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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 983 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S5W-08208

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 30 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the information not being available at gov.scot/Publications/, whether it will confirm what the average time has been for it to respond to consultations since 2007.

Question reference: S5W-08207

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 30 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the information not being available at gov.scot/Publications/, whether it will confirm which of its consultations since 2007 it took longest to respond to.

Question reference: S5W-08205

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 29 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-06824 by Jamie Hepburn on 22 February 2017, in light of quarterly figures not being available, whether it will provide the annual figure for each of the last five years.

Neither programme has been in operation for five years.

Foundation Apprenticeships are in the early development phase. They are two year courses delivered in the senior phase since 2014. They were tested during 2014-16 with pilots running in West Lothian and Fife.

Statistical reporting for Foundation Apprenticeships is different from Modern Apprenticeships as they are one option in senior phase curriculum at school. They allow pupils to replace one of their subject choices with a foundation apprenticeship. Like other subject choices Foundation Apprenticeships can be changed or dropped by pupils.

In 2014-16 pathfinder there were 72 starts that delivered 42 completers and 21 early leavers. Early leavers include staying on at school, going to College, University, Apprenticeships and employment. The reporting for the 15/17 cohort will be available in the autumn of 2017.

Foundation Apprenticeships are undertaken at school so individuals are not employed and can’t be made redundant.

Graduate Level Apprenticeships were introduced from February 2016. 27 Graduate Level Apprentices have started between February 2016 (first intake) and January 2017. None have left the programme to date.

No Graduate level apprentices have been made redundant. SDS has a process in place that will ensure that any GLA apprentice facing redundancy will be supported to continue their apprenticeship with another employer where possible.

Question reference: S5W-08157

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 29 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-07305 by Mark McDonald on 15 March 2017, if it does not gather the data requested, how it can determine whether it will meet its pledge to ensure that nurseries in the most deprived areas will benefit from an additional teacher or graduate by 2018.

Although we currently do not collect data on graduates working within nurseries in Scotland, we will add questions on graduates to the Early Learning and Childcare census in September 2017 to be published in December. This will include the location of where graduates are based. Collecting this information each year will help us monitor our commitment to ensure that nurseries in the most deprived areas will benefit from an additional graduate by 2018. We are currently working with local authorities to consider how this data could be complemented by additional local information.

Question reference: S5W-08050

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 29 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-07503 by Michael Russell on 7 March 2017, what correspondence it has had with the (a) European Free Trade Association (EFTA), (b) Faroese Government and (c) Danish Government regarding (i) the possibility of and (ii) possible routes to Scotland joining the association.

Question reference: S5W-07946

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 24 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the study, Drivers and Barriers to uptake Early Learning and Childcare amongst 2 year olds, whether it will work with the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC to allow data on eligibility for free early learning and childcare to be shared with local authorities.

Question reference: S5W-07992

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 22 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) modern, (b) foundation and (c) apprenticeship targets will be for (i) 2016-17, (ii) 2017-18, (iii) 2018-19, (iv) 2019-20 and (v) 2020-21.

The MA target for 2016-17 is outlined in the Skills Development Scotland Letter of Guidance 2016-17 as 26,000 starts https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/41986/letter-of-guidance-2016-17-final-web-publication-version.pdf .

The target for 2017-18 is 27,000 and includes higher level MAs at levels 4 and 5 and Graduate Level Apprenticeships.

The ambition is for the delivery of 30,000 apprentice starts including higher Graduate Level Apprenticeships, by 2020.

In August 2016, 351 young people had started a Foundation Apprenticeship and from August 2017 the number of places available will increase to 1,900. By the end of 2019, up to 5,000 Foundation Apprenticeship places will be available for young people.

Further Apprenticeships targets will be subject to Scottish Government annual spending reviews.

Question reference: S5W-07943

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 22 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on advertising free early learning and childcare for eligible two-year-olds in each of the last five years, broken down by spending on (a) research, insight-gathering and audience-testing, (b) creative development and production, (c) media buying, (d) website design, construction and management, (e) public relations, (f) field activity and partnerships and (g) evaluation.

The Scottish Government publishes annual total marketing spend, broken down by services provided by the Marketing Services Framework.

The spend on each of its advertising campaigns in each of the last five years, including campaigns to promote the extension to free Early Learning and Childcare entitlement, can be found via the following links:

2011-12: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/People/Directorates/Communications/advertising-marketing/spend/2011-2012spend2012?refresh=0.3206473765435549

2012-13: http://www.gov.scot/About/People/Directorates/Communications/advertising-marketing/spend/publicinfosocialadspend-2012-13

2013-14: http://www.gov.scot/About/People/Directorates/Communications/advertising-marketing/spend/2013-2014

2014-15: https://beta.gov.scot/publications/advertising-spend-2014-2015

2015-16: https://beta.gov.scot/publications/advertising-spend-2015-2016

Question reference: S5W-07945

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 March 2017
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 22 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the study, Drivers and Barriers to uptake Early Learning and Childcare amongst 2 year olds, how it will improve the way in which uptake data is captured, and when this new data will be available.

Current uptake calculations are based on the number of registrations for funded early learning and childcare, as collected from settings and agreed with each local authority. We are aware that improvements are needed to the data collection for this sector, and are planning on moving to an individual child level census, using data held by local authorities. By changing to a more detailed data collection, we will be able to resolve issues such as the double counting of children with split placements and reporting of cross boundary placements as we will have the necessary detail to address this issues. Uptake figures based on this more comprehensive data should be available in summer 2019.

Question reference: S5W-07311

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 17 February 2017
Current Status: Answered by Mark McDonald on 22 March 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-02743 by Mark McDonald on 4 October 2016, whether it will provide an update on pilot schemes for childcare, including (a) how they will operate, (b) what the budget of each will be, (c) when they will run and (d) how many families will be involved.