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-18280

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 11 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 28 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment the educational psychologists' workforce planning group has made of recent changes to postgraduate funding for educational psychology and their impact on the training of educational psychologists.

The initial assessment made to date of recent changes to postgraduate funding for educational psychology is the small reduction in numbers of students currently in training based on previous years. However, we do not yet know what impact this will have in future years. This will be monitored by the National Scottish Steering Group for Educational Psychologists (NSSGEP). The group have set four initial priorities to take forward as follows:

It is recommended that the NSSGEP should explore effective models for psychological service structures including necessary management structures to address the question of appropriate supply and demand of educational psychologists across Scotland.

The NSSGEP should explore viable funding routes for a national training model to ensure that the most cost-effective mechanism for funding training is in place alongside the fulfilment of all professional accreditation criteria.

The NSSGEP should gather data regarding job vacancies including national and localised shortages of educational psychologists, destinations of psychologists leaving the profession and maternity demographics annually to inform planning.

The NSSGEP should gather data regarding salaries and conditions of service in order to support equitable remuneration and conditions with the closest comparators

Question reference: S4W-18431

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the objectives are of requiring all salaried dentists to complete clinical audits and what the audit requirements are.

Clinical audit is an important element of clinical governance which contributes to patient safety in dental primary care most commonly by setting a clinical standard and monitoring if the standard is being met. For this reason salaried general dental practitioners, like their independent counterparts who provide general dental services, are required to undertake 15 hours of clinical audit in each three year period.

The current clinical audit period started on 1 August 2013 and will end on 31 July 2016.

Question reference: S4W-18433

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what sanctions NHS Education for Scotland has available to ensure compliance with the clinical audit cycle requirements for salaried dentists.

Question reference: S4W-18432

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the deadline is for compliance with the audit cycle requirements for salaried dentists.

Salaried general dental practitioners (SGDPs) on a dental list on 1 August 2010 were required to undertake 15 hours of clinical audit activities by 31 July 2013, or a pro-rata number of hours for those SGDPs who joined a list after 1 August 2010.

It was expected that NHS boards would require community dental officers and community dental services dentists to undertake a similar level of clinical audit as their salaried GDP peers.

The deadline for compliance with the current clinical audit period is 31 July 2016.

Question reference: S4W-18434

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether the deadline for compliance with the clinical audit requirements for salaried dentists has been postponed and, if so, for what reason.

There has been no general extension to the deadline for compliance with the clinical audit requirements for salaried general dental practitioners.

However, for those dentists who have been given approval by NHS Education for Scotland for clinical audits where the data collection will extend beyond the 31 July 2013, it has been agreed that any audits submitted for approval up to the end of July 2013 will be counted in the 1 August 2010 to 31 July 2013 audit cycle, even though these will be undertaken in the next cycle (1 August 2013 to 13 July 2016).

Question reference: S4W-18248

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 11 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 20 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will place copies of the minutes of all meetings of the educational psychologists' workforce planning group in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe).

Question reference: S4W-18249

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 11 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 20 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether there has been a reduction in the number of students training as educational psychologists in the last three years.

There has been a slight reduction in the number of students training as educational psychologists in the last three years. Numbers are set out in the following table.

Year	Dundee	Strathclyde
2011-12	22	22
2012-13	21	22
2013-14	21	17

The Scottish Government is working in partnership with the National Scottish Steering Group for Educational Psychologists to look at appropriate workforce planning at a national level.

Question reference: S4W-18048

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 01 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 19 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what level of carbon emissions is caused by street lighting in each local authority area and what the cost saving would be of using low-energy LED bulbs.

Question reference: S4W-18050

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 01 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 19 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on introducing low-energy LED bulbs in street lights since May 2013.

Substantial progress is being made across Scotland in the development and delivery of street lighting energy efficiency projects. This programme is being supported by the following:

Production of a Street Lighting Toolkit to assess potential financial and carbon savings, accessed at the following link

(http://www.scottishfuturestrust.org.uk/publications/low-carbon-and-energy-efficiency/)

Provision of £2 million from the Scottish Governments’ Sustainable Action Fund to support local authorities work on increasing energy efficiency of street lighting;

Availability of 0% finance from SALIX to fund energy efficiency work with awards made to Dundee, and Perth and Perth and Kinross Councils for LED street lanterns this financial year;

Establishment of a steering group to identify and co-ordinate the support required by local authorities to take projects forward.

Following the recommendation of the joint Scottish Government /COSLA settlement distribution group, the distribution of the £2 million, was approved at the COSLA leaders meeting on 27 September 2013. The council’s share of the £2 million will be paid as General Revenue Grant in the last two weeks of March 2014.

Question reference: S4T-00508

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 11 November 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what assistance it is providing to the Philippines through its International Development Fund following Typhoon Haiyan.