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: S6O-04023

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported comments from the director of the human rights charity, Making Rights Real, that "the long arm of the government often stretches to silence organisations that receive funding from the state".

Question reference: S6W-31194

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the Ardrossan-Brodick ferry route is still viable, in light of reports of further delays to the MV Caledonian Isles return to service.

Question reference: S6W-30832

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much each local authority has received from the Attainment Scotland Fund in each year since 2016.

The Attainment Scotland Fund has been providing funding to local authorities and schools since 2015 with the aim of using education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.

The Scottish Attainment Challenge began in 2015, when funding was distributed to targeted local authorities through the Schools Programme and Challenge Authorities. In 2017, the Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) was introduced, providing funding direct to schools. In 2018, the Care Experienced Children and Young People fund (CECYP) began, providing funding to local authorities to enable them to target initiatives, activities, and resources that will improve the educational outcomes of this group of young people.

In 2022, the Scottish Attainment Challenge was refreshed, and the ‘Schools Programme and ‘Challenge Authorities’ funds were replaced by Strategic Equity Funding (SEF) which provided grants to all 32 local authorities.

The total amount provided to each local authority within these funding programmes in each financial year* since 2015-16 are as follows:

	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
Aberdeen City	£115,254	£328,243	£3,264,876	£3,409,052	£4,021,781	£4,113,976	£4,777,267	£4,163,137	£4,302,373
Aberdeenshire	£0	£0	£2,569,200	£2,906,520	£3,430,600	£3,233,185	£3,823,272	£3,909,227	£4,226,527
Angus	£0	£0	£2,113,200	£2,118,240	£2,394,880	£2,382,431	£2,815,731	£2,718,079	£2,919,059
Argyll & Bute	£16,665	£19,879	£1,340,202	£1,425,495	£1,563,762	£1,473,413	£1,746,517	£1,637,110	£1,776,791
Clackmannanshire	£482,208	£1,242,458	£3,108,000	£3,151,211	£3,427,165	£3,264,342	£3,570,907	£3,186,389	£2,924,359
Dumfries & Galloway	£43,936	£60,481	£2,998,509	£3,109,671	£3,435,706	£3,316,675	£3,883,445	£3,879,174	£4,175,854
Dundee City	£701,329	£3,135,370	£10,045,244	£10,568,958	£11,150,976	£11,181,281	£12,442,488	£10,325,609	£9,181,564
East Ayrshire	£291,470	£814,836	£5,897,260	£7,090,299	£7,621,819	£7,565,208	£8,250,453	£7,224,930	£6,594,511
East Dunbartonshire	£0	£0	£1,564,800	£1,588,440	£1,782,434	£1,788,723	£2,120,338	£1,986,260	£2,119,730
East Lothian	£0	£0	£1,569,600	£1,565,160	£1,823,557	£1,814,715	£2,134,716	£2,175,877	£2,384,767
East Renfrewshire	£0	£0	£1,370,400	£1,412,040	£1,556,240	£1,442,825	£1,721,026	£1,719,495	£1,842,830
Edinburgh City	£304,535	£742,935	£8,257,293	£8,276,495	£9,547,788	£9,164,717	£10,540,094	£9,377,776	£9,976,813
Eilean Siar	£0	£0	£274,800	£290,880	£338,391	£327,413	£388,016	£476,241	£477,189
Falkirk	£73,000	£169,463	£3,797,974	£3,835,057	£4,263,853	£4,177,157	£4,935,327	£4,602,820	£4,948,309
Fife	£416,112	£666,213	£10,750,302	£11,151,018	£12,023,174	£11,660,123	£13,609,549	£12,045,243	£12,846,433
Glasgow City	£1,389,969	£7,537,018	£29,022,634	£30,200,152	£33,197,000	£32,416,002	£36,713,592	£32,941,570	£32,577,601
Highland	£91,269	£385,146	£4,695,262	£5,269,590	£5,699,886	£5,509,668	£6,346,310	£5,545,507	£5,536,773
Inverclyde	£580,092	£1,512,219	£5,154,900	£5,399,265	£6,013,910	£6,028,744	£6,517,856	£5,503,244	£4,767,926
Midlothian	£0	£0	£2,272,800	£2,315,195	£2,513,155	£2,415,784	£2,837,045	£2,766,037	£2,924,641
Moray	£0	£0	£1,270,800	£1,341,960	£1,575,607	£1,564,920	£1,833,754	£1,812,530	£1,970,831
North Ayrshire	£635,530	£2,670,922	£8,513,518	£9,906,960	£10,841,444	£10,523,195	£11,382,620	£9,284,763	£8,153,571
North Lanarkshire	£1,340,200	£5,539,184	£15,052,052	£15,519,383	£16,411,949	£17,266,164	£19,078,558	£16,749,486	£15,683,771
Orkney Islands	£0	£0	£206,400	£232,200	£252,280	£270,404	£310,786	£379,394	£380,038
Perth & Kinross	£0	£0	£1,608,000	£1,661,520	£1,983,400	£1,930,393	£2,268,976	£2,359,726	£2,611,357
Renfrewshire	£177,272	£850,670	£7,611,801	£8,796,635	£9,753,471	£9,439,188	£10,321,570	£8,902,256	£8,099,877
Scottish Borders	£36,500	£24,462	£1,986,781	£2,075,633	£2,146,802	£2,130,518	£2,486,595	£2,299,996	£2,552,944
Shetland Islands	£0	£0	£188,400	£233,880	£264,800	£256,116	£295,476	£374,749	£372,732
South Ayrshire	£150,400	£296,668	£2,822,323	£2,812,723	£3,152,671	£3,075,598	£3,531,679	£3,146,264	£3,258,733
South Lanarkshire	£548,690	£1,008,444	£9,595,144	£9,901,641	£10,354,517	£10,802,098	£12,479,203	£11,052,369	£11,076,881
Stirling	£39,261	£118,916	£1,598,425	£1,660,079	£1,906,328	£1,809,478	£2,095,137	£1,808,754	£1,938,886
West Dunbartonshire	£778,595	£1,674,611	£5,393,508	£5,469,695	£5,883,735	£5,593,331	£6,248,668	£5,518,428	£5,207,971
West Lothian	£24,750	£172,829	£5,304,893	£5,538,606	£5,836,535	£5,619,145	£6,611,595	£6,172,245	£6,551,661

