724

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 23 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to address the £140 million maintenance backlog in NHS Lothian, as reported in The State of the NHSScotland Estate 2011.

The Scottish Government is working with NHS Lothian to deliver a number of major projects including the reprovision of the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and Department of Clinical Neurosciences together with a range of services at the Astley Ainslie and Royal Edinburgh Hospitals. These projects together with on-going maintenance are expected to reduce identified backlog by £84 million.

Question reference: S4W-05177

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 9 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many students in Lothian have received college bursaries in each of the last five years, broken down by college.

The information requested contained in Table 1.

Figures on the number of students receiving bursary funds who are in receipt of Maintenance Allowance is also given in Table 2.

Table 1: Number of Students in receipt of bursaries at Colleges in Edinburgh and the Lothians (2005-06 to 2009-10)

College	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Edinburgh's Telford College	1,507	1,698	1,718	1,731	1,795
Jewel and Esk College	844	1,107	1,071	1,132	1,374
Stevenson College	1,053	1,321	1,446	1,620	1,611
Oatridge College	142	163	151	171	190
West Lothian College	672	772	867	943	1,018
Total	4,218	5,061	5,253	5,597	5,988

Source: Scottish Funding Council.

Table 2: Of the students in receipt of bursaries, the number in receipt of Maintenance Allowance¹ at Colleges in Edinburgh and the Lothians (2005-06 to 2009-10)

College	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Edinburgh's Telford College	863	936	841	928	1,006
Jewel and Esk College	614	538	445	487	603
Stevenson College	651	741	864	988	945
Oatridge College	49	46	46	30	37
West Lothian College	335	345	317	336	476
Total	2,512	2,606	2,513	2,769	3,067

Source: Scottish Funding Council.

Note: Maintenance allowance accounts for over half of the assistance given from the bursary fund.

Question reference: S4W-05178

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 8 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many students it plans to support in each college in Lothian during the next spending review period.

Question reference: S4W-05235

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 January 2012
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 7 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has budgeted for publicity in relation to the 2012 local government elections.

Question reference: S4W-05250

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 January 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 7 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will investigate reports that Consort failed to carry out disclosure checks on its staff contracted to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

Question reference: S4W-05254

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 January 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 7 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will review its guidance in relation to disclosure checks in light of reports that Consort failed to carry out such checks on its staff contracted to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

As stated in the answer to question S4W-05253 on 7 February 2012 the Safer Pre and Post Employment Checks Partnership Information Network (PIN) Policy is currently under review, as part of a planned review programme for all PIN policies.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.