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-04730

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what funding (a) it and (b) Zero Waste Scotland has provided to local authorities to help them to promote their recycling and re-use services, in each year since 2011.

Through Zero Waste Scotland, Scottish Government has provided the amounts shown in the table below, since 2011, directly to support local authorities’ recycling and re-use services. These grants included support for communications.

Year	Local Authority Recycling & Reuse Support grants
2011-12	£3,182,681
2012-13	£6,203,051
2013-14	£9,149,943
2014-15	£7,626,023
2015-16	£3,960,213
2016-17	£2,401,370
2017-18	£3,443,053
2018-19	£1,787,127
2019-20	£1,248,233
2020-21	£1,016,949 (costs related to supporting local authorities during pandemic)

In addition to this funding, the second table below shows direct support for local authorities for communications support since 2011, where communications were not related directly to wider recycling and reuse grant awards.

Year	Specific recycling/reuse communications funding
2011-12	678,500
2012-13	39,900
2013-14	£64,704 + additional included in recycling costs above where relevant
2014-15	£220,852
2015-16	£1,611,301
2016-17	N/A included in wider recycling reuse grants above
2017-18	N/A included in wider recycling reuse grants above
2018-19	N/A included in wider recycling reuse grants above
2019-20	£30,000
2020-21	Costs not yet available

The funding set out in the tables is over and above monies provided through the Local Government Settlement, which for 2022-23 was over £12.5bn. Local councils are responsible for deciding how to spend revenue and operate day-to-day services.

Question reference: S6W-04909

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many specialist (a) osteoporosis nurse and (b) radiographer positions in each NHS board are (i) filled and (ii) vacant.

The information requested on how many specialist osteoporosis nurse positions are (i) filled and (ii) vacant by NHS Board is not centrally available.

Numbers of radiography staff have increased from 1,836.8 WTE to 2,507.7 WTE since September 2007 - a 36.5% increase.(September 2007 - September 2021).

Information on how many radiographer positions are (i)filled and (ii)vacant by NHS Board, can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

Question reference: S6W-04860

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-04540 by Lorna Slater on 1 December 2021, whether it will provide a breakdown for each local authority of projected (a) cost savings, including how long it will be before those savings are fully realised in each case and (b) losses, as a result of the deposit return scheme.

As per the answer to S6W-04540 on 1 December 2021, we expect that 29 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities will incur a net financial benefit from the implementation of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). This figure is calculated for the first year in which the scheme target is set at 90%, so savings will be realised by 2025.

Local authorities are also expected to benefit from a reduction in the impact of litter, and from efficiencies to collection services following the implementation of DRS. Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) is engaging with the three local authorites currently projected to not to make savings, to explore how such efficiencies may be realised.

These results have been calculated based on commercially sensitive data shared with ZWS by individual local authorities in confidence. It would therefore not be appropriate to provide a breakdown of these results publicly.

Question reference: S6W-04990

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many calls have been made to the Dumb Dumpers phoneline in each year since 2014.

The following table outlines the number of calls made to the Dumb Dumpers hotline each year since 2014. As a result of the cyber attack experienced by SEPA, the Dumb Dumpers Hotline was down between 24 December 2020 and 27 June 2021.

During this time, the public were still able to report flytipping incidents through the online form on the Zero Waste Scotland website.

However, due to this cyber attack, we do not have access to Dumb Dumpers data between 1 November and 24 December 2020.

	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020*	2021**
TOTAL CALLS	1556	1484	1743	1786	1773	1551	703	431

* Figures from 1 June 2020 to 30 October 2020

** Figures from 28 June 2021 to 30 November 2021

Question reference: S6W-04729

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 16 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on developing ecosystem health indicators subsequent to those introduced in 2017, as referenced in one of the supporting documents to the 2018 document, Developing an Environment Strategy for Scotland: Discussion Paper, which states that "work is underway to develop a set of ecosystem health indicators for Scotland which will provide a comprehensive assessment."

There is now a suite of 15 ecosystem health indicators relating to condition, function and resilience of ecosystems, available on Scotland’s Environment Web at: https://www.environment.gov.scot/our-environment/state-of-the-environment/ecosystem-health-indicators/ . NatureScot is currently working on updates to the indicators to take advantage of new data that have become available.

