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-27268

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 3 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what support for travel costs is available to apprentices, and how much it has spent on this in each year since 2007-08.

Travel support is based on an individual’s circumstances. This support includes rural delivery models’ eligibility for a rural uplift, and assistance with travel and/or overnight accommodation.

Skills Development Scotland have advised that their annual spend on travel and subsistence for Modern Apprentices in both of the last two full financial years is as follows:

2017-18: £1,091,538

2018-19: £1,055,840

Expenditure for the current year will be reported in due course.

Skills Development Scotland are able to provide the precise figures for travel and subsistence spend in 2017-18 and 2018-19 as the introduction of the Funding Information and Processing System in 2017-18 has given the functionality to extract this cost in isolation.

Due to a system change Skills Development Scotland are unable to provide the annual spend on travel and subsistence for Modern Apprentices in the years preceding 2017-18.

Details of what was budgeted for in the years preceding 2017/18 are available, but this does not reflect expenditure so cannot be directly compared to years after. The contract value for travel and subsistence for years 2009/10 (the first year that SDS put into place contracts for the delivery of Modern Apprenticeships) to 2016/17 is laid out below:

2009-10: £1.1m

2010-11: £940k

2011-12: £940k

2012-13: £960k

2013-14: £940k

2014-15: £950k

2015-16: £1.3m

2016-17: £1.3m

Throughout the Foundation Apprenticeship programme support has been available to fund participant travel. For the 2016-18, 2017-19 and 2019-21 cohorts, travel costs were included within the total funding awards. It is therefore not possible to provide travel costs for these cohorts. Travel costs are separate for the 2018-20 cohort. As delivery of this cohort is still ongoing and the total amount of expenditure is not yet available.

Question reference: S5W-27270

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 3 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many university applicants domiciled in Scotland did not receive an offer from any institution in Scotland but were accepted by an institution in the rest of the UK in the last year.

Question reference: S5W-27273

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 3 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has sought updated legal advice since September 2014 on the position of an independent Scotland in relation to (a) membership or accession to the EU, (b) currency, (c) involvement in the Schengen Agreement, (d) border controls or cross-border trade and (e) involvement in international defence co-operation.

Question reference: S5W-27271

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 3 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many European nationals domiciled outside of the UK received funded places at a university in Scotland in the last year.

Question reference: S5W-27278

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 2 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what income Transport Scotland has derived from the installation of brown tourist information signs in each year since 2007-08, also broken down by local authority area.

Under the Transport Scotland “Trunk Road and Motorway Tourist Signing Guidance (2016)”, applicants are expected to meet the costs associated with the provision (design and installation) and replacement of tourist signs. General maintenance of erected signs is managed by Transport Scotland at no cost to the applicant. As such, there is no income derived by Transport Scotland or its maintenance agents from the installation of brown tourist signs.

Question reference: S5W-27277

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 February 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many additional miles of the (a) A9 and (b) A96 road have been dualled in each year since 2007.

On the A9 between Perth and Inverness, a 3.2 km (2 miles) extension to the dual carriageway at Crubenmore opened to traffic in September 2011. In September 2017, the 7.5km (4.6 miles) A9 Dualling Kincraig to Dalraddy project opened to traffic. Construction is also progressing well on the A9 Dualling Luncarty to Pass of Birnam project. This section represents 9.5 km (5.9 miles) and is expected to open in spring 2021, subject to any unforeseen circumstances such as exceptional adverse weather. At the same time design work continues at pace with eight of the remaining nine dualling schemes now subject to the statutory process.

On the A96 Dualling Programme, design work is well underway. Construction of the schemes that make up the programme can only commence if each scheme is approved under the relevant statutory procedures and thereafter a timetable for their progress can be set.

Question reference: S5W-27272

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 27 February 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many police station front counters have been open in each council area in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S5O-04224

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 March 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that all information required and requested by the OECD as part of the review of the curriculum for excellence will be made available.

Question reference: S5W-27369

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 26 February 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much money from the Employability Fund has been spent in each year since 2017-18, also broken down by provider.

