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-12450

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 16 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government when the new Strategic Board for Enterprise and Skills will be appointed; when it will first meet, and how often it will meet.

The Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board will meet for the first time in December and will seek to maximise the impact of the collective investment that is made in enterprise and skills development in Scotland, helping create the conditions needed to deliver inclusive growth. Once up and running, it is expected that the Board will meet every two months.

In August, the First Minister announced that Nora Senior had been appointed Chair of the Strategic Board. Ms Senior is chair of UK for global communications firm Weber Shandwick, and recently served as president of the British Chambers of Commerce and chair of Scottish Chambers of Commerce.

Full membership of the board will be announced imminently. It will feature members with a wealth of business experience encompassing a broad range of sectors, sizes and locations, with additional representation covering further and higher education, research, trade unions, local authorities and the new South of Scotland Economic Partnership.

Question reference: S5O-01501

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 November 2017
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase the number of student teachers.

Question reference: S5W-12451

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 14 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it had with the British Business Bank in advance of the announcement of a Scottish National Investment Bank, and what discussions it has had since the announcement.

SG officials meet regularly with the British Business Bank to discuss a range of issues pertinent to Scotland.

Following our announcement to establish a Scottish National Investment Bank in the Programme for Government 17-18, Scottish Government officials have engaged in discussions with the British Business Bank to help inform planning and implementation. Benny Higgins CEO, Tesco Bank is leading on implementation planning and he will also be meeting with the British Business Bank in the near future.

Question reference: S5W-12449

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 14 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a summary of the impact, in terms of new investment to Scotland, of the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work’s visit to Canada and the United States.

Ministerial visits overseas allow the Scottish Government to build relationships that attract investment into Scotland and help Scottish businesses pursue international growth opportunities which in turn contribute to Scotland’s international success and economic growth. My visit to Canada and the United States focused on promoting trade and investment across the public and private sector providing reassurance to businesses across North America that Scotland is open for business.

Question reference: S5W-12448

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 November 2017
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 14 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated to the Scottish Growth Scheme since the announcement of its creation in the Programme for Government 2016.

Currently resources have been allocated for two distinct products under the Scottish Growth Scheme.

The first tranche of support, announced in June 2017, is the £200m Scottish-European Growth Co-investment Programme. This was funded by £50m of Scottish Government resources and £50 million from the European Investment Fund (EIF). It is anticipated that a further £100 million in co-investment will be leveraged from EIF accredited fund managers, across Europe, for investment in Scottish companies over three years.
The second tranche, of £100m, announced to enhance the SME Holding Fund, involves an additional £10m ERDF allocated by the Scottish Government, with £15m matched funding from Scottish Enterprise. It is anticipated that a further £78m in co-investment will be leveraged from private sector investors, mainly Business Angel syndicates, for investment in some 66 companies, with the resources being fully invested by December 2018.

We continue to develop further products to deliver the £500m target over the next
3 years.

Question reference: S5W-12031

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 October 2017
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 6 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made by NHS boards to implement an improvement programme to improve diagnostic services and increase diagnostic capacity, as stated in the Scottish Strategy for Autism paper, Outcomes Approach – Priorities 2015-2017.

Improving diagnostic services and increasing diagnostic capacity remain Scottish Government priorities for the Scottish Strategy for Autism.

To help achieve our aims NHS Education Scotland (NES), the education and training body for the NHS in Scotland, has developed an Autism Training Framework, which can be accessed at: http://elearning.scot.nhs.uk:8080/intralibrary/open_virtual_file_path/i1923n4027869t/NESD0350ASDTrainingFramework-WEB.pdf.

This framework describes the knowledge and skills required by generic health and social care workers who encounter an autistic person through to those who provide highly specialised interventions in autism services, and is divided into three keys areas: Identification, Screening, Assessment and Diagnosis; Management, Support and Intervention; and Autism Across the Lifespan.

NES continues to work with colleagues across the NHS and wider public sector to ensure staff receive the training they need, and has made available a number of aids and resources to facilitate this, including an Autism Spectrum Disorder online learning space at: http://www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/home/learning-and-cpd/learning spaces/autism-spectrum-disorder.aspx.

NES has also published a document entitled Key considerations in promoting positive practice for Autism Spectrum Disorders. This guide is a resource for staff working in health and social care and serves as a basis on which they can consider their approach to autistic individuals who access their service. The guide is available at: http://www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/media/12413447/nesd0565%20autismguide_web.pdf

The Scottish Government is also investing in an Improvement Programme to reduce waiting times for assessment by improving diagnostic services and increasing diagnostic capacity across child and adult services.

Question reference: S5W-12030

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 October 2017
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 6 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made by NHS boards in implementing the interventions suggested in the report, Autism Spectrum Disorders – Waiting for Assessment, by the Autism ACHIEVE Alliance in 2014, in order to reduce waiting times.

NHS Boards are responsible for providing diagnostic services for people with autism in line with their statutory obligations and Scottish Government policy.

The work of the Autism Achieve Alliance (AAA) provided evidence to addressing waiting times for diagnosis. The learning from this work was made available to NHS Boards for them to consider improvements to their own diagnostic pathways. Since this work was published in 2014 the Scottish Government has refreshed the Scottish Strategy for Autism into an outcomes based approach.

To support this refreshed approach the Scottish Government have funded an Improvement Programme to reduce waiting times for assessment by improving diagnostic services and increasing diagnostic capacity across child and adult services.

Question reference: S5W-12028

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 October 2017
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 6 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how it will monitor diagnostic waiting times for children and adults with autism to ensure that they are being reduced.

Reducing diagnostic waiting times continues to be a priority of the Scottish Strategy for Autism.

NHS Boards are responsible for providing diagnostic services for people with autism in line with their statutory obligations and Scottish Government policy.

Information on waiting times is not held centrally. Information Services Division does not collect Autism Spectrum Disorders waiting times information. Information Services Division receives waiting times information from NHS Boards for all referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) but this is not broken down by condition.

Question reference: S5W-12195

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2017
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 6 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the respondents to the consultation, Talking Fracking: A Consultation on Unconventional Oil Gas, were resident in (a) Scotland, (b) the rest of the UK and (c) elsewhere, and how many responses were deemed inadmissible because of (i) duplication, (ii) incomplete entry and (iii) other reasons.

It is only possible to identify the geographic location of substantive respondents who provided a postal address. Of those respondents included in the analysis:

a) 6,629 were resident in Scotland.; b) 814 were resident elsewhere in the UK; c) 66 were resident elsewhere.

In total, 793 substantive responses were removed before analysis: (i) 79 were duplicate submissions (ii) 85 were blank (iii) 629 were removed for other reasons.

Further detail of the analysis and how it was carried out is available in Talking ‘Fracking’: A Consultation on Unconventional Oil and Gas – Analysis of Responses, published on 03 October 2017 at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/10/9813

Question reference: S5W-12011

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 October 2017
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 3 November 2017

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the recent announcement by the First Minister, what the relationship will be between Our Power Energy and the proposed publicly-owned national energy company.