*CECYP funding is distributed across the academic year rather than financial year.

Question reference: S6W-30831

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the pupil-teacher ratio has been in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in each year since 2019.

Question reference: S6W-30858

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much basic payment scheme funding has been awarded to crofters in each year since 2016, also broken down by what proportion of the scheme's budget this represented.

Details are as follows:

Scheme Year	Basic Payment Scheme	Greening	Young Farmer Payment	Total Payments	Percentage of Budget
2016	£13,159,516.98	£8,034,413.77	£82,710.65	£21,276,641.40	5.3%
2017	£14,717,656.80	£8,346,051.08	£100,820.05	£23,164,527.93	5.4%
2018	£15,897,839.65	£8,341,637.76	£104,294.50	£24,343,771.91	5.7%
2019	£16,706,540.21	£8,297,249.49	£104,464.03	£25,108,253.73	5.9%
2020	£17,464,866.57	£8,473,816.01	£96,699.60	£26,035,382.18	6.1%
2021	£17,419,003.61	£8,418,431.75	£87,894.17	£25,925,329.53	6.1%
2022	£17,303,035.99	£8,356,501.06	£82,654.19	£25,742,191.24	6.0%
2023	£16,190,430.99	£7,790,318.31	£68,886.59	£24,049,635.89	5.6%
2024*	£14,867,321.75	£7,165,412.11	£386.82	£22,033,120.68	5.2%

*Note: 2024 payment processing is ongoing.

Question reference: S6W-30834

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many children have been educated in category (a) C and (b) D school buildings in each of the last eight years.

Question reference: S6W-30833

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the average class size has been for each primary school year group in each year since 2016.

Question reference: S6W-31473

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 4 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding the Post Office's reported announcement that it plans to close 115 local post offices across the UK, including nine branches in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-31474

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 4 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has any plans to introduce temporary additional capacity to the west coast ferry network, in light of the retirement of the MV Hebridean Isles.

Question reference: S6W-31069

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 19 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to a recent report from Public Health Scotland, which shows that there are currently more than 5,000 people in Scotland waiting for a social care assessment.

The Scottish Government recognises the value of social care support to all who require additional support in living independently at home or in the community.

Under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships have a duty to assess the social care support needs of people and decide, in light of that assessment, whether to arrange any services, and if so, which services.

We know that the system needs to work better for everyone in Scotland and we are continuing to work with partners and people with lived experience on ongoing improvement and reform.

These statistics show the fewest amount of people waiting for a social care support assessment this year – a reduction of 12% since January.