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-18322

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 13 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many clearing places have been awarded to Scottland-domiciled students at Scotland's universities in each year since 2011.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) publishes the number of acceptances through clearing by Scottish domiciled students to Scottish Universities.

The following table shows the number of acceptances split by route, since 2011.

Scottish domiciled acceptances through clearing to Scottish Universities

Route	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Main scheme clearing	1,080	1,255	1,180	970	1,245	1,185	1,215
Direct clearing	130	175	175	160	265	350	380
Total	1,210	1,430	1,355	1,130	1,510	1,535	1,595

Source: UCAS, End of cycle report 2017

Final clearing figures for the 2018 cycle will not be available until the 2018 End of Cycle report that will be published in December.

Question reference: S5W-18297

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 13 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many nurses have (a) joined and (b) left NHS Tayside in each calander year since 2007.

The number of Nurses & Midwives working in NHS Tayside has increased by 1.5% between September 2006 and June 2018.

The total number of joiners and leavers across an entire year is not captured centrally. However, numbers of net joiners and net leavers are available.

The number of net joiners and net leavers for qualified nursing and midwifery staff in NHS Tayside each year between 2008 and 2017 is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Qualified nursing and midwifery staff in NHS Tayside - Net joiners and leavers, in each year ending 30 Sep, from 2008 to 2017 (Whole Time Equivalent).

Year ending 30 Sep	Nursing and Midwifery
Year ending 30 Sep	Net Joiners	Net Leavers
2008	552.1	207.4
2009	310.5	201.4
2010	172.3	209.7
2011	172.0	176.4
2012	232.5	208.5
2013	301.8	236.1
2014	330.7	267.2
2015	329.5	309.3
2016	314.5	326.1
2017	312.0	323.1

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS), ISD Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-18430

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 13 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many children have been home schooled in each local authority in each school year since 2007.

Question reference: S5W-18302

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 11 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many fruit farmers in (a) Perth and Kinross, (b) Fife, (c) Stirling and (d) Clackmannanshire have applied for emergency loan funding from the National Basic Payment Support Scheme.

Question reference: S5W-18298

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how much NHS Tayside has spent advertising clinical posts in each of the last five calendar years.

Question reference: S5O-02339

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 September 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to encourage a new generation of farmers into the agricultural industry.

Question reference: S5W-18300

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 5 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce overcrowding on trains between the central belt and Fife

Over £475M is being invested in ScotRail’s rolling stock which will deliver major enhancements to train facilities and increase seating capacity by 23% by the end of 2019. Compared to the start of the franchise, ScotRail will be operating more than 200 additional services and providing a substantial increase to seats on services across the network. Passengers across Tayside, Stirlingshire, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, Fife and the Borders will all benefit from these improvements.

Introduction of the Hitachi class 385 electric trains and the iconic High Speed Trains allows three carriage Class 170 diesel trains to ‘cascade’ onto Fife and Borders routes. More trains at peak times will be formed of 6 carriages and these will provide 20% more seats than today for customers in Fife.

Question reference: S5W-18299

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 5 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how much money each NHS board has received from the Clinical Teaching (ACT) levy.

The Scottish Government provides Additional Cost of Teaching (ACT) funding to support the clinical training of undergraduate medical and dental students in the NHS. This funding is administered by NHS Education Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government.

The most recent available annual funding amounts are set out in the following table. Figures for 2017-18 will be available after the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts for 2017-18 have been signed off by the Auditor General for Scotland and laid in the Scottish Parliament. We expect this to be completed by the end of September.

Medical ACT
Board	2016-17
Ayrshire & Arran	£2,706,021
Borders	£667,018
Dumfries & Galloway	£873,594
Fife	£2,891,186
Forth Valley	£1,240,771
National Waiting Times Centre	£393,262
Grampian	£12,722,567
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	£16,737,663
Highland	£3,051,567
Lanarkshire	£2,704,458
Lothian	£17,873,447
Orkney	£49,936
Scottish Ambulance Service	£5,198
Shetland	£127,304
National Services Scotland (SNBTS)	£30,781
State Hospital	£31,853
Tayside	£12,531,034
Western Isles	£151,193
Medical ACT Total	£74,788,855
Dental ACT
Board	2016-17
Grampian	£3,147,059
Greater Glasgow & Clyde	£9,178,427
Tayside	£5,426,275
Dental ACT Total	£17,751,761

Total of All ACT	£92,540,616

Question reference: S5W-18296

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 August 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 5 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many nursing posts at NHS Tayside have been (a) advertised and (b) filled in each of the last five calendar years.

Information on the total number of nursing posts that have been advertised or filled in NHS Boards in a particular year is not centrally held.

ISD Workforce collects quarterly census data on the number of nursing vacancies at national and NHS Board level. A vacancy is defined as a post which has been cleared for advert after being through the redeployment process (internal or external advert) and remains a vacancy until an individual starts in the post.

The most recent data, published on 4 September 2018, can be found at http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2018-06-05/Nursing-and-Midwifery.asp .

Question reference: S5T-01186

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 September 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 September 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how NHS boards ensure that patients’ concerns regarding surgical practices are properly addressed.