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: S5W-03417

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 12 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether the consumer principles outlined in the Programme for Government will include details of a one-stop-shop for consumers, as recommended by the Working Group on Consumer and Competition Policy for Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-03100

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the 2014 transition of patients in Rutherglen and Cambuslang from NHS Lanarkshire to NHS Glasgow.

Question reference: S5W-03099

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 4 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on reported difficulties being experienced by patients in Rutherglen and Cambuslang due to NHS Glasgow being unable to access their medical records.

NHS Lanarkshire have advised that there are no changes to hospital flows as a result of the changes to health board boundaries and that patients in Rutherglen and Cambuslang continue to be able to access the same acute hospital services in Glasgow as they always have.

Both NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have assured Scottish Government that they have IT systems and protocols in place to enable the sharing of relevant patient information.

Question reference: S5W-02892

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 16 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 27 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many arrests were made on the weekend of 10 and 11 September 2016, and how many of these were in relation to the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.

Investigations into disorder related to the Celtic FC v Rangers FC match on 10 September 2016 are still on-going. Police Scotland has advised that to date one male has been charged with an alleged breach of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012. A further
29 individuals were arrested for various offences directly related to the match. Police Scotland has confirmed that officers are examining footage from both CCTV and the match broadcasters in order to identify those responsible for disorder, vandalism, offensive and antisocial behaviour witnessed at the match.

Question reference: S5W-02364

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 21 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many arrests there have been in connection with football matches in each year since 2013 and under what legislation, also broken down by the number of subsequent (a) charges, (b) prosecutions and (c) convictions.

Information on arrests is not held centrally.

The Scottish Government publishes information on charges reported by the police to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), under the 'Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (OBFTC) (Scotland) act 2012', which is available at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/06/5808

In addition, statistics on numbers of people proceeded against and convicted in court under the OBFTC Act are included in the statistical publication Criminal Proceedings in Scotland in Table A which can be found at:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/02/6001/downloads.

Please note that the Criminal Proceedings statistics are not directly comparable with the charges information in the report relating to the OBFTC Act. As Criminal Proceedings statistics only measure the main charge in a court case and the OBFTC report presents individual charges it would be expected that the charges figures would be higher. There will also be timing differences since the figures in this report are based on the year of the report to COPFS, while the Criminal Proceedings figures are based on year of disposal from the courts.

Question reference: S5W-01877

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 August 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 6 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether there has been a delay in publishing details of ministerial travel since December 2015 on its website and, if so, for what reason, and when it will publish them.

Question reference: S5O-00082

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on repealing the offensive behaviour at football legislation.

Question reference: S5W-00625

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 22 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of the safer communities budget is committed to the implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Advisory Group on Tackling Sectarianism.

Question reference: S5W-00626

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 June 2016
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 17 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what work in communities to tackle sectarianism it is funding, broken down by (a) local authority and (b) project.

The Scottish Government is investing over £1 million to support the delivery of community-based work to tackle sectarianism in 2016-17. The funding takes the total Scottish Government investment in work tackling sectarianism to £12.5 million over five years, more than any administration before us.

The 20 projects receiving grant funding in 2016-17 are focussed on taking forward the recommendations of the independent advisory group on tackling sectarianism in Scotland and are set out in the following table:

