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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.

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Question reference: S5W-17330

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 July 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-17093 by Jeane Freeman on 18 June 2018, whether Social Security Scotland's policy on Special Customer Records will be operational when the first payments of the carer’s allowance supplement are made.

Question reference: S5W-17339

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 10 July 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to reconvene the stakeholder working group on appropriate hospice and respite provision for young disabled adults.

This is not a working group that the Scottish Government has chaired in the past.

In response to Petition PE1499, Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS) worked with relevant stakeholders, including the Scottish Government, to address concerns around the introduction of an upper age limit at their hospices for babies, children and young people with life limiting conditions. As a result, a dedicated Transition team was set up in 2014 for a three year period to support these young people approaching the end of their stay at CHAS.

The Transition team continues to operate through the core CHAS service and works with the young people currently using the service to help maximise their future opportunities for independence, and identify age-appropriate options available to them

The Health and Sport Committee considered Petition PE1499 further on ‎2 February 2017 and welcomed the work that CHAS and the Scottish Government had undertaken to look at how respite services for young adults can be improved and increased. The Petition was closed as it was agreed that action is under way to address the matters raised.

Question reference: S5W-17338

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 29 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government by what date the new assessment and approval pathway for ultra-orphan medicines will be (a) operational and (b) launched.

Question reference: S5W-17261

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 27 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what trips over summer recess 2018 (a) to the rest of the UK and (b) overseas are scheduled for (i) the First Minister and (ii) each cabinet secretary and minister.

Question reference: S5W-17212

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 21 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how the implementation of the Public Contracts (Scotland) 2015 regulations is being used to support the delivery of fair work, collective bargaining and effective voice across the engineering construction sector.

Legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament, the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, provides for Scottish Ministers to publish Statutory Guidance on Addressing Fair Work Practices, including the Living Wage, in Procurement. This Guidance published in October 2015, after consultation with Trade Unions, advises public bodies how to address Fair Work practices within their procurement exercises. It states we expect contractors who deliver public contracts to adhere to relevant collective agreements, and that fair work practices include trade union recognition or alternative arrangements to give staff an effective voice. To support the practical application of the Statutory Guidance, we have worked with the Fair Work Convention and are developing best practice guidance which is due to be published in Summer 2018.

Question reference: S5W-17214

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 21 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how many and (b) which companies that have been selected to provide public services (i) have and (ii) do not have collective bargaining arrangements.

Question reference: S5W-17216

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 21 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to introduce transitional protections for procurement contracts that began before the full implementation of the Public Contracts (Scotland) 2015 regulations.

Question reference: S5W-17213

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 21 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what arrangements have been put in place throughout the lifetime of the procurement process to ensure that investment into public sector infrastructure delivers on the Public Contracts (Scotland) 2015 regulations in support of workplace matters, including the provision of relevant collective agreements.

The Scottish Government has put in place a number of arrangements to address Fair Work practices throughout the public procurement process.

Statutory Guidance published in October 2015 requires public bodies to consider, before they undertake a procurement process whether it is relevant and proportionate to include a question on Fair Work practices, which would be evaluated along with other relevant criteria.

The public procurement Regulations permit a public body to reject a contractor’s tender, which would have otherwise won the competition, where the body has established that the tender does not comply with applicable obligations in the fields of environmental, social and labour or collective agreements. Furthermore, the Scottish Government’s standard terms and conditions of contract contain a clause permitting the contract to be terminated if, in delivering the contractor, the contractor breaches environmental, social or employment laws. We have also published a Scottish Procurement Policy Note 9/2016 which contains model contract conditions.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 requires public bodies in Scotland with a significant procurement spend to report on their procurement activity, which must include a review of whether those procurements complied with their policy set out in their procurement strategy on how to promote the Living Wage and progress the Fair Work agenda. The first of these annual Reports are expected to be published over the coming months.

Question reference: S5O-02289

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 June 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve out-of-hours provision at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Question reference: S5W-17095

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 June 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 20 June 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many posts in its social security (a) directorate and (b) agency it has (i) advertised and (ii) re-advertised.

As of 8 June 2018 the number of posts advertised in its Social Security (a) directorate was 632 which includes (b) 241 posts in the Social Security Agency Implementation Division, this data is from July 2016 when the Social Security Directorate was established. The Social Security Agency will not go live until later this year.

Data on the number of posts re-advertised is not held within the Scottish Government recruitment system. The system does not have the functionality to report on re-advertised posts. Scottish Government resourcing colleagues are currently looking at new resourcing system and will be speaking to Social Security Directorate and Agency colleagues about the specification required.