Employability Fund contract spend is published in the SDS Annual Procurement Reports, linked to below:

https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/44806/annual-procurement-report-2017-2018-july-2018.pdf

https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/45803/annual-procurement-report-2018-19.pdf

Contract Values are published and are broken down by each employability fund provider:

https://www.stf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/employability-fund-201718-contract-values.pdf

https://www.stf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/ef-contracts-2018-19.pdf

2019/20 contract values are not yet published, but are set out in the table below:

Employability Fund 2019-20 (Feb 2020)
Organisation	Contracted volumes	Contract Value
Aberdeen Foyer	127	£130,950
Action for Children	126	£220,650
Angus Council	38	£77,049
Apex Scotland	10	£23,373
Argyll and Bute Council	22	£50,186
Barnardo's	699	£1,440,014
Business Development Advisers Ltd	20	£32,326
CEIS Ayrshire	66	£111,816
Clackmannanshire Council	28	£44,860
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	40	£86,358
Cornerstone Community Care	0	£3,700
Culture and Sport Glasgow	12	£36,740
Cyrenians	52	£77,800
DEAP Ltd	87	£117,210
Direct Partners Limited	69	£151,150
Doosan Babcock Ltd	8	£34,672
East Ayrshire Council	91	£178,016
ENABLE Scotland (Leading the Way)	489	£826,112
Essentials Plus Ltd	41	£70,326
Falkirk Council	228	£438,617
Fife Council	160	£258,702
First Steps Future Training Limited	30	£90,002
Galloway Training Limited	65	£171,272
GP Strategies Training Limited	87	£184,274
GTG Training Limited	166	£285,112
Helm Training Ltd	169	£374,535
IDTC Limited	208	£423,074
Impact Arts (Projects) Ltd	30	£61,619
Jim Mair Driver Training Ltd	60	£106,750
Jobs & Business Glasgow	0	£25,972
Kingdom Housing Association Limited	205	£320,518
L&G Learning (Scotland) Ltd	189	£361,231
LAMH Recycle Ltd	69	£134,136
Lanarkshire Catering School	171	£282,199
Life Skills Centres Ltd	88	£108,611
Lowland Training Services Ltd	330	£491,186
Midlothian Council - Lifelong Learning and Employability	20	£27,200
Momentum Scotland	169	£262,694
Moray College UHI	51	£62,859
Moray Council (Moray Training)	16	£24,020
Move On	41	£79,234
New College Lanarkshire	246	£529,008
Nigg Skills Academy Ltd	49	£249,621
North Edinburgh Childcare	34	£73,529
Orkney Islands Council (Orkney College)	15	£26,820
P C T Partnership Limited	6	£22,900
PeoplePlus Group Ltd	0	£17,532
Qualitas International Limited	193	£384,969
Rathbone Training	221	£1,162,448
Renfrewshire Council	43	£81,793
Right Track Scotland Ltd	230	£431,371
Routes to Work Limited	97	£182,436
Routes To Work South	249	£372,002
Rural and Urban Training Scheme Ltd	66	£128,171
Scottish Borders Council	50	£99,092
SIBBALD LTD	6	£31,130
South Ayrshire Council	68	£150,049
South Lanarkshire College	75	£161,638
South Lanarkshire Council	15	£30,563
South West Arts and Music Project (SWAMP)	50	£127,707
Station House Media Unit	52	£89,773
Stirling Council	30	£57,413
Street League	1090	£2,004,916
The Larder West Lothian	67	£132,953
The Ridge (Scotland) CIC	0	£400
The Shirlie Project	10	£14,228
The Springboard Charity	56	£88,450
The Tell Organisation Limited	420	£668,283
The Venture Trust	10	£30,572
TIGERS STA Ltd	201	£545,402
Train'd Up Railway Resourcing Limited	116	£212,900
Training for Care	38	£79,495
Training Initiatives Ltd	88	£196,843
Triage Central Ltd	471	£790,547
West Dunbartonshire Council	55	£102,950
West Highland College UHI	32	£63,624
Workers' Educational Association	20	£26,850
Working Rite	55	£107,810
Total	9101	£17,763,312

Question reference: S5W-27367

Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 February 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 26 February 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how much money from the Apprenticeship Levy has been spent in each year since 2017-18, also broken down by programme.