At the time of the 2018 discussion paper, NatureScot and the James Hutton Institute were working to develop two new indicators, for nitrogen pollution and summer temperatures. Both indicators use bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) which are very sensitive to environmental change. This work has been completed and the additional indicators are available on Scotland’s Environment Web, at: https://www.environment.gov.scot/our-environment/state-of-the-environment/ecosystem-health-indicators/resilience-indicators/ .

Question reference: S6W-04807

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 03 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 14 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what carbon metric-based recycling targets it has considered setting for local authorities.

As previously set out, we are working with industry, local government and environmental groups to develop a route map to deliver our waste and recycling targets for 2025. This work will be critical in determining how the waste and resources sector, including local government, will contribute towards lower carbon emissions in the period to 2030 and beyond, including the approach to evaluating progress against our goal to reduce emissions.

Question reference: S6W-04536

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 19 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 7 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of any ministerial meetings that have taken place with Zero Waste Scotland since February 2021.

Zero Waste Scotland officials have met twice with Scottish Government Ministers in the period February 2021 to present.

Details of both occasions are outlined below and include: meeting date, meeting purpose, location and a list of attendees.

19 Aug 21 - Introductory Ministerial Meeting - Virtual via Microsoft Teams

Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport, Michael Matheson
Minister for Environment and Land Reform, Miri McAllan
Vic Emery, Chair, Zero Waste Scotland
Iain Gulland, CEO, Zero Waste Scotland
SG Supporting Officials

27 Sep 21 - Introductory Ministerial Meeting – Virtual via Microsoft Teams

Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, Lorna Slater
Vic Emery, Chair, Zero Waste Scotland
Iain Gulland, CEO, Zero Waste Scotland
SG Supporting Officials

Question reference: S6W-04456

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 29 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding the (a) weight and (b) carbon impact of the single-use (i) plastic cutlery, (ii) plastic plates, (iii) plastic straws, (iv) plastic beverage stirrers and balloon sticks, (v) food containers made of expanded polystyrene and (vi) cups and other beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene, including their covers and lids, that have been used in Scotland in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government commissioned an Environmental Report as part of a comprehensive consultation process prior to the creation of the Single-use Plastic Regulations recently laid before the Scottish Parliament.

This report is published on the Scottish Government’s website here and shows the following estimated yearly figures used in Scotland for the products requested:

Product	Number used in Scotland	Weight	Carbon impact (CO2 equivalent)
Single-use plastic cutlery	276 million	720 tonnes	3,540 tonnes
Single-use plastic plates (including bowls and trays)	50 million	500 tonnes	2,460 tonnes
Single-use plastic straws	300 million	170 tonnes	810 tonnes
Single-use plastic beverage stirrers	9.9 million	10 tonnes	30 tonnes
Single-use plastic balloon sticks	1.7 million	10 tonnes	40 tonnes
Expanded polystyrene food containers	66 million	330 tonnes	2,140 tonnes
Expanded polystyrene drinks containers	45 million	120 tonnes	680 tonnes

Question reference: S6W-04457

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 29 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-04048 by Lorna Slater on 12 November 2021, what its position is on whether sufficient data exists to apply the carbon metric to municipal waste collected by local authorities, and how their recycling performance compares between carbon and weight-based metrics for each available year.

Zero Waste Scotland’s report The Carbon Footprint of Scotland's Household Waste summarises the carbon impacts of Scotland’s household waste using the latest Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) published waste data. This report provides information on the relative carbon and weight-based impacts of Scotland’s waste generated and managed. The most recent data shows that in 2019 the carbon impacts of Scotland’s household waste fell to the lowest on record, 16% below 2011 levels. Further information is available at https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/our-work/carbon-metric-publications .

Data on local authority household recycling rates is published by SEPA and available at https://www.sepa.org.uk/environment/waste/waste-data/waste-data-reporting/household-waste-data/ .

Question reference: S6W-04108

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 18 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on (a) building and (b) testing the IT system required for a deposit return scheme.

Development and implementation of the IT systems required to deliver Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) is a matter for the individual organisations that will play a role in delivering DRS, including the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Circularity Scotland Ltd, and businesses.

SEPA is currently preparing to register producers that fall under the regulations. This includes developing a new digital registration service, which has been designed through targeted user research with expected users of the service. Producers who wish to place scheme articles on the Scottish market will be able to register with SEPA directly or via the Scheme Administrator, Circularity Scotland Ltd.