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: S4W-24113

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 23 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 9 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of the money allocated to mitigating the effects of the so-called bedroom tax in 2015-16 is to be met from Barnett consequentials.

Question reference: S4W-24078

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on the (a) infrastructure and (b) capital investment budget of abandoning the Barnett formula and which infrastructure projects would be affected.

Question reference: S4W-24147

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 5 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been paid to each bus company through the Bus Service Operators Grant in each of the last five years.

A spread sheet showing Bus Service Operator Grant payments to bus operators for the last five financial years has been placed in the Scottish Parliament’s Information Centre, SPICe (Bib number 56657).

For completeness the total figure for each year also includes payments to community transport organisations who are eligible to receive the grant. The total figure for these organisations for each year has also been included on the spread sheet.

In addition to the Bus Service Operators Grant and to reimbursement payments made under the National Concessionary Travel Schemes for older, disabled and young people, the Scottish Government supports bus services and operators through the Bus Investment Fund and the Scottish Green Bus Fund.

The investment made through the Scottish Green Bus Fund since 2010 has amounted to £12.9 million, supporting the addition of 271 low carbon vehicles to the Scottish fleet.

The Bus Investment Fund has awarded grants amounting to £8 million to 30 individual projects over 2013-14 to 2015-16.

Question reference: S4W-24080

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what impact abandoning the Barnett formula would have on (a) public transport and (b) the active travel budget.

Question reference: S4W-24143

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many fines Scottish Water has received for (a) pollution and (b) other environmental issues in each of the last 10 years and what the cost of each fine was.

Information about the number of fines and the cost of each fine in each of the last 10 years is contained in the following chart. Scottish Water takes any pollution incident very seriously and works closely with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and other stakeholders to thoroughly investigate. There are robust emergency procedures which immediately come into effect and Scottish Water’s main priorities are the safety of the public and the protection of the environment.

Scottish Water is focused at preventing issues before they occur and have created a dedicated reporting line for Scottish Water teams to report any incidents and enable them to react quickly to any potential incidents. In day to day operations, wastewater compliance has improved significantly over the past 10 years across Scotland and Scottish Water are committed to delivering further improvements, with a minimum of £490 million of investment in the next period 2015-21 to protect and enhance the environment.

Year

Number of fines

Cost of each fine

2005

Admonished
£7500
£8000
£3000
£5000
£3000
£9000
£1500
£3500
£1000

2006

£2500

£6500

£8000

£4000

£5000

£2000

£3500

2007

£10000

£5000

£3000

2008

£4000

£3000

£4000

£2500

2009

£1000

£1200

£5000

£4000

£1000

Admonished

2010

£2000

£4000

£6667

£12000

£6000

£1700

2011

£2000

£6000

£7500

Admonished

2012

£7500

£5000

£15000

2013

£3750

£6000

2014

£10000

£6000

£12000

£6500

Question reference: S4W-24144

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many claims for damages have been made against Scottish Water in each of the last 10 years.

There has been a significant reduction in claims received by Scottish Water from 2004 to date. During this period Scottish Water has invested over £5 billion across Scotland to improve its service to customers, with massive construction activity to achieve this.

Scottish Water’s health and safety performance has improved dramatically and this has played a positive role in the claims reductions. However, it remains focused on its day to day operations both within Scottish Water and through the activities of its supply chain partners. This shows in the huge reduction of claims over the last 10 years.

Total Number of Incidents:

	Physical damage	Financial loss but no damage	Injury	Utility strikes	Motor claims	Claims from employees	Total
01-04-04 to 31-03-05	769	43	238	314	236	43	1,643
01-04-05 to 31-03-06	872	70	222	258	212	26	1,660
01-04-06 to 31-03-07	755	35	215	182	197	19	1,403
01-04-07 to 31-03-08	637	64	179	201	210	20	1,311
01-04-08 to 31-03-09	503	12	185	163	406	7	1,276
01-04-09 to 31-03-10	467	11	157	104	481	20	1,240
01-04-10 to 31-03-11	517	8	141	66	375	16	1,123
01-04-11 to 31-03-12	443	3	147	168	234	12	1,007
01-04-12 to 31-03-13	435	7	128	89	192	10	861
01-04-13 to 31-03-14	422	5	113	100	140	4	784
01-04-14 to 28-01-15	155	4	41	28	135	5	368
Total	5,975	262	1,766	1,673	2,818	182	12,676

Question reference: S4W-24145

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 30 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the digital exclusion rate is in each (a) city, (b) local authority area, (c) urban area and (d) rural area.

The proportion of households with internet access in Scotland now stands at 80%, compared to 40% at the beginning of 2003.

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) is the Scottish Government’s preferred source of measuring digital participation in Scotland. The large sample size in the SHS allows for robust subgroup analysis, providing robust estimates by for example local authorities and urban rural classification.

The SHS does not provide figures on a city by city basis although three of Scotland’s cities (Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow) are provided within the following local authority tables.

Scottish Household Survey 2013, Proportion of households with internet access at home, by local authority and urban classification

	2013			2013
Local Authority	Access to internet at home	No internet at home	Urban rural classification (2012 definition)	Access to internet at home	No internet at home
South Ayrshire	78	22	Large urban areas	77	22
South Lanarkshire	75	25	Other urban areas	77	23
Stirling	80	20	Accessible small towns	79	21
West Dumbartonshire	73	27	Remote small towns	69	31
West Lothian	83	17	Accessible rural	82	18
Eilean Siar	72	28	Remote rural	86	14
Aberdeen City	80	20	Total	78	22

Proportion of Adults* who make use of the internet for personal use by local authority and urban rural classification.

	2013			2013
Local Authority	Personal use of the internet	Do not use the internet	Urban rural classification (2012 definition)	Personal use of the internet	Do not use the internet
South Ayrshire	78	20	Large urban areas	80	19
South Lanarkshire	74	24	Other urban areas	80	19
Stirling	85	15	Accessible small towns	80	20
West Dumbartonshire	76	24	Remote small towns	75	24
Local Authority	Personal use of the internet	Do not use the internet	Urban rural classification (2012 definition)	Personal use of the internet	Do not use the internet
West Lothian	86	14	Accessible rural	79	20
Eilean Siar	76	22	Remote rural	82	18
Aberdeen City	79	20	Total	80	20

* includes adults aged 16+

Question reference: S4W-24146

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 29 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many claims have been made against local authorities for damages to (a) vehicles, (b) bicycles and (c) other modes of transport caused by potholes.

Question reference: S4O-03982

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it will roll out the Work Programme once it is devolved.

Question reference: S4O-03895

Asked by: Mary Fee, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 January 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether NHS boards are required to undertake adverse incident reviews for patients dying while on the delayed discharge database.