Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-04667

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has undertaken with the education sector in island communities, such as Orkney, which are reportedly seeing increasing pressures around funding and staff retention, particularly in relation to the provision of additional support for learning.

Question reference: S6O-04666

Asked by: Stephanie Callaghan, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the provision of vocational skills training, whether it will provide an update on its response to the 2025 ClimateXChange report, Training provision in Scotland’s onshore wind and solar industries.

Question reference: S6W-37172

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that all retired police officers receive their full pension entitlements without any undue delay.

I have asked Stephen Pathirana, Chief Executive of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, to respond. His response is as follows:

The overall programme to deliver the 2015 remedy in Scotland is being managed by the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA). This is a complex undertaking as it requires a remediable service statement (RSS) to be sent to eligible members numbering over 200,000 across the four pension schemes administered by the SPPA. Within that number more than 5,000 retired police officers are entitled to receive a RSS and make a choice about their pension benefits.

SPPA has introduced new digital automation processes which have had a positive impact on delivery speed and capability. The statutory deadline for providing a RSS was by 1 April 2025 or at a later date decided by the scheme manager. This discretion has been exercised and dates are set out on SPPA’s website: https://pensions.gov.scot/sites/default/files/2025-04/2025-04_Police_Circular_McCloud_Remedy_administration_%E2%80%93_Remediable_Service_Statements.pdf.

To date more than 3,400 RSS have been sent. SPPA expects to send most of the remainder by 31 May, with a small number of more complex cases issued by 31 July 2025.

Question reference: S6W-37097

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on Amazon Web Services in each of the last three years.

The Scottish Government spend with Amazon Web Services in each of the last 3 financial years is detailed in the following table:-

Financial Year	Total spend
April 22-March 23	£534,815.88
April 23-March 24	£1,698,666.07
April 24-March 25	£1,659,999.71

New services hosted on Cloud Platform Services (CPS) are built on AWS – ScotPayments, Digital Identity & Digital Connectivity – these have all gone live over the past 3 years, increasing AWS spend as the services scale to meet their customer demand.

Currently there are 45 workloads on the CPS, 27 of which are on the AWS element of the platform. Through using the services contract with public cloud companies, SG services have to date saved £409,414 – these savings are against open market AWS costs.

Savings are being made through migration of applications to CPS from the SG data centre, which is due to close in December 2026. The closure of the data centre is expected to save an estimated £3.6M, between data centre upgrade requirements and increases in energy running costs.

Question reference: S6W-37140

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the availability of Scottish Medicines Consortium-approved therapies for patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) assesses the clinical and cost effectiveness of newly licensed medicines, including medicines for advanced Parkinson’s disease, on a once for Scotland basis and publishes advice for Health Boards to consider. It is expected that Health Board Area & Drug and Therapeutics Committees (ADTCs) will consider making a SMC recommended medicine, or an equivalent, available on their local or regional formulary for routine prescribing within 90 days of SMC advice being published.

In March 2024, the SMC accepted for restricted use foslevodopa-foscarbidopa (Produodopa®) within the NHS in Scotland for treatment of advanced levodopa-responsive Parkinson’s disease with severe motor fluctuations and hyperkinesia or dyskinesia when available combinations of Parkinson medicinal products have not given satisfactory results. The SMC restriction was for use in patients not eligible for deep brain stimulation (DBS).

Question reference: S6W-36924

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to secure the long-term future of Glasgow International Airport as a critical part of the (a) national and (b) regional transport infrastructure.

Question reference: S6W-36738

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what oversight mechanisms are in place to ensure that the Children's Parliament is accountable for the public funds that it receives.

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

As with all Scottish Government grants, a rigorous process of grant management procedures is in place to ensure accountability of public funds. These procedures ensure the delivery of grant outcomes, continuous improvement, and best value for money. Regular monitoring takes place throughout the lifecycle of the grant.

The Children’s Parliament’s core funding from the Scottish Government via the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund is administered by the independent grant making charity, the Corra Foundation. The annual feedback from Corra indicates the work being delivered by the Children’s Parliament to be of a high standard and that they are achieving their outcomes.

The Children’s Parliament are a registered company (SC170891), so their audited accounts are publicly available on Companies House. As a registered charity, SC026247, the Children’s Parliament submits annual returns to OSCR, which includes their accounts.

Question reference: S6W-36737

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is aware of any complaints or concerns raised about the conduct of any Members of the Children's Parliament in the last three years, and, if so, what information it has regarding what these were about and how they were addressed.

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any complaints or concerns raised about the conduct of any Members of the Children’s Parliament in the last three years.

Question reference: S6W-36734

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to increase children's engagement with the Children's Parliament, and how much these measures are costing.

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

The Scottish Government is not involved in increasing children's engagement with the Children's Parliament. That is a matter for the Children's Parliament.

Question reference: S6W-37256

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether all retired police officers affected by the 2018 McCloud judgement received a remediable service statement by the 31 March 2025 deadline.

I have asked Stephen Pathirana, Chief Executive of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, to respond. His response is as follows:

2,725 officers, over 50% of the retired police officers eligible for the McCloud remedy, were sent their remediable service statement by 31 March 2025. The Scottish Public Pensions Agency has published an extension to the deadlines and all officers will receive their statement by 31 July 2025. The information is available at: https://pensions.gov.scot/sites/default/files/2025-04/2025-04_Police_Circular_McCloud_Remedy_administration_%E2%80%93_Remediable_Service_Statements.pdf

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