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-23458

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when the review of the social security programme finance functions across the programme and agency (a) began and (b) is expected to conclude.

Question reference: S5W-23424

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government which branches form the Social Security Reserved Benefits and Strategic Engagement Division; what the function of each is, and how many staff there are in each, broken down by (a) headcount and (b) FTE.

The Social Security Reserved Benefits and Strategic Engagement Division consists of two units; the Reserved Benefits Policy Unit and the Stakeholder Insights and Strategic Engagement Unit.

The following table details the current functions of each branch.

RESERVED BENEFITS POLICY UNIT

STAKEHOLDER INSIGHTS AND STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT UNIT

Universal Credit and Working Age Benefits team

Income Supplement, Child Benefit and State Pensions team

Stakeholder Insights team

Strategic Engagements team

The figures in the table below provide a breakdown of (a) headcount and (b) Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staff numbers as of 1 July 2019.

RESERVED BENEFITS POLICY UNIT		STAKEHOLDER INSIGHTS AND STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT UNIT
Headcount	FTE	Headcount	FTE
7	7	9	8.7
Headcount total: 17*		FTE total: 16.7*

*Total includes the Head of Division

Question reference: S5W-23369

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether service design of Disability Assistance for Children and Young People is contingent on the outcome of its consultation on disability assistance in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-23361

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-22962 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 2 May 2019, whether it can now provide the information that was requested regarding how many of its social security (a) programme, (b) directorate and (c) agency staff have previously been employed by the DWP, in light of the comment by Audit Scotland at Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee on 16 May 2019 (Official Report, c.5) that "there are lots of people working in the programme who have worked at the Department for Work and Pensions or in other big change programmes across the UK, and they bring that experience into the Scottish Government", and what information it supplied to Audit Scotland to support the evidence that was provided.

The Scottish Government record when an individual joins the organisation from another government department, but not which department it is. As previously stated, it is therefore not possible to report on the number of staff who have previously worked for the Department for Work and Pensions.

Audit Scotland spoke with programme and agency staff during the reporting process, and would likely have drawn on these conversations for anecdotal information relating to where staff members had previously worked.

Question reference: S5W-23367

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when the findings of its consultation on disability assistance in Scotland will be published.

Question reference: S5W-23368

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when service design of Disability Assistance for Children and Young People will begin.

Question reference: S5W-23204

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) its Social Security Directorate and (b) Social Security Scotland paid to Capita in 2018-19, and what these payments were for.

1. Social Security Directorate:

Capita Business Services Limited – SWAN	£248,936.70	IT services - Networks.
Capita IT services Limited	£41,859.77	IT services – Firewalls.
Capita Resourcing Limited	£110,886.80	Recruitment support - independent skills assessments
Capita Resourcing Limited t/a veredus Executive Resourcing	£5,460	Recruitment support - independent skills assessments
Grand Total	£407,143.27

2. Social Security Scotland:

Capita IT Services Limited Total	£41,859.77	IT services – Networks.
Capita Resourcing Limited Total	£58,306.33	Recruitment support - independent skills assessments
Grand Total	£100,166.10

3. We have made a clear commitment that profit making companies will not be involved in delivering assessments for disability benefits once devolved to Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-23270

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 17 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason Social Security Scotland's Workforce Planning Group has not yet met.

Social Security Scotland works closely with the Social Security Programme on the long-term strategic workforce requirements of the devolution of benefits.

The Social Security Scotland workforce planning group is an operational working level group to embed those requirements into its recruitment activities. It was specifically initiated to manage the disability benefits and has been set up to meet at an appropriate time to manage those plans.

Question reference: S5W-23366

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what policy work is being done to consider the alignment of disability benefits with existing devolved services.

Question reference: S5W-23273

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 17 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether Social Security Scotland has submitted unaudited annual accounts with a complete working papers package or is expected to meet the latest submission date of 3 June 2019.