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-21578

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2014
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Alasdair Allan on 4 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in implementing the Curriculum for Excellence Working Group on Tackling Bureaucracy's report.

Good progress is being made. In particular:

SQA has announced plans to reduce workload requirements for the new qualifications whilst maintaining standards.

Education Scotland is using its inspection teams to challenge unnecessary bureaucracy in schools and offer practical advice for improvements.

Education Scotland has worked with local authorities and teacher associations to organise a series of well received events for teachers on the best means of tackling excessive bureaucracy.

We will maintain momentum on implementing the Group’s report to ensure that teachers can focus on teaching and not be stifled by unnecessary bureaucracy.

Question reference: S4O-03303

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to tackle fly-tipping.

Question reference: S4O-03147

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 April 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 April 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how it is raising awareness of multiple sclerosis.

Question reference: S4O-03070

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what preparations it is making to deal with the number of people expected to visit Scotland during the Commonwealth Games.

Question reference: S4W-19923

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 6 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish details of its proposed peer-approved clinical system and what role (a) patients' and (b) other representative groups will have in the development of this.

The new peer approved clinical system (PACS) is due to be rolled out in May 2014 and the Scottish Government will publish details of PACS following implementation of a new approach by the Scottish Medicines Consortium.

The Scottish Government has listened to the views of patients and patient interest groups regarding a replacement approach to the current individual patient treatment request arrangements to inform the new approach.

Question reference: S4W-19926

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 6 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what progress the Scottish Medicines Consortium is making on establishing a value-based assessment of medicines for the treatment of long-term conditions, and whether it plans to develop this approach further.

The work that has been taken forward for the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) to apply different approaches in the evaluation of medicines for use at end of life and to treat rare diseases was identified as a priority by the Health and Sport Committee.

The new approach is recognised as the first step in a wider process to determine Scotland’s requirement for a value based approach for assessment of all new medicines. The Scottish Government does plan to develop the value based approach further; however the successful implementation of SMC’s new approach must be the priority.

Question reference: S4W-19924

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 6 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what steps the Scottish Medicines Consortium is taking regarding (a) improving the transparency of and (b) increasing patients' groups' involvement with the development of its processes.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium’s (SMC) Patient and Public Involvement Group (PAPIG) is responsible for ensuring that the patient/carer perspective is always taken into consideration by the SMC. Patient interest groups are able to collate comments from a number of patients and carers and provide these in the form of a submission of evidence to SMC. These submissions are an important part of the SMC’s assessment process and the SMC’s detailed advice document (DAD) for each medicine appraised includes a section to summarise the patient and public involvement.

In preparation for meeting in public from May 2014, the SMC invited patient interest groups who had made a submission for the medicines under consideration to observe proceedings for the first time at their meeting held on 4 February 2014.

The work that has been taken forward for the SMC to apply different approaches in the evaluation of medicines for use at end of life and to treat rare diseases was identified as a priority by the Health and Sport Committee. The patient and clinical engagement meetings under the new system will provide patient organisations with more opportunity than ever before to influence SMC decisions.

Question reference: S4O-02924

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 February 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how it would reform welfare in an independent Scotland.

Question reference: S4O-02602

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how much it spent in 2012-13 on costs associated with PPP/PFI contracts for schools.

Question reference: S4O-02535

Asked by: George Adam, MSP for Paisley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what opportunities there are for people with mobility issues to participate in viewing events during the Commonwealth Games at Hampden.