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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: S4O-03555

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 October 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support traditional Scottish music and dance.

Question reference: S4O-03425

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 July 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 August 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support the 120 women who become unemployed each day into employment.

Question reference: S4W-21392

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what advice it has sought on the subsidy needed to maintain a six day a week universal mail service in an independent Scotland without an increase in stamp charges.

Question reference: S4W-21393

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what job losses it estimates there would be at the Royal Mail Philatelic Bureau in the event of independence.

Question reference: S4W-21391

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the cost of running a mail service six days per week in an independent Scotland to include a universal service to remote and rural areas unsubsidised by other areas of the rest of the UK and what the cost would be of (a) first and second class stamps and (b) parcel delivery.

Question reference: S4W-21390

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 May 2014
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the cost of renationalising the Royal Mail in an independent Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-21405

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 June 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 23 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of all transfers of funds between NHS boards in 2012-13, including funds transferred to the Golden Jubilee Hospital.

In 2012-13, there was intra-NHS board trading of approximately £1.2 billion, the majority of which related to service level agreements agreed between NHS boards. The Scottish Government does not hold any details centrally on these agreements, although NHS boards do report the total income received from other NHS boards in their