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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S5W-25398

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 4 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that there is sufficient capacity and specialist health professional support available for hospice provision and respite breaks for young adults with complex and rare conditions.

Question reference: S5W-25415

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 4 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its commitment to publish data on its spending over £25,000 on a monthly basis, and in the interests of transparency and accountability and the Parliament's ability to scrutinise its work, whether, as a matter of urgency, it will publish the data for each month since November 2018.

Question reference: S5W-25414

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 4 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its commitment to publish data on its spending over £25,000 on a monthly basis, for what reason its last publication of such information, which covered August, September and October 2018, was on 10 May 2019, and what its response is to concerns that not publishing such information impacts on its transparency and accountability and the Parliament's ability to scrutinise its work.

Question reference: S5W-25416

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 4 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has not published any monthly spending data for the last four months and, in the interests of transparency and accountability and the Parliament's ability to scrutinise its work, whether, as a matter of urgency, it will now do so.

Question reference: S5W-25399

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 4 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with (a) hospices, (b) charities and (c) health and social care partnerships on the availability of hospice provision and respite breaks for young adults with complex and rare conditions.

Question reference: S5O-03654

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides for pupils with additional support needs.

Question reference: S5W-24984

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 26 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many Scottish-domiciled students were accepted at Scottish universities to study medicine in each academic year since 2014, also broken down by institution.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) does not provide the number of acceptances at this level.

However the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) provides the number of medicine students entering university each year. This is broken down by institution for Scottish domiciled students entering first degree pre-clinical medicine in the following table.

Scottish domiciled first degree pre-clinical medicine entrants to Scottish universities

	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18
University of Aberdeen	105	100	115	115
University of Dundee	90	95	115	115
University of Edinburgh	90	85	85	95
University of Glasgow	140	140	140	150
University of St Andrews	55	60	60	40
Total	480	485	515	515

Source SFC / HESA

Entrants cover the first year of study only for first degree courses.

Numbers are full-person equivalent and are rounded to nearest 5.

Includes JACS code for pre-clinical medicine, A1.

The entrant figures are not analogous to acceptances, however, as some students will be accepted by more than one university.

Question reference: S5W-24986

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 26 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many places there have been at Scottish universities for (a) Scottish-domiciled and (b) fee paying students to study medicine in each year since 2014, also broken down by institution.

(a) The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) allocates funded places for eligible Scottish domiciled and EU students. I refer the member to Scottish Parliament information Centre (SPICe) Bib number 60970.

In AY 2019-20 the SFC set a minimum core intake target for eligible Scottish domiciled and EU students studying medicine.

(b) The SFC does not allocate funded places for rest of UK or international students, however these students are reflected in the overall intake targets.

Question reference: S5W-24985

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 26 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many Scottish-domiciled students applied to study medicine at Scottish universities in each academic year since 2014, also broken down by institution.

Question reference: S5W-25113

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 19 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-24399 by Jamie Hepburn on 7 August 2019, what systematic change has taken place, and what inequalities have been overcome as a result of the Workplace Equality Fund.

The Workplace Equality Fund 2018-19 has three main outcomes:

1) Employment opportunities and progression in the workplace are improved for the priority groups and improvements are embedded into the workplace to ensure lasting change;

2) Knowledge, skills, policies and practices are improved in order to address employment inequalities, discrimination and barriers/challenges within the workplace; and

3) A more inclusive working environment is created and continued through employees and employers working in partnership to address employment inequalities and introduce positive practices.

The fund administrator, Impact Funding Partners, suggest (based on end of project reports) that 95% of projects have achieved or partially achieved outcome 1, 91% have achieved or partially achieved outcome 2 and 81% have achieved or partially achieved outcome 3.

The Workplace Equality Fund 2018-19 encourages systematic change in organisations by supporting innovative employer-led projects to review and improve their workplace structures, practices and policies to support an inclusive environment and diverse workforce.

Practices have included: the introduction of family friendly flexible working practices that accommodates workers with care or other commitments and improves work-life balance; reviewing and changing recruitment practices such as implementing an online recruitment tool with a rail company that seeks to open up employment opportunities to groups currently locked out of the employment market. This is achieved by removing barriers in the recruitment process such as bias and inequalities in job design to increase the number of women, disabled people and older workers applying for jobs; improved employer and employee knowledge and understanding of disability related issues such as through the launch of RNIB’s ‘Let’s Work Together’ retention pack for workers experiencing sight loss; the implementation of mental health initiatives in organisations such as an equalities toolkit to educate employers with the aim of those with mental health conditions gaining work experience placements, work trials and paid employment, where possible; the implementation of improvement plans and action plans focussing on older workers such as Age Scotland’s Age Inclusive Matrix which is a tool that helps companies ensure they are age optimal to a level necessary for their need; and race equality and unconscious bias training for employers and staff to remove discriminatory practices through capacity building employers to review policies and practices in place.

The examples of support above will help to tackle the inequalities faced by women, older workers, disabled people and ethnic minority people when entering, re-entering and progressing in work.