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-06917

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 27 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government on what date the recruitment process for the social security experience panels opened.

Question reference: S5W-06914

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 27 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when the social security experience panels will first meet.

Question reference: S5W-06918

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 27 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether the social security experience panels are being delivered by it or an external organisation.

Question reference: S5W-06916

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 06 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 27 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many people had applied to join the social security experience panels as of 31 January 2017, and how many of these had been accepted.

Question reference: S5W-07172

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 24 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the test for absolute poverty in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill is reliant on net household income for the financial year 2010-11.

The absolute poverty target measures whether the poorest families are seeing their incomes rise over time (in real terms). It requires a choice of baseline year that is both sufficiently recent to reflect contemporary living standards and sufficiently far in the past to allow meaningful change to occur over time.

The Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill initially sets the baseline year for the absolute child poverty target as 2010-11 – the baseline used in the UK Child Poverty Act 2010 – but allows for the base year to be adjusted to better reflect contemporary living standards in advance of the target year 2030-31.

Question reference: S5W-06728

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 24 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what target it uses for reducing the rate of disability poverty.

The Scottish Government does not have a specific disability poverty target rate.

However our delivery plan ‘A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People’ sets out five long term ambitions aimed at changing the lives of disabled people in Scotland and ensuring that human rights are realised.

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/12/3778

The plan sets out 93 actions which will be taken forward during the current parliamentary term, and includes halving the employment gap between disabled people and the rest of the working age population; setting a target to increase the percentage of disabled people in the public sector workforce; and increasing supply of wheelchair accessible housing.

Question reference: S5O-00697

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 23 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have applied to join the social security experience panels, and how many have been accepted.

As I referenced in my statement to Parliament, I will announce more details on the Experience Panels in the next few weeks.

In advance of recruitment launching, those interested in taking part can email the Scottish Government researchers who are setting up the panels at [email protected]. Details of those who have contacted us have been stored securely, and individuals will be
re-contacted with more information about how to register for the Panels when recruitment launches.

Question reference: S5F-00910

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 20 February 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2017

To ask the First Minister for what reason the wealth gap between rich and poor in Scotland is widening.

Question reference: S5W-07115

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 20 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-06495 by Angela Constance on 6 February 2017, when it will publish the minutes of (a) the meeting of 15 December 2016 and (b) all other fuel poverty forum meetings that have taken place since April 2016.

The minutes of the Fuel Poverty Forum meeting held on 16 December 2016 will be approved at the next meeting of the Fuel Poverty Forum to be held on 20 April and will be published on the Scottish Government website thereafter.

The Scottish Fuel Poverty Forum minutes of 27 April 2016 and 24 August 2016 are available on the Scottish Government’s website: https://beta.gov.scot/groups/fuel-poverty-forum/

Question reference: S5W-06727

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 20 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how it records and reports on the disability poverty rate.

The disability poverty rate is published each year in the ‘Poverty equality analysis’ and ‘Characteristics of poverty’ analysis on the poverty statistics pages of the Scottish Government website: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/IncomePoverty. It is also subsequently published on the Equality Evidence Finder: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Equality/Equalities/DataGrid.

An individual is identified as being in relative poverty if they are living in a household whose total equivalised household income (including all earnings, benefits, pensions etc.) is below 60% of the UK median (middle) household income in that year.

Disability poverty rates are published showing both the proportion of people in a family with a disabled adult who are in relative poverty and the proportion of people in a family with a disabled child who are in poverty.

More information on the way in which poverty rates are calculated can be found in the Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland publication:http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/IncomePoverty