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: S6W-06466

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 11 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the Scottish Ambulance Service has had with trade unions regarding its demand and capacity review.

The Demand and Capacity programme and core principals have been designed and delivered in partnership with unions - with representatives of GMB, Unite the Union and Unison all being members of the steering group which meets monthly.

A staff engagement and consultation process, also agreed in partnership with Unions at the outset, is being conducted in all regions.

SAS continue to hold regular discussions with staff side representatives, including weekly meetings with the Project Team on this review.

Question reference: S6W-06508

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much has (a) redundancy and (b) voluntary severance cost each NHS board, in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S6W-06496

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases of unfair dismissal have been brought against each NHS board, what the outcome was of those cases, and how much was paid in compensation from those cases, in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S6W-06463

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that people are still able to access community defibrillators, that require an access code sent to a mobile phone, during times when mobile phone networks are down, such as during the recent storms Arwen, Malik and Corrie.

The Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) Strategy 2021 to 2026 , recognises the importance of defibrillation within the chain of survival. The strategy outlines a number of actions to ensure that Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) are mapped, maintained and accessible to the public.

If a PAD is stored in a secure, passcode-protected cabinet and is registered on the National Defibrillator Network (The Circuit), the security code to access the PAD cabinet will be held by the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS). This security code will be verbally provided to any member of the public that requires access to the cabinet. The code is not texted or transmitted to the caller’s mobile device.

In the event that the mobile network is down, as a consequence of poor weather conditions, and a member of the public requires access to a locked PAD cabinet, they should endeavour to contact the Scottish Ambulance Service via an available landline or public telephone.

We would recommend that defibrillator guardians follow the advice of the Resuscitation Council of the UK (RCUK) and consider placing their defibrillators in an unlocked cabinet in order to make them as accessible as possible. Further information is available at: https://www.resus.org.uk/about-us/news-and-events/consensus-statement-aed-cabinets.

Question reference: S6W-06517

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many service user complaints have been brought against each NHS board, how many of those complaints were upheld, and how much was paid in compensation from those complaints, in each year since 2007.

The NHS complaints procedure does not provide for financial compensation.

Public Health Scotland produce an annual statistical release with links to each NHS Board Annual Complaints and Feedback reports. All data prior to 2010 has been archived to the National Records of Scotland web archive.

The information available on service user complaints, including complaints upheld can be accessed from the following links;

Links to NHS Complaints Data

2020/21 - Annual report on NHS complaints - 2020 to 2021 - Annual report on complaints - Publications - Public Health Scotland

2019/20 - Annual report on complaints - 2019/20 - Annual report on complaints - Publications - Public Health Scotland

2018/19 - Quality Indicators | NHS Complaints Statistics | Health Topics | ISD Scotland

2017/18 - Quality Indicators | NHS Complaints Statistics | Health Topics | ISD Scotland

2016/17 - 2017-10-03-Complaints-Report.pdf (isdscotland.org)

2015/16 - 2016-10-04-Complaints-Report.pdf (isdscotland.org)

2014/15 - 2015-09-29-Complaints-Report.pdf (isdscotland.org)

2013/14 - 2014-11-25-complaints-Summary.pdf (isdscotland.org)

2012/13 - 2013-09-24-Complaints-Report.pdf (isdscotland.org)

2011/12 - 2012-09-25-Complaints-Summary.pdf (isdscotland.org)

2010/11 - 2011-10-25-Complaints-Report.pdf (isdscotland.org)

Question reference: S6W-06504

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much each NHS board has spent on contracts for external legal support, broken down by contract, in each year since 2007.

Question reference: S6W-06422

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-05517 by Lorna Slater on 24 January 2022, regarding the estimated 27% lower impact of incineration over landfill, whether it will confirm that this involves an underlying assumption that (a) it is an estimate of historical (circa 2018) impacts rather than current or anticipated climate impacts of incineration, (b) it is based on sending waste directly to landfill with no biostabilisation component, (c) the impact of displaced energy is modelled using the UK grid rather than the relatively more decarbonised Scotland grid and (d) the technical report that contains the 27% estimate acknowledges data gaps in the composition of municipal waste and the energy outputs of energy from waste (EfW) plants.

