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: S6W-21641

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 4 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the total budget has been for Scotland Innovates in each year since its introduction.

Question reference: S6W-21640

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 4 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many submissions to Scotland Innovates have started the development process, but were not taken forward, in each year since the scheme was introduced.

In total 63 submissions have been closed – 36 were closed during the 2022-23 FY and 27 have been closed during the 2023-24 FY so far. Of those, 45 have been deemed “unsuccessful”; 27 in the 2022-23 FY and 18 in the 2023-24 FY so far.

For the purposes of Scotland Innovates the following defined closure reasons have been considered “unsuccessful”:

Closure Reason	Number of Submissions
Closed – Duplicate Submission	4
Closed – Innovator did not respond	17
Closed and assessed	8
Closed at Innovator’s request	1
No assessor interested (no current interest from the assessor group)	5
Not applicable for public sector	1
Not business ready (not currently in a business readiness state)	4
Not innovative (many solutions and/or services of like on the market)	5

Question reference: S6W-21609

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 4 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide the business case for including Land and Buildings Transaction Tax relief as part of its Green Freeports initiative.

Question reference: S6W-21636

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 3 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how much of the Scottish Industry Emerging Energy Technologies Fund has been allocated, and for what purpose.

The Emerging Energy Technologies Fund (EETF) is a £180m package of funding up to 2025/26 that will provide capital support to accelerate low-carbon infrastructure projects and unlock private sector co-investment that will be essential to deliver net zero.

Through the EETF, we have committed up to £100 million to renewable hydrogen funding this Parliamentary term. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21610 on 29 September 2023.

The remaining up to £80m has been made available for Carbon Capture Utilisation and Support (CCUS). Due to the unfortunate delays from the UK Government in confirming Acorn and the associated emitter projects, it has not yet been possible to deploy support from the EETF for CCUS. We are committed to supporting and accelerating the deployment of the Acorn project and the Scottish Cluster but until the UK Government award Acorn and the emitter projects, it is not possible to move forward with investment decisions.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-21642

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the proportion of undisputed invoices to each (a) of its directorates, (b) of its agencies and (c) non-departmental public body that was paid within five days, in each year since 2011.

The Scottish Government is committed to paying its contractors promptly, and has a commitment to pay all valid invoices within 10 days of receipt, going beyond the contractual responsibility to pay within 30 days. Systems and processes are in place to monitor and maintain performance data against this 10 day prompt payment target for each Director General area within the core Scottish Government and where payment services are provided centrally for relevant agencies.

Since 2014, the Scottish Government has also maintained a top level figure for the percentage of valid invoices paid within 5 days across the whole of the Scottish Government and its agencies, as shown in the table below. However, as systems are calibrated to report on the 10 prompt payment commitment, it is not possible to break this down further into directorate or agency reports.

Financial Year	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
% paid in 5 days (inc EPC)*	Not reported	Not reported	Not reported	77.8	79.6	79.7	79.7	84.6	83.8	78.4	75.2	80.3
% paid in 10 days (inc EPC)*	96.8	97.6	98.5	98.5	98.4	98.6	98.2	99.0	98.7	97.6	97.1	97.3

*The figure shows the percentage of payments made within 5 and 10 days, inclusive of payments made via the government electronic procurement card

Question reference: S6W-21629

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 that require recipients to both pay the real Living Wage and provide appropriate channels for effective worker voice, broken down by the value of each grant.

As Mr Johnson notes, the new requirement on grants has been in place since July this year. We are currently focussed on supporting all government portfolios and public bodies across Scotland to implement the new conditions.

Monitoring compliance with Fair Work First principles, including the requirements to pay workers at least the real Living Wage and provide appropriate channels for effective voice, is the responsibility of individual grant managers across government and of relevant funders across the wider public sector. It takes place within existing grant assurance and monitoring processes, as with any other condition of grant, such as agreed outcomes.

Where exceptions to the mandatory grant requirements are applied, grant managers are asked to record these. This information will be requested and collated at the end of the financial year.

Question reference: S6W-21631

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 without requiring recipients to provide appropriate channels for effective worker voice, broken down by the value of each grant.

Question reference: S6W-21630

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 without requiring recipients to pay the real Living Wage, broken down by the value of each grant.

Question reference: S6W-21604

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the implementation of the recommendations of the Pathways: A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship report, including, as stated in its response to the report, progress on the (a) allocation of "funding to support the report's key recommendations" and (b) development of "proposals for the report's core recommendations on pre-start centres and pop-up business supports".

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Pathways report.

In this financial year we have:

Continued to provide funding to Women’s Enterprise Scotland, Investing Women and Business Women Scotland to allow existing programmes to continue ahead of a shift to competitive funding in future years;
Renewed funding to Scotland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a further round of the Scottish Ecosystem Fund, widened to offer support to projects that address the Pathways review’s key themes; and
As the first phase of work to develop Pre-Start and Pop-Up business supports we have launched the £1.5 million Pathways Pre-Start Fund allocating funding to projects that offer pre-start support and advice to individuals or groups, with emphasis on widening access to primary carers and under-represented groups.

The Scottish Government will work with our agencies and delivery partners to further develop proposals for the report’s core recommendations on pre-start centres and pop-up business supports, incorporating the knowledge gained from the Ecosystem and Pathways Pre-Start funds with the intention to allow broader services to commence in 2024.

Question reference: S6W-21632

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 2 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many public sector grants have been awarded since 1 July 2023 without requiring recipients to pay the real Living Wage or provide appropriate channels for effective worker voice, broken down by the value of each grant.