Organisation	Project	Delivery areas	Local Authority	Funding amount
Bridging the Gap	Bridging the Gap	Glasgow	Glasgow City Council	£40,564
Community Links	Past and Present	Lanarkshire	South Lanarkshire Council; and North Lanarkshire Council	£18,581
Citizens Theatre	Divided City	Dunbartonshire	West Dunbartonshire Council	£80,000
Glasgow Womens Library	Equality in Progress – In Her Shoes	Glasgow and Dunbartonshire	Glasgow City Council; and East Dunbartonshire Council	£50,000
Inverclyde Community Development Trust	Gies’ Peace	Inverclyde	Inverclyde Council	£30,000
Faith in Community Scotland, Conforti Institute and Place for Hope	In Wi’ the Mix	West Central Scotland	Glasgow City Council; North Lanarkshire Council; South Lanarkshire Council; and East Ayrshire Council	£80,000
ICthinking (Cambridge) Ltd	I SEE Scotland Ltd	Falkirk	Falkirk Council	£45000
Nil by Mouth	Beyond Relgion and Belief	Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Perth, Kinross, Edinburgh, and West Lothian	North Ayrshire Council; East Ayrshire Council; North Lanarkshire Council; South Lanarkshire Council; Perth and Kinross Council; City of Edinburgh Council; and West Lothian Council	£85,000
North Kelvinside Sports Development Group	Bridges and Barriers	Glasgow	Glasgow City Council	£22,592
Parkhead Youth Project	Nae Mare Excuses	Glasgow	Glasgow City Council	£20,000
Sacro	STOP – (Sacro Tackling Offending Prejudice)	National	N/A	£85,000
Scottish Community Development Centre	Supporting Communities to Tackle Sectarianism (SCoTTS)	West Central Scotland	Glasgow City Council; North Lanarkshire Council; South Lanarkshire Council; and East Ayrshire Council	£40,000
Sense Over Sectarianism	Sense Over Sectarianism	Glasgow	Glasgow City Council	£100,000
Show Bigotry the Red Card		Glasgow City and West Central Scotland	Glasgow City Council	£18,000
Stewartry Community Voluntary Service	Stand Up To Hate	Wigtown; Stewartry; Nithsdale; and Annandale and Eskdale	Dumfries and Galloway Council	£25,000
Supporters Direct Scotland	Colours of Our Scarves	National	N/A	£65,000
West of Scotland Regional Equality Council	Connecting Communities, Challenging Hate	Glasgow; Lanarkshire; Renfrewshire; Argyle and Bute	Glasgow City Council, South Lanarkshire Council, Renfrewshire Council; Argyle and Bute Council	£35,000
Xchange Scotland	Spread the Action!	West Central Scotland	Glasgow City Council; North Lanarkshire Council; South Lanarkshire Council; and East Ayrshire Council	£24,928
Youth Scotland	Stand Up to Sectarianism	National	N/A	£49,961
Youthlink Scotland	Action on Sectarianism Optimisation and Outreach	National (online)	N/A	£61,995
Voluntary Action Fund	Fund Grant Managers	National	N/A	£77,082

TOTAL

£1,053,703.00

There is a very strong focus on education within the work being delivered, particularly through the work of Sense Over Sectarianism; Nil by Mouth; Show Bigotry the Red Card; Citizen’s Theatre and Bridging the Gap, and this builds on educational resources that have been developed since 2012 and are currently available free of charge through the Action on Sectarianism website including 20 resource packs, 16 case studies and an interactive timeline of the history of religion, migration and society in the making of modern Scotland.

Other approaches that will be taken in 2016-17 include direct community engagement through Inverclyde Community Development Trust; football based initiatives being delivered by the North Kelvinside Sports Development Group and Supporters Direct Scotland; and work with faith communities through the partnership of Faith in Community Scotland, the Conforti Institute and Place for Hope. This funding represents 20% of the Scottish Government’s Safer Communities budget.

Question reference: S5W-00201

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 May 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 8 June 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports in The Sunday Post on 21 May 2016 suggesting that senior management at Glasgow Prestwick Airport have filed expenses claims for staying at five-star hotels, including in London and Las Vegas, and what discussions it has had with the airport’s operators with regard to this matter.

The Scottish Government has had no discussions with Glasgow Prestwick Airport on the expenses claimed by the senior management team at the airport. In compliance with European Union state aid rules, the airport is operated on a wholly commercial basis and at arm’s length from the Scottish Government, the Scottish Government have no involvement in the day to day running of the airport, including staff expenses. Attendance at the World Route Development Forum in Las Vegas in 2013 took place while the airport was owned by Infratil.