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-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-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-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-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: 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: 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.

Question reference: S4O-02587

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 November 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has dropped plans to withdraw recognition from the Orkney Fish Producers Organisation.

Question reference: S4O-02557

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 October 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 November 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what representations it has received regarding the roll-out of high-speed broadband services in Orkney.

Question reference: S4W-17545

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 October 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 28 October 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that cyclists being nicer to motorists will result in a reduction in road accidents involving cyclists.