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: S4O-01464

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 November 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Scottish Ambulance Service regarding the adequacy of emergency response cover on the smaller Orkney isles.

Question reference: S4W-10139

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 7 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the Early Years Change Fund (a) has been allocated and (b) is available.

The Early Years Change Fund consists of contributions from Scottish Government, Local Government and Health.

The Scottish Government, NHS Scotland and COSLA have agreed minimum contributions to the Scottish Government Early Years Change Fund as set out in the following table:

	2012-13 £m	2013-14 £m	2014-15 £m	2015-16 £m	Total £m
Scottish Government	10.5	14.5	16.5	8.5	50
Health	36	39	42	-	117
Local Government	20	35	50	-	105

Total

272

The Scottish Government contributions will be supplemented by a small amount from Positive Futures (Early Years) core funding over the current Spending Review period (2012-13-2013-14-2014-15) to ensure maximum flexibility and synergy. This gives the following totals:

2012-13

£m

2013-14

£m

2014-15

£m

2015-16

£m

Total

£m

11.25

15.25

17.25

8.5

52.25

The following Scottish Government funding is committed:

	2012-13 £m	2013-14 £m	2014-15 £m	2015-16 £m	Total
PlayTalkRead	1	1	1	-	3
Bookbug	1.5	1.5	1.5	-	4.5
Parenting Strategy	0.05	0.05	0.05	-	0.15
Play	1.0	1.0	1.0	-	3
Families and Communities Fund	1.5	1.5	1.5	-	4.5
Early learning and childcare	1.5	1.5	1.5	-	4.5
Family Support (LA)	3	3	3		9
Family support unallocated		3	6		9
Psychology of Parenting	0.672				0.672
Local support	0.6	0.8	0.85		2.25
Total	10.822	13.35	16.4	0	40.572

This leaves uncommitted funding of:

2012-13

£m

2013-14

£m

2014-15

£m

2015-16

£m

Total

£m

0.428

1.9

0.85

8.5

11.678

This uncommitted funding includes a portion of Scottish Government core budget in addition to Early Years Change Fund monies.

The following table shows the breakdown of the Early Years Change Fund across NHS boards, including Special Health Boards for 2012-13. The figures represent indicative allocations issued to NHS Boards in respect of Child Healthy Weight Interventions, Childsmile, Infant Nutrition and Maternity Services, Family Nurse Partnerships and the demand led budget for Healthy Start, managed centrally by the Health and Social Care Directorate. For some of this funding e.g. programmes such as Childsmile, the monies for this are already set out and how it will be spent. Other funding streams such as those on infant nutrition allow a level of flexibility for delivery.

Health contribution to EYCF	2012-13
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	1,223,000
NHS Borders	413,000
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	525,000
NHS Fife	2,015,000
NHS Forth Valley	1,114,000
NHS Grampian	1,892,000
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	4,075,000
NHS Highland	1,085,000
NHS Lanarkshire	2,018,000
NHS Lothian	2,947,000
NHS Orkney	226,000
NHS Shetland	257,000
NHS Tayside	2,037,000
NHS Western Isles	269,000
Sub-Total	20,096,000
NHS National Services Scotland *	71,000
NHS Education for Scotland**	655,000
Scottish Government Central Budget***	14,851,000
Allocations to be confirmed	250,000
Sub total	15,827,000
Total	35,922,000

Notes:

*Contribution by NSS to Infant Nutrition and Maternity Services programme

**Contribution by NES to Childsmile, Infant Nutrition and Maternity Services programme

***includes £11,880,000 for demand led Healthy Start programme and £500,000 for Early Years Action Fund

The allocations for 2013-14 and 2014-15 have still to be finalised subject to Parliamentary approval of the budgets for these respective years but the amounts are likely to be similar to the above.

The 2012-13 allocations have been made to local authorities and the 2013-14 and 2014-15 allocations will be made in the subsequent years subject to parliamentary approval of the respective budgets. Information on spend allocated and available is not held centrally.

