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-14123

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 26 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 February 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of all meetings between ministers and members or former members of the Scottish Police Authority Board since 2015, including whether there was a minute taken of the meeting.

Question reference: S5T-00900

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 29 January 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported allegations of “government interference” in the independence of the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner.

Question reference: S5W-13862

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 26 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the effectiveness of the relationship between the Scottish Police Authority and ministers and officials, and whether it plans to review this relationship.

Question reference: S5W-13864

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 26 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of what (a) meetings and (a) phone calls there have been between ministers and members of the board of the Scottish Police Authority, and which of these were minuted.

Question reference: S5W-13863

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 24 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that lawyers from the Edinburgh Bar Association have unanimously voted to resign from the police station duty scheme and that the Glasgow Bar Association is due to vote on this, what action it plans to address the reported concerns regarding the workload issues that are associated with the scheme.

The Scottish Government supports the increased rights to legal advice in police stations that the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 provides, as did the Scottish Parliament in passing the Act.

When part 1 of the Act commences on 25 January 2018 the Scottish Legal Aid Board have arrangements in place to ensure that all those entitled to access to solicitor advise while in police custody will receive it.

Question reference: S5W-13798

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 24 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason there is a gap in the publication of statistics for racist incidents recorded by the Police Scotland, and when they will next be published.

In the latest publication of racist incidents recorded by the police in Scotland, we outlined for users our plan to scope out the possibility of replacing this bulletin with a new and broader product on police recorded hate crime. This would include information on other strands of hate crime recorded by the police, in addition to retaining data on hate incidents with a race element. Scottish Government statisticians have been working with Police Scotland as it develops the data it holds on its existing systems, and we anticipate an update early this year on the outcome of this work and plans for a new publication. This will be circulated to users through the Scotstat network (http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/scotstat)

Question reference: S5W-13799

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 23 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason there is a gap in the publication of prison statistics and population projections, and when they will next be published.

Scottish Government prison population data from 2014-15 onwards have been affected by a technical issue with the underlying dataset which limits the range of data that can currently be provided. Potential solutions are under investigation and in the interim, although not published in the form of National Statistics, data is being extracted directly from the Scottish Prison Service's management information systems. Up-to-date weekly and yearly data on the population in custody broken down by type of custody, gender and age can be found at: http://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Information/SPSPopulation.aspx.

Question reference: S5W-13535

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 December 2017
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 16 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will cost (a) it, (b) its agencies, (c) other public bodies and (d) local authorities to (i) set up and (ii) administer the proposed five-band Scottish income tax structure.

HMRC have estimated annual running costs of between £1.5 and £2m if income tax rates and bands remained the same as the rest of the UK. A more significant divergence between the rates and bands that apply in Scotland when compared to the rest of the UK may lead to an increase in costs of up to a total of £5m.

HMRC estimate total implementation costs of between £20m and £25m for the Scottish Rate of Income Tax, with a further £2.6m for the Scotland Act 2016 income tax powers. These costs are required to implement the income tax powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament in Scotland Acts 2012 and 2016, and are independent of the rates and bands the Scottish Parliament sets.

Question reference: S5W-13698

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 08 January 2018
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government when it will announce a replacement programme for school building.

Question reference: S5W-13384

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2017
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 January 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what the pupil teacher ratio has been, excluding the teachers funded through Attainment Scotland Fund or Pupil Equity Fund, over each of the last three years, broken down by those employed (a) in early learning and childcare settings, (b) in primary schools, (c) in secondary schools, (d) in special schools and (e) centrally and also broken down by local authority.

Information on teachers funded through Attainment Scotland Fund or Pupil Equity Fund and working in the early learning and childcare sector is not held centrally. Pupil teacher ratios (PTR) are not calculated for the centrally employed sector as no pupils are assigned to that sector. Centrally employed teachers are included in the all sector PTR.

Information on the sector of teachers funded through the Attainment Scotland Fund (and therefore PTR) is not available for the 2015 or 2016 statistics.

