- Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what the estimated cost for ministerial travel, including car fleet purchasing and maintenance, is for 2021-22, and how this compares with actual spend on this in each of the last five years.
Answer
Estimated costs for the Government Car Service (GCS), including purchasing and maintenance, for 2021-22 and actual spend for each of the last 5 years, are provided in the following table.
Year | Total cost (1) |
16-17 | £ 1,125,173 |
17-18 | £ 1,248,912 |
18-19 | £ 1,556,863 |
19-20 | £ 1,685,164 |
20-21 | £ 1,369,852 |
21-22 (2) | £ 1,375,695 |
1. Costs include fuel, maintenance, private hire, staff, travel and subsistence and vehicle procurement.
2. Estimated costs – budgets not formally agreed.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated to business support for the purpose of COVID-19 recovery and how much of that total has been allocated directly to businesses.
Answer
Since the start of the pandemic supporting the recovery of Scotland’s businesses is a key focus for the Government with businesses directly benefitting from £3.6 billion in support overall, with £434.6 million paid out through restart grants and transitional payments. The Scottish Government recognises it is crucial to get businesses open safely and back to full profitability, delivering the maximum support for businesses and the economy as possible.
The Scottish Government regularly publishes statistics and management information relating to its Covid-19 business grants on our website at Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , the next publication is due on 11 June 2021.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government when it will provide updated funding figures on its website for the national public bodies directory.
Answer
The national public bodies directory has been updated to reflect the most up to date funding information for individual public bodies. I refer the member to the website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/pages/executive-non-departmental-public-bodies/
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, following the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills on 2 June 2021 on National Qualifications 2021, for what reason the deadline for making priority appeals has been set as 16 August.
Answer
The deadline for priority appeals was originally set as 16 August to ensure that SQA and their appointees have sufficient time to process these cases to meet with UCAS deadlines of 8 September.
Following discussion with education partners on the National Qualifications 21 Group, this date has now been extended to 24 August to ensure that there is sufficient time after the start of the new session for centres to submit appeals and supporting evidence for those learners with immediate progression needs for further education, higher education or workplace progression. In moving to this date, the proposal is that centres will submit evidence digitally.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, following the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills on 2 June 2021 on National Qualifications 2021, what impact it expects the appeals process to have on the workloads of teachers.
Answer
The appeals process was developed following consultation and stakeholder engagement. This included consideration of teacher workload.
Teachers are encouraged to have discussions with their learners in advance of submitting their provisional grades and, if learners are unhappy with these results, will have a further dialogue in advance of any appeal to advise on the process.
Schools and colleges are expected to support their learners in accessing the appeals service where needed and, where a learner is appealing against the academic judgement made, will be asked to provide all the necessary evidence and materials that were used to determine the learner's result.
SQA will review the learner's submission and may, if necessary, discuss aspects with the relevant teacher.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has for a nationally co-ordinated solution, either electronic-based or physical, which will enable members of the public to demonstrate that they have received one or more COVID-19 vaccinations, to assist in scenarios where such evidence will be required to allow access to travel, services, entry or participation in a variety of day-to-day activities.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6T-00019 on 26 May 2021. The answer is available on the Parliament's website at: Official Report - Parliamentary Business : Scottish Parliament .
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government, following the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills on 2 June 2021 on National Qualifications 2021, how students wishing to use the priority appeal process will be supported during the school summer holidays.
Answer
Students will be able to register an intention to appeal from 25 June. However, the formal appeals process will not commence until the results are issued on 10 August. Universities will not confirm offers until they have received the certificated grades in August.
For those students waiting on a result for a university or college place or for an employment or training programme, appeals will be processed as a priority.
The SDS Helpline will be available through the summer for students to talk to an experienced adviser, with the dedicated Results Helpline opening from 10 August. The National Qualifications 21 Group has issued a letter to learners highlighting a range of support available. This is available online and can be accessed at:
https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/NQ21-letter-supports-for-learners.pdf
SQA is arranging for a hard copy of the letter to be sent out to all learners.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been (a) charged and (b) convicted of altering images or producing deepfake pornographic material in each year since 2017.
Answer
This information is not held centrally. Altering images or producing deepfake pornographic material is not a specific offence, therefore:
(a) the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal service are unable to separately identify such offences from their database and provide number of charges and
(b) The Scottish Government is also unable to separately identify convictions from their database for the same reason.
Altering images or producing deepfake pornographic material is not a specific offence and the production of such material in itself, would probably not amount to a criminal offence. However, the distribution, publication or sale etc. of such material, where it appears to depict a person who has not consented to such a depiction may amount to a criminal offence. Depending on the facts and circumstances, this may be capable of being charged under offences including section 2 of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 (non-consensual sharing of intimate images), section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 (threatening or abusive behaviour) or section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 (misuse of a public electronic communications network). However, the Scottish Government’s and COPFS data only details numbers of convictions and charges under these acts, and not detailed information on the specific conduct which resulted in the charge or conviction.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated to North Ayrshire Council to provide free school meals to primary four children from August 2021, and to primary five children from January 2022, in the financial year 2021-22.
Answer
The Scottish Government is providing local authorities across Scotland with £28 million to expand the universal provision of free school lunches to include all children in primary 4 starting from August 2021, and to include all children in primary 5 starting from January 2022.
We wrote to local authorities on 14 May to inform them of their allocations and I can confirm that North Ayrshire Council will receive £651,000 in additional funding to support the expansion of universal free school meals to primary 4 and primary 5 children in 2021-22.
- Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 June 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 15 June 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how many members the Council for Economic Transformation will consist of; by what date the membership will be announced, and how often the group will meet.
Answer
Arrangements are being put in place to establish the new Council for Economic Transformation, which will shape and drive our 10 year National Strategy for Economic Transformation. We have already publicly committed to do this within our first 100 days and we will update with regard to progress shortly.