	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
Aberdeen City	746,637	1,312,972	1,881,610
Aberdeenshire	887,999	1,549,683	2,207,393
Angus	403,696	704,442	1,000,260
Argyll and Bute	269,747	463,044	655,169
Clackmannanshire	220,070	385,905	557,503
Dumfries and Galloway	510,816	895,453	1,276,389
Dundee City	588,239	1,036,918	1,487,438
East Ayrshire	481,515	843,735	1,201,943
East Dunbartonshire	339,314	583,530	818,240
East Lothian	385,487	677,695	980,290
East Renfrewshire	323,780	558,373	785,155
Edinburgh, City of	1,629,747	2,874,350	4,138,183
Eilean Siar	81,283	140,936	198,287
Falkirk	622,270	1,092,976	1,558,144
Fife	1,447,765	2,538,173	3,627,574
Glasgow City	2,525,220	4,439,743	6,367,457
Highland	803,286	1,408,664	2,016,393
Inverclyde	315,108	551,295	782,728
Midlothian	334,176	586,086	834,203
Moray	299,871	525,903	749,814
North Ayrshire	565,715	984,549	1,396,204
North Lanarkshire	1,442,258	2,514,405	3,582,527
Orkney Islands	63,527	110,347	157,717
Perth and Kinross	474,468	830,676	1,189,114
Renfrewshire	667,883	1,166,472	1,665,846
Scottish Borders	399,500	693,953	989,184
Shetland Islands	80,659	139,903	196,661
South Ayrshire	382,670	664,998	950,620
South Lanarkshire	1,221,391	2,130,971	3,045,799
Stirling	314,970	547,908	772,575
West Dunbartonshire	393,677	689,451	987,052
West Lothian	777,258	1,356,494	1,942,529
Scotland	20,000,000	35,000,000	50,000,000

Question reference: S4W-10136

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 6 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how much the Early Years Change Fund will amount to over the current spending review period and from what sources, also broken down by year.

Question reference: S4W-10138

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 6 November 2012

Question reference: S4W-10601

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 26 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 6 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £13.1 million set aside by Skills Development Scotland for the New College Learning Programme has been allocated to colleges.

Question reference: S4W-10604

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 26 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 6 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been provided to colleges from the 2012-13 College Transformation Fund; to which colleges, and for what projects.

To date, some £4.2 million has been provided to colleges from the 2012-13 College Transformation Fund (CTF).

My response to the Convenor of the Education and Culture Committee, issued on 30 October, and published as part of the Committee’s papers for its meeting on
6 November 2012, provides details of awards made from the CTF and SFC strategic merger funds to that date.

A breakdown of CTF funding is provided in the following table:

Region	CTF	Project
SRUC	0	Land based merger funding
Edinburgh	3,500,000	Voluntary Severance
Ayrshire	180,000	Voluntary Severance
Fife	342,000	Pre-merger facilitation costs
Dumfries and Galloway	197,000	Innovation Learner Journey project
Total	4,219,000

Question reference: S4W-10600

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 26 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 6 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many people are using the New College Learning Programme and at which colleges.

Question reference: S4W-10603

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 26 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 6 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £8 million brought forward by the Scottish Funding Council to 2012-13 from 2013-14 and 2014-15 has been allocated, broken down by college and by weighted student units of measurements.

Question reference: S4O-01399

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 31 October 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Orkney Islands Council since May 2012 about how the shortfall in local government funding for Orkney, compared to Shetland and the Western Isles, might be addressed.

Question reference: S4W-09595

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 September 2012
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 28 September 2012

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to pilot an extension of free early education and childcare to deprived two-year-olds in addition to its plans to extend provision to looked-after two-year-olds.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to pilot an extension of free early learning and childcare to deprived two-year-olds.

We intend to include proposals in the Children and Young People Bill to deliver a minimum of 600 hours per year of early learning and childcare for three and four-year-olds, and looked after two-year-olds. It is proposed that the entitlement for looked-after two-year-olds could include work with parents or carers where possible and appropriate.

These proposals are a vital step towards realising the Scottish Government’s longer term ambitions to deliver high quality, flexible, accessible, affordable early learning and childcare that meets the needs of all children, parents, families and employers. A sub-group of the Early Years Task Force is working to develop this longer term vision for Family Support, Family Centres and Integrated Early Learning and Childcare.