All the underlying assumptions used in the analysis, including the information requested by the member, are available in the Zero Waste Scotland report The Climate Change Impacts of Burning Municipal Waste in Scotland and the accompanying technical report. Both are available on the Zero Waste Scotland website: The climate change impact of burning municipal waste in Scotland | Zero Waste Scotland .

Question reference: S6W-06419

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the amount of (a) waste incinerated and (b) electricity exported at each municipal waste incinerator in Scotland in each of the last three years.

Please see a breakdown of the available data for a) and b)

Waste Incinerated and electricity produced at MWIs 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021

1. Waste incinerated by site (Tonnes)

The following data is from Waste Data Returns. Please refer to attached table which notes that the data below is higher for some sites than incinerated tonnages in Annual Reports made under the Permit.

Site	Permit Number	2018	2019	2020	2021*
Lerwick Energy Recovery Plant	PPC/A/1003141	23,054	20,890	22,850	19,037
MVV Environment Baldovie	PPC/A/1003157	94,625	102,819	104,519	160,632
Viridor Dunbar ERF	PPC/A/1032878	41,284	262,138	324,762	320,373
Viridor GRREC	PPC/A/111002		93,340	123,831	98,975
FCC Millerhill	PPC/A/1136072	16,460	142,490	156,654	159,481

Levenseat Renewable Energy Limited is still in commissioning - Site is reporting waste inputs and outputs but no incineration tonnages.

1. Electricity exported to grid (MWh)

Site	Permit Number	2018	2019	2020	2021
Lerwick Energy Recovery Plant	PPC/A/1003141	Nil - Note 1	Nil - Note 1	Nil - Note 1	Nil - Note 1
MVV Environment Baldovie	PPC/A/1003157	Note 2	Note 2	33,800 Note 3	Data is not yet available
Viridor Dunbar ERF	PPC/A/1032878	Note 2	Note 2	224,848	237,524
Viridor GRREC	PPC/A/111002	Note 2	Note 2	46,668	Data is not yet available
FCC Millerhill	PPC/A/1136072	Note 2	Note 2	100,765	103,760

1. Heat recovery plant only.

2. No data held post cyber-attack.

3. Lower figures than 2019 due to operation without steam turbine from October 2021.

4. Levenseat Renewable Energy Limited is still in commissioning and are therefore not required to report this data.

Question reference: S6W-06418

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Lorna Slater on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether municipal waste incinerators in Scotland are currently required to accurately measure direct CO2 emissions through the use of calibrated flow rates and calibrated CO2 continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS), and, if not, what plans there are to require this, in line with the approach taken by the UK Government Environment Agency.

As per S6W-06417 answered on 28 February 2022 , measurement of CO2 emissions using calibrated flow meters and CEMS is not a current requirement in SEPA permits for existing MWIs.

All SEPA Permits for existing sites must comply with the requirements of the Waste Incineration BAT Conclusions (WI BATCs) by 3 December 2023. SEPA will review Permits for MWIs to ensure they will be compliant by the deadline. This will include the new requirement for a calibrated flow meter.

The calibration of CO2 CEMS is not required by the WI BATCs. However, as part of the BAT review process, SEPA will consider whether to include a requirement for calibration of CEMS for CO2 and reporting of CO2 mass emissions to align with the approach taken by the Environment Agency. Whether or not each MWI has an appropriate CEMS in place which is able to be calibrated for measurement of CO2 will be confirmed during the BAT Review for each Permit.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-06426

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 28 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when the (a) Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and (b) Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport last met the (i) Chair and (ii) Lead Clinician of the National Advisory Committee responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Respiratory Care Action Plan.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care has not met with the Chair or Lead Clinician of the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee.

Respiratory policy falls under the portfolio remit of Ms Maree Todd MSP, Minister for Public Health, Women's Health & Sport. The Minister has not met with the Chair or Lead Clinician of the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee.

However, officials meet regularly with the Lead Clinician of the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee to discuss the implementation of the Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland.