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: S5W-26071

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with NHS Fife and Fife Health and Social Care regarding the reason that the St Andrews out-of-hours group was not involved in the re-design of the out-of-hours service.

I have received assurances from Fife Health and Social Care Partnership (the HSCP) that the St Andrews Out of Hours (SA OOH) group has had every opportunity to participate in discussions around the redesign of the out of hours service. The HSCP held the following meetings and workshops involving SA OOH group members:

14 engagement meetings with the action groups since January 2019 - this includes two communications sub groups which a member of the action group has joined
5 workshops - 1 as background preparation for the addendum workshops, 2 addendum workshops, 1 Equality Impact Assessment Workshop on the proposal, 1 communication sub group development session
3 Facilitated Participation Request meetings led by NHS Fife, and one private meeting between NHS Fife and the group
2 delegations at the Integrated Joint Board (IJB)

In addition, last week members of the SA OOH group met with the IJB Chair, Director of the HSCP, members of the IJB, the HSCP Associate Medical Director, and Associate Director of Nursing to discuss the changes to Urgent Care and communication and engagement with the SA OOH Group.

Moving forward, members of the SA OOH group will continue to meet with the HSCP Associate Medical Director, Associate Director of Nursing, Divisional General Manager, Service Manager and Change Manager on a regular basis to discuss and understand how the service changes within Urgent Care are embedding.

Question reference: S5O-03723

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 October 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the latest applicants to the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund.

Question reference: S5O-03566

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Ash Denham on 19 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government within what timescale it plans to deliver a single national computer network for Police Scotland.

The delivery of police ICT projects, is a matter for the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) and the Chief Constable.

Police Scotland is investing £3.9m in a national computer network to improve service and efficiency across Scotland. This will deliver increased network performance, stability and capability by removing legacy network services. This is currently being rolled out across the country.

While Audit Scotland found that recommended good practice was followed in the planning and procurement of the i6 programme, Police Scotland has learned lessons from this and from other projects, as outlined in the Audit Scotland report: Principles for a digital future: Lessons learned from public sector ICT project . These lessons have been built into Police Scotland’s outline business case for the development of Digital, Data and ICT (DDICT) capabilities. The agreement reached with the provider of i6 ensured that there was no financial detriment to Police Scotland or to the public purse.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the transformation of policing as outlined in the ten year policing strategy, Serving A Changing Scotland . Improved DDICT capability is key to this. To support this, we have continued police reform funding, with £28.6 million available in the current financial year.

The 2019-20 policing budget also includes a 52% increase in the capital allocation. In addition we have ensured that policing will benefit from being able to reclaim VAT of around £25 million a year, previously paid to the UK Government, bringing Police Scotland into line with every other police service in the UK.

This funding is supporting the development of a new national computer network, the rationalisation of core ICT systems and the roll out of mobile devices to police officers across Scotland.

We continue to press the UK Government to refund the £125 million paid by Police Scotland in VAT between 2013 and 2018.

Question reference: S5O-03576

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £1.2 billion of recent Barnett consequential funding will be allocated to education.

Question reference: S5W-24887

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 12 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when the new careers strategy will be published.

The new careers strategy is being developed collaboratively by the Scottish Government and representation from across the careers sector. A steering group was established consisting of representation from Skills Development Scotland, Universities Scotland, Colleges Scotland, DWP, Education Scotland, AGCAS, the Scottish Funding Council and the SCQFP. The development process is being overseen by two expert independent advisors.

The strategy will be published in due course.

Question reference: S5W-24941

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Broad General Education (BGE) benchmarking tool, including the school level information dashboard, is (a) fully operational and (b) available to all local authorities and schools.

The Broad General Education (BGE) benchmarking tool is fully operational and available to all teachers who have a registered account on Glow: https://glowconnect.org.uk/ . It is also available to other staff on request. The School Information Dashboards are also fully operational, and publicly available to anyone via the Scottish Government Education Analytical Services tableau website:https://public.tableau.com/profile/sg.eas.learninganalysis#!/ .

Question reference: S5O-03509

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to ensure the impartiality of its planned citizens’ assembly.

Question reference: S5W-24833

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many Attainment Advisors have been deployed in each local authority in each of the last three years.

All 32 Local Authorities have had an Attainment Advisor working either full-time or part-time with their designated local authority.

For the three year period 2016-17, 2017-18 & 2018-19 13 Local Authorities had access to a full-time Attainment Advisor and the remaining 19 had access to a part-time Attainment Advisor.

Over the course of 2019 Education Scotland has been recruiting to ensure all 32 Local Authorities have access to a dedicated Attainment Advisor. At the start of session 2019-20 19 local authorities had access to a dedicated Attainment Advisor and by October 2019 this will be the case in all 32 local authorities.

Question reference: S5W-24690

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 29 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many examination markers who were appointed for the 2019 diet of SQA qualifications left their posts before the end of the marking period.

Question reference: S5O-03195

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the impact will be on benefit recipients of the expansion to 1,140 hours of funded childcare.