Pupil teacher ratio excluding teachers funded through Attainment Scotland Fund

Including teachers in primary, secondary, special and centrally employed sectors

September 2015

Local authority	PTR
Aberdeen City	13.6
Aberdeenshire	13.3
Angus	13.2
Argyll & Bute	12.4
Clackmannanshire	13.5

Dumfries & Galloway	12.7
Dundee City	13.0
East Ayrshire	13.9
East Dunbartonshire	13.6
East Lothian	15.1

East Renfrewshire	13.7
Edinburgh City	14.9
Na h-Eileanan Siar	10.3
Falkirk	13.5
Fife	14.0

Glasgow City	13.8
Highland	13.1
Inverclyde	13.5
Midlothian	14.2
Moray	13.7

North Ayrshire	13.6
North Lanarkshire	14.4
Orkney Islands	10.4
Perth & Kinross	13.3
Renfrewshire	14.6

Scottish Borders	13.8
Shetland Islands	10.0
South Ayrshire	13.2
South Lanarkshire	13.7
Stirling	13.4

West Dunbartonshire	13.6
West Lothian	14.1

All local authorities	13.7

Pupil teacher ratio excluding teachers funded through Attainment Scotland Fund

Including teachers in primary, secondary, special and centrally employed sectors

September 2016

Local authority	PTR
Aberdeen City	14.0
Aberdeenshire	13.4
Angus	13.3
Argyll & Bute	12.3
Clackmannanshire	12.6

Dumfries & Galloway	12.7
Dundee City	13.3
East Ayrshire	14.0
East Dunbartonshire	13.5
East Lothian	15.4

East Renfrewshire	13.7
Edinburgh City	15.1
Na h-Eileanan Siar	10.5
Falkirk	13.5
Fife	14.1

Glasgow City	13.8
Highland	13.1
Inverclyde	13.5
Midlothian	14.2
Moray	14.1

North Ayrshire	13.7
North Lanarkshire	14.3
Orkney Islands	10.4
Perth & Kinross	13.6
Renfrewshire	14.3

Scottish Borders	13.9
Shetland Islands	10.2
South Ayrshire	13.4
South Lanarkshire	13.7
Stirling	13.2

West Dunbartonshire	13.5
West Lothian	14.1

All local authorities	13.7

Pupil teacher ratio excluding teachers funded through Attainment Scotland Fund

Primary, secondary and special sectors

September 2017

	PTR
Local authority	Primary	Secondary	Special	All sectors
Aberdeen City	16.8	12.1	2.9	14.0
Aberdeenshire	15.3	12.0	4.0	13.3
Angus	15.5	11.7	n/a	13.3
Argyll & Bute	14.5	11.0	2.9	12.5
Clackmannanshire	15.2	11.5	1.6	12.9

Dumfries & Galloway	15.6	11.7	1.8	12.8
Dundee City	16.9	12.0	4.3	13.8
East Ayrshire	17.2	11.9	4.8	13.8
East Dunbartonshire	17.2	12.1	3.7	13.6
East Lothian	18.9	12.5	n/a	15.2

East Renfrewshire	16.1	12.0	4.6	13.7
Edinburgh City	19.3	12.9	3.9	15.2
Na h-Eileanan Siar	11.6	9.3	n/a	10.3
Falkirk	17.1	11.1	3.2	13.5
Fife	16.6	12.7	1.6	14.1

Glasgow City	18.0	12.4	4.0	14.1
Highland	16.1	11.5	3.1	13.1
Inverclyde	16.1	12.2	4.0	13.5
Midlothian	17.5	12.6	3.5	14.2
Moray	17.2	12.2	n/a	14.0

North Ayrshire	15.9	12.3	4.8	13.5
North Lanarkshire	17.1	13.1	4.5	14.2
Orkney Islands	13.5	9.1	n/a	10.8
Perth & Kinross	15.6	11.9	3.4	13.5
Renfrewshire	17.7	13.2	4.6	14.6

Scottish Borders	17.6	13.6	n/a	14.0
Shetland Islands	11.9	8.7	n/a	10.0
South Ayrshire	15.8	12.3	4.1	13.4
South Lanarkshire	16.1	12.4	2.5	13.7
Stirling	15.6	12.8	1.3	13.6

West Dunbartonshire	16.8	11.9	3.9	13.5
West Lothian	16.4	13.0	3.1	14.1

All local authorities	16.7	12.3	3.7	13.8