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-25009

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making on the development of its Learning Estate Strategy, and when this will be published.

Question reference: S5W-25008

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made on the North West Community Campus Root Cause Analysis; when the review will be completed, and when it will publish the findings.

Question reference: S5W-25116

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 17 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to update the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 to strengthen the ban on fox hunting.

Question reference: S5W-25115

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 17 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to the question S5W-21620 by Paul Wheelhouse on 26 February 2019, what the total, final subsidy payment was to Serco NorthLink in year 7 of the current contract, and whether it will provide details of the total, final subsidy payments in each year of the 2012-19 Northern Isles Ferry Services contract, including an estimate for the period August to October 2019.

I refer the member to S5W-18860 answered on 3 October 2018 which details the estimated subsidy costs for operation of the Northern Isles Ferry Service over the 18 month period between April 2018 and October 2019.

The total amount paid for contract year 7 (July 2018 to June 2019) has not yet been finalised.

The total amount for the period July to October 2019 has not been finalised.

I refer the member to S5W-21620, S5W-16302 on 15 May 2018 and S5W-04450 on 14 November 2016 which detail the total, final subsidy payments to Serco NorthLink Ferries from contract year 1 to contract year 6.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5W-24843

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 12 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the nature of the support will be for the additional 200 projects that will be supported through the Places for Everyone programme in 2019-20; what it expects the cost of this to be, and whether this funding is additional to the existing Active Travel budget.

Question reference: S5W-24844

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 10 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what criteria were used to assess bids to the Places for Everyone programme; how many of the bids that were received were viable; for what reason the unsuccessful bids were not selected, and what it will do to take forward the unsuccessful bids.

206 of the bids made to Places for Everyone for the 2019-20 funding year received a high enough score to be viable. There were 47 projects to which no award of funding was made because they scored zero under one or more of the five scoring criteria laid out in the Places for Everyone application guide:

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/media/3782/places_for_everyone_
application_guide_2019_2020.pdf .

To encourage applicants to resubmit applications, all unsuccessful applicants have been provided with feedback and advice on what changes could be made to the application and/or project in order to meet the Places for Everyone scoring criteria. Direct support by Sustrans officers is offered as required.

Question reference: S5F-03513

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 September 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 September 2019

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the recent disruption on ScotRail services.

Question reference: S5O-03465

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 August 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support community land ownership in the South Scotland region.

Question reference: S5W-24387

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 14 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-21323 by Jeane Freeman on 20 February 2019, how it plans to measure the quality of care experienced by people at end of life.

We recognise the importance of having robust and sensitive processes for capturing and utilising feedback on the quality of end of life care.

Earlier this year, the Scottish Government asked an NHS Lothian based project team to take forward work to provide options on how best to establish a more coherent picture of the quality of end of life care, including the views of the bereaved, which can also be used for improving service delivery. The project team are undertaking scoping work which includes the National Audit of Care at the End of Life (NACEL) and are due to report back to officials by the end of the year.

Question reference: S5W-24389

Asked by: Colin Smyth, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 14 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making in delivering the target to double palliative and end of life provision in the community, and when this target will be met.

We do not have a single measure that captures performance against this aim, as the provision of palliative care depends on the interaction of a range of services - formal palliative care, care at home and care home services, and access to hospice and hospice-at-home services - that vary considerably in definition between local systems. Good care at end of life requires collaborative, multi-disciplinary support, which is why Integration Authorities have been given statutory responsibility for meeting this need. Integration Authorities regularly report on their progress using the 23 indicators ( https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Health/Policy/Adult-Health-SocialCare-Integration/Outcomes/Indicators/Indicators ) that support the statutory outcomes set out in the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014.

The indicator currently used nationally to gauge progress on improving palliative and end of life care provision is the percentage of last six months of life spent in the community. Since the publication of the Health and Social Care Delivery Plan in 2015-16, the percentage of time spent at home or in a community setting has gradually increased from 86.7% in 2010-11 to 89.2% in 2018-19. However, we recognise that this indicator is only a measure of place of care, rather than quality or experience of care, and is not sufficient on its own. We are working with partners in local systems and health and social care professionals to develop better measures for this aim.