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-20193

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government when it will hold its planned summit on minority ethnic employment and enterprise in 2018, and whether this will take place before the end of the year.

Question reference: S5W-20165

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 23 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-02679 by Jeane Freeman on 28 September 2016, how many families would currently benefit from extending eligibility for Winter Fuel Payments to families with children in receipt of the highest care component of the Disability Living Allowance.

Question reference: S5W-20166

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 23 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-19500 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 November 2018, whether the DWP is aware of its ambition to extend winter fuel payment to families with severely disabled children.

The Scottish Government set out its' ambition to extend Winter Fuel Payments to families with disabled children on the higher rate of DLA as part of the Consultation on Social Security in Scotland in July 2016.

The commitment to extending winter fuel payments to families with severely disabled children was also included in our Programme for Government published in September 2016. Details of our Programme for Government were shared with the UK government as a matter of course.

We are actively working with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the devolution of powers works for both the people of Scotland the UK.

Question reference: S5W-20275

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-19666 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 13 November 2018, whether it will explain in more detail the reasons for suppressing some of the monitoring data; how it assessed that publishing the data would present a risk of possible disclosure, and what the risk is of potential disclosure.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 impose obligations on the use of all personal data held by the Scottish Government. They require personal data to be processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security and confidentiality of the personal data.

Most employee (or prospective employee) diversity information is classed as special category data under data protection laws which requires greater care when processing to protect security and confidentiality.

Producing data sets with less than 5 counts, risks being able to link that data to individuals and hence to identify them. For this reason, the data is suppressed.

Question reference: S5W-20329

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what review and assessment it has carried out of the effectiveness of the Universal Credit Scottish choices scheme.

Question reference: S5W-20331

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government further to the answer to question S5W-19399 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 5 November 2018, how many (a) payments of carer's allowance supplement have been recovered and (b) times the recovery process has been initiated.

Question reference: S5W-20328

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the social return on investment of the Universal Credit Scottish choices scheme.

Question reference: S5W-20332

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-19399 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 5 November 2018, what information it receives from the DWP in the event that someone, who was receiving carer's allowance and living in Scotland on the qualifying dates for carer’s allowance supplement for the purposes of paying the supplement, is subsequently found to have been overpaid, and how Social Security Scotland uses that information for the purposes of administering and recovering the carer's allowance supplement.

Question reference: S5W-20267

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 11 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S5W-19085 and S5W-19086 by Jamie Hepburn on 24 October and 13 November 2018 respectively, in light of the report, Scotland’s Devolved Employment Services, not setting out this data, whether it will provide the information that was requested and confirm how (a) many performance-related fees have been paid to Fair Start Scotland providers based on the (i) 13- and (ii) 26-week employment milestones, and what the value of these fees is, and (b) much has been paid in service fees to Fair Start Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-20268

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many members of the Social Security Scotland (a) senior management team and (b) executive advisory body identify as black or minority ethnic (BME).