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: S6W-00478

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether there has been in increase in cases of children being hospitalised as a result of COVID-19 in the six months up to June 2021.

This data is available on the Public Health Scotland Education Surveillance Dashboard which provides a three-weekly rolling average of hospital admissions for 2-17 years olds - COVID-19 Education Surveillance dashboard - Enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 in education settings - COVID-19 data and intelligence - COVID-19 - Our areas of work - Public Health Scotland

Equivalent weekly data for children under 2 years is not currently published however, data on Cumulative COVID-19 Hospital Admissions since the start of the pandemic is available and shows that as of 26 May 2021, 238 children between 0-4 years have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19 since March 2020. The full set of data can be found here - https://www.opendata.nhs.scot/dataset/weekly-covid-19-statistical-data-in-scotland/resource/bd8a865f-10e6-47d2-a461-8633c61693fe .

Question reference: S6O-00052

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting the economic recovery of town centres.

Question reference: S6W-00460

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, following the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills on 2 June 2021 on National Qualifications 2021, how students wishing to use the priority appeal process will be supported during the school summer holidays.

Students will be able to register an intention to appeal from 25 June. However, the formal appeals process will not commence until the results are issued on 10 August. Universities will not confirm offers until they have received the certificated grades in August.

For those students waiting on a result for a university or college place or for an employment or training programme, appeals will be processed as a priority.

The SDS Helpline will be available through the summer for students to talk to an experienced adviser, with the dedicated Results Helpline opening from 10 August. The National Qualifications 21 Group has issued a letter to learners highlighting a range of support available. This is available online and can be accessed at:

https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/NQ21-letter-supports-for-learners.pdf

SQA is arranging for a hard copy of the letter to be sent out to all learners.

Question reference: S6W-00459

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills on 2 June 2021 on National Qualifications 2021, whether it expects teachers to be in contact with (a) the SQA, (b) schools and (c) individual pupils during the period from 25 June to 16 August 2021.

Question reference: S6W-00461

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, following the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills on 2 June 2021 on National Qualifications 2021, for what reason the deadline for making priority appeals has been set as 16 August.

The deadline for priority appeals was originally set as 16 August to ensure that SQA and their appointees have sufficient time to process these cases to meet with UCAS deadlines of 8 September.

Following discussion with education partners on the National Qualifications 21 Group, this date has now been extended to 24 August to ensure that there is sufficient time after the start of the new session for centres to submit appeals and supporting evidence for those learners with immediate progression needs for further education, higher education or workplace progression. In moving to this date, the proposal is that centres will submit evidence digitally.

Question reference: S6W-00462

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, following the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills on 2 June 2021 on National Qualifications 2021, what impact it expects the appeals process to have on the workloads of teachers.

The appeals process was developed following consultation and stakeholder engagement. This included consideration of teacher workload.

Teachers are encouraged to have discussions with their learners in advance of submitting their provisional grades and, if learners are unhappy with these results, will have a further dialogue in advance of any appeal to advise on the process.

Schools and colleges are expected to support their learners in accessing the appeals service where needed and, where a learner is appealing against the academic judgement made, will be asked to provide all the necessary evidence and materials that were used to determine the learner's result.

SQA will review the learner's submission and may, if necessary, discuss aspects with the relevant teacher.

Question reference: S5W-35756

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 24 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of the COVID-19 recovery process, what research it is undertaking into the impact of the pandemic on BAME groups, and how the needs of Polish people are being (a) identified and (b) addressed.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) has periodically published statistics on the impact of COVID-19 on minority ethnic groups in it's weekly COVID-19 statistics report. The latest report was published on 3rd March 2021 and showed that the findings from previous PHS analysis were re-enforced, that is, that there is continued evidence of increased risks of hospitalisation or death due to COVID-19 in some ethnic minority groups, which have persisted during the second wave of the pandemic.

A link to the PHS report is here:

https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/
covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/3-march-2021/

Public Health Scotland will continue to update this analysis as more data becomes available. The Scottish Government is also working with PHS and other agencies to implement the recommendations of the Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and ethnicity. Implementing these recommendations will make improvements to the data and evidence held on minority ethnic groups, which will include Polish people. The ERG cover further research in their recommendations, for example on better understanding ethnic inequalities in health. We are working closely with organisations that support minority ethnic communities to address issues around vaccine hesitancy and to encourage uptake, including amongst Polish people.

'Minority ethnic' groups refers to people who are protected under the Equalities Act 2010, which defines race as colour, ethnicity, nationality and citizenship. Polish people are included in this definition.

Question reference: S5O-05147

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 March 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is planning to address the backlog in cervical screening appointments that has arisen because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether this will include offering HPV self-testing.

Question reference: S5W-35753

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how health data on minority ethnic groups is collected and collated.

Health data on minority ethnic groups is collected in a variety of ways. For example, data can be collected through a variety of mechanisms, such as face-to-face interviewing, completion of on-line survey forms or collection of data from an individual at the point of contact with a service.

The Scottish Government collects data on minority ethnic groups through the large-scale surveys it runs, such as the Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) and the Health and Care Experience Survey (HACE). Data on minority ethnic groups may also be collected in smaller, bespoke surveys or programmes of research.

A summary of the ethnicity data collected across Health and Social Care is available on the equality evidence finder page here:

www.equalityevidence.scot

Data on minority ethnic groups is also is collected on a number of key health service datasets that are collated by Public Health Scotland (PHS) such as inpatients and day cases, A&E attendances and so on. Further details of these datasets and associated levels of completeness are presented on the PHS website here:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Equality-and-Diversity/Equality-Evidence-Finder/

Public Health Scotland also publish information on the levels of data completeness for minority ethnic groups within selected data sets here:

https://www.isdscotland.org/products-and-Services/Data-Support-and-Monitoring/SMR-Ethnic-Group-Recording/

The Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and ethnicity has made recommendations on improving the coverage and completeness of data on minority ethnic groups and the Scottish Government is working with other agencies to implement these recommendations. The ERG recommendations can be found here:

Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Question reference: S5W-35754

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 16 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to identifying Polish people as a minority ethnic group in order to provide disaggregated health data for them.

The Scottish Government is working on implementing the recommendations of the Expert Reference Group on ethnicity. As part of this we will be improving the data collection on minority ethnic groups across the board, which does include Polish people. Any improvements in data completeness and data quality that arise as a result of implementing these recommendations will be expected to improve the evidence base across all minority ethnic groups.