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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-03972

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much Scotland exports to the (a) rest of the UK, (b) EU, (c) USA and (d) rest of the world.

The latest published figures for 2014 estimate that Scottish exports to the rest of the UK are worth £48.5 billion. Scottish international exports are estimated to be worth £27.5 billion with an estimated £11.6 billion of these exports destined for the EU and £15.2 billion destined for non-EU countries. The USA is estimated to be Scotland’s largest international export market with an estimated £4.0 billion worth of exports.

The Scottish Government is currently exploring all options to protect Scotland’s interests and relationship with Europe.

Question reference: S5W-03821

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what services are available to people coming off anti-depressants.

Any prescribing is a clinical decision for a patient’s doctor and there is good evidence that GPs assess and treat depression appropriately. Decisions to use them should always involve the patient so that they understand both the potential benefits and risks in making a decision to take them.

For people coming off antidepressants help is available from a range of sources, GPs in primary care can often provide sufficient medical support in the community. For more specialised help general psychiatric services commonly manage people with a wide variety of mental health problems, including addictions. The multidisciplinary teams in specialist mental health consist of a range of professions – medical doctors, psychologists, nurses, allied health professionals that all can have a part to play in providing medical, psychological and social supports. Specialist addiction services are available for the most complex either through advice or direct service involvement and primary care, mental health and addiction specialist services are all sensitive to the stigma associated with mental health problems including addictions and do all they can to reduce this.

Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) develops evidence based clinical practice guidelines for the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland. SIGN guidelines are produced in collaboration with patients, carers and members of the public. SIGN guidelines 114 on Non-pharmaceutical management of depression in adults provides an assessment of non-pharmaceutical therapies, encompassing psychological therapies, structured exercise and lifestyle interventions, and a range of alternative and complementary treatments. These guidelines are published online and are available at http://sign.ac.uk/guidelines/fulltext/114/index.html.

In addition the Scottish Government also supports provided by Breathing Space and NHS Living Life to people experiencing depression and anxiety is a key element of wider work across Scotland to intervene early and prevent problems from becoming worse. This will be making a big difference to people and aligns well with our policy on improving prevention and intervening early, which is one area of focus for the next Mental Health Strategy.

Question reference: S5W-03818

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many deaths by suicide there have been in each year since 2011, broken down by (a) gender, (b) age and (c) local authority area.

Statistics on Probable Suicides (Deaths which are the Result of Intentional Self-harm or Events of Undetermined Intent) are published annually on the National Records of Scotland website. The following workbook contains trends by gender (worksheet 1), age-group (worksheet 3) and local authority (worksheet 5). http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/probable-suicides/suicides-2015-all-tables.xlsx

New coding rules were introduced by NRS in 2011, and the workbook contains figures from 2011 onwards based on both old and new coding. Any comparisons with suicides before 2011 should be based on old coding rules. Further information about the classification of suicide deaths is available on the following webpage: http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/deaths/suicides/the-definition-of-the-statistics

Question reference: S5W-03964

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government which companies have received Regional Selective Assistance in each year since 2011-12; how much was awarded and how many jobs were created.

Question reference: S5W-03971

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much additional funding will be provided to support the increase in Scottish Development International's representation in the EU that was announced by the First Minister.

Question reference: S5F-00411

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 31 October 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 November 2016

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the new living wage rate.

Question reference: S5W-03527

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 31 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish the equality impact assessment it carries out of spending by (a) Scottish Enterprise and (b) Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise are responsible for carrying out Equality Impact Assessments of their own policies and practices. They publish the assessments on their respective websites.

Links to the relevant pages are provided below:

https://www.scottish-enterprise.com/about-us/transparency/equality-and-diversity

http://www.hie.co.uk/about-hie/equality-and-diversity/equality-impact-assessment.html

Question reference: S5W-03522

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 31 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what gender-specific training is provided for (a) Business Gateway advisers and (b) Scottish Enterprise account managers.

Ensuring that Business Gateway Advisers have the training they need to deliver the Business Gateway Service is the responsibility of local authorities which are responsible for the operational delivery of the service.

Training for Scottish Enterprise account managers is an operational matter for the enterprise agency. I have asked the Chief Executive to contact you with the information you have requested and my understanding is that this will be with you in the near future.

Question reference: S5W-03759

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 31 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what the 44 performance measures are for Scottish Enterprise.

Scottish Enterprise (SE) use performance measures to help monitor the contribution they make in terms of their economic impact focused on the longer-term goals of Scotland’s Economic Strategy and highlighting their future direction over the 2015-18 period. These performance measures are set out in their Business Plan.

Their 2015-18 Business Plan can be found here:

https://www.scottish-enterprise.com/about-us/what-we-do/business-plan

Question reference: S5W-03384

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 30 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 28 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the letter of 27 September 2016 from the Director of Health and Social Care Integration to the integration joint boards regarding the new arrangements for the payment of the Scottish Living Wage to social care workers from 1 October 2016, what its position is on the reported concerns that the decision to exclude hours of work spent during sleepovers from the Scottish Living Wage commitment is evidence that the funding for the policy in 2016-17 was inadequate, and what plans it has to address this for future years.

Scottish Government allocated a further £250 million to health and social care partnerships to protect and grow social care services and deliver on our shared priorities, including paying the Living Wage to adult care workers.

We recognise the challenges of implementing this commitment and in particular in sleepover hours and took action to ensure continuity of care for some of the most vulnerable would not be impacted whilst still enabling a pay increase for some of the lowest paid workers caring for adults.

This is for a transitional period to allow for constructive reform to take place and our expectation is that in the future sleepover hours will be paid at the Living Wage. In providing this flexibility, for a transitional period, our central concern was, and is to maintain continuity of care for vulnerable people. This approach has been agreed with our partners group, including UNISON.

We are aware that the on-going delivery of the Living Wage commitment has implications for future budgets and this will be considered in our future spending review negotiations with COSLA.