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-23073

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Jobs Grant will be delivered using the Low Income Benefits Agile Service Design contract with IBM.

Question reference: S5W-23233

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) its Social Security Directorate and (b) Social Security Scotland spent on outsourcing companies in 2018-19.

Question reference: S5W-23235

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many Capita staff are or have previously been employed in (a) its Social Security Directorate and (b) Social Security Scotland.

Social Security Scotland and Social Security Directorate do not currently and have not previously engaged any agency workers from Capita.

Both Social Security Scotland and Social Security Directorate operate under the Scottish Government Temporary and Interim Staff Services Framework. Capita are not included within this framework.

We do not hold information on the previous employers of our permanent staff.

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-23240

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 28 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much Social Security Scotland expects to spend on face-to-face disability assessments.

Question reference: S5W-23241

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 28 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether Social Security Scotland has placed a limit on its budget for expenditure on face-to-face disability assessments and, if so, how much.

Question reference: S5W-23020

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 22 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-21291 by Aileen Campbell on 18 February 2019, whether the topic of an income supplement has been (a) discussed at and (b) included on the agenda of any meetings of the Joint Ministerial Working Group on Welfare, and, if (i) so, on what dates and what the outcome was and (ii) not, whether it will consider raising the issue at future meetings.

To date, discussions on the development of the income supplement have taken place at an official level and these are ongoing as the policy continues to be developed.

Scottish Ministers have regular discussions with UK counterparts, including through the Joint Ministerial Working Group on Welfare, and we will engage with them where necessary on the income supplement through the appropriate forums as this work develops.

Question reference: S5W-23039

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-18779 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 27 September 2018, what discussions it has had with the DWP regarding recovery of overpayment debt since the date of the answer, and whether it will publish this correspondence.

Scottish Government officials have had regular discussions with their DWP counterparts about a range of issues relating to Carer benefits including the recovery of overpayments. Additionally, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People wrote to the UK Government Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 9 May 2019 to request that the individual circumstances of those who had incurred overpayments should be taken into account and no-one placed into hardship as a result or prosecuted as a result of a genuine error.

Question reference: S5W-23040

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will request from the DWP, under its agency agreement, the number of carer's allowance overpayments that have been discovered as a result of the DWP Verify Earnings and Pensions Alerts service; what the value is of these overpayments, and how many claimants are affected.

Question reference: S5W-23036

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many carer's allowance claimants have an outstanding (a) overpayment and (b) fraud debt, broken down by the (i) value of the debt, (ii) year the debt was discovered, (iii) year the debt is attributable to and (iv) whether the claimant has an active payment or underlying entitlement of carer's allowance.

Question reference: S5W-23072

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 21 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to extend the Low Income Benefits Agile Service Design contract with IBM, and whether discussions regarding an extension to the contract have been requested.