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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 3611 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-13144

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 5 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people have been removed from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting lists in each NHS board in each year since 1999.

This data is not centrally available; aggregated data for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Waiting Times is sent to PHS from each NHS Board. It does not contain any information specifically on the number of young people removed from waiting lists, it reports on the number of referrals for young people to services, numbers waiting to start treatment and total waiting, and then numbers for those who started treatment and those who’s referral was rejected / not accepted (with both outcomes resulting in them being removed from the waiting list).

Table 1 shows the number of young people that started treatment – i.e. resulting in them being removed from waiting lists - and Table 2 shows the number that were not accepted for treatment therefore removed from waiting lists. The figures are presented by NHS Board of Treatment and relate to the financial years 2014-15 to 2021-22.

Data from 2012 has been published on the Information Services Division website, but data prior to 2014 is from a period when the aggregate dataset in development and is not regarded as reliable compared to more recently collected data. All data presented in Tables 1 and 2 has been previously published, however the data presented has been newly extracted and analysed to take account of subsequent data resubmissions to provide the most accurate figures. Therefore figures below may differ slightly to previously published figures for some years.

Table 1: People who started treatment in CAMHS from April 2014 to September 2022, by NHS Board of Treatment.

	Financial Year
	2014 - 2015	2015 - 2016	2016 – 2017	2017 - 2018	2018 - 2019	2019 - 2020	2020 - 2021	2021 - 2022	Apr 2022 - Sep 2022
Scotland	15,324	17,703	17,582	15,526	17,693	15,937	15,860	18,052	10,195
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	1,091	1,062	1,125	1,311	1,188	1,212	1,139	1,527	676
NHS Borders	596	682	739	353	390	417	187	331	227
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	395	405	436	519	631	573	455	712	462
NHS Fife	1,314	1,370	1,291	1,295	1,343	1,322	1,246	1,561	684
NHS Forth Valley	512	1,086	1,299	1,196	1,469	1,025	594	406	300
NHS Grampian	1,330	1,375	1,368	1,235	1,212	1,319	1,355	1,565	526
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	4,461	4,002	3,910	3,551	4,412	3,133	5,468	5,771	4,141
NHS Highland	224	514	844	505	705	746	697	852	384
NHS Lanarkshire	1,917	1,948	1,799	1,768	2,006	1,889	973	873	504
NHS Lothian	1,867	2,865	2,862	2,572	2,830	2,999	2,232	2,934	1,560
NHS Orkney	51	48	59	64	56	61	63	..	23
NHS Shetland	48	32	63	76	93	73	75	91	52
NHS Tayside	1,441	2,197	1,665	959	1,268	1,053	1,260	1,303	588
NHS Western Isles	77	117	122	122	90	115	116	126	68

Table 2: People not accepted by CAMHS from April 2014 to September 2022, by NHS Board of Treatment.

	Financial Year
	2014 - 2015	2015 - 2016	2016 - 2017	2017 - 2018	2018 - 2019	2019 - 2020	2020 - 2021	2021 - 2022	Apr 2022 - Sep 2022
Scotland	5,298	5,885	7,046	7,212	7,734	7,751	6,678	9,036	4,232
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	516	320	410	428	380	794	381	292	114
NHS Borders	83	85	176	189	181	195	162	215	114
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	213	189	156	222	255	328	238	473	143
NHS Fife	254	339	320	338	570	471	509	505	263
NHS Forth Valley	214	221	339	283	494	367	467	934	222
NHS Grampian	516	553	530	431	502	630	729	978	477
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	2,177	2,556	2,330	2,088	1,139	843	1,113	2,086	1,195
NHS Highland	..	58	45	4	352	371	222	355	124
NHS Lanarkshire	298	417	845	975	1,148	1,347	1,211	1,154	345
NHS Lothian	347	495	1,253	1,437	1,681	1,448	985	1,433	746
NHS Orkney	13	0	5	0	0	1	6	..	22
NHS Shetland	23	5	3	4	9	26	41	35	5
NHS Tayside	643	646	631	794	1,001	918	614	576	482
NHS Western Isles	1	1	3	19	22	12	0	0	0

Question reference: S6W-13138

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 22 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to extend eligibility for the Winter Heating Payment to terminally ill people.

Our approach to supporting people who have a terminal illness is demonstrated in the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, which introduced a new definition of terminal illness. Rather than imposing an arbitrary life expectancy, the clinical judgement of the person’s doctor or nurse is relied upon. This allows people who have been diagnosed as having a terminal illness to receive fast-tracked access to Child Disability Payment or Adult Disability Payment

It is already the case that people who receive a disability benefit in relation to their terminal illness may be eligible to receive a Winter Heating Payment, where they otherwise meet the criteria for eligibility for the Payment. Any further developments to Winter Heating Payment including amendments to eligibility criteria will be considered once the new benefit is being delivered and its initial evaluation is complete.

Question reference: S6W-13133

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been recovered from each local authority from COVID-19-related reserves.

The Scottish Government has not recovered and has no plans to recover any COVID-19 related funding from councils. Individual councils continue to have complete autonomy to allocate their reserves based on local needs and priorities.

The Scottish Ministers provided £145 million in Covid support grants to local government between 2019-20 and 2021-22 (TBC).

This included £95m for Hospitality and Leisure, £9.5 million for Public House Table Service, £4.7 million for Nightclub Closure, £1.2 million for Scottish Brewers, £29.4 million for Taxi and Private Hire and £5.5 million for Business Ventilation.

Local authorities have confirmed that £32 million has not been spent. Consideration of amounts to be recovered from local authorities is ongoing and therefore I cannot provide figures at this time. However, I would be happy to provide those figures once they are available.

Question reference: S6W-13328

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 22 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when the Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel last met and what actions were agreed.

The Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel (“the Panel”) is an independent advisory Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB). The Panel’s secretariat can be contacted by emailing [email protected] for the requested information, as this information is not held by the Scottish Government. However, my officials were invited for a part of the most recent meeting of the Panel on 28 November for a discussion on the Fuel Poverty and Heat in Buildings Strategies.

Question reference: S6W-13153

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 22 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had regarding a review of the funding formula for local government.

Question reference: S6O-01759

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what cross-government review it has undertaken of policies supporting children with autism, including any assessment of the links between autism and other conditions, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Question reference: S6W-13142

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many households have been estimated to be in energy debt in each year since 1999.

Energy debt is a matter reserved to the UK Government, so the Scottish Government does not hold this information. I suggest contacting Ofgem in the first instance.

Scottish Government analysts have estimated that the UK Government’s current price cap (Energy Price Guarantee) of £2,500 puts 860,000 (34%) of households in Scotland in fuel poverty and 600,000 (24%) in extreme fuel poverty. In line with the Energy Price Guarantee rising by £500 from April 2023, we estimate that there will be around 980,000 fuel poor households in total (39%) and 860,000 in extreme fuel poverty (34%).

Question reference: S6W-13141

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many households have been on pre-payment meters in each year since 1999.

The Scottish Government does not hold all of this information. However, a question added to the Scottish Housing Condition Survey in 2016 to allow for more accurate fuel bill estimation means that we are able to provide figures from 2016 in the following table.

Due to enforced changes in response to Covid-19 restrictions the 2020 SHCS was not completed and it was not possible to collect this data as part of the 2021 SHCS. This data is being collected as part of the 2022 SHCS which we expect to publish in late 2023 / early 2024.

Year	Number of households with PPM Meters	Percentage of households with PPM Meters
2016	565,000	23%
2017	529,000	21%
2018	467,000	19%
2019	421,000	17%

Question reference: S6W-13160

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many additional support needs assessments have taken place in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-12735

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 19 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is regarding the impact in Scotland of the UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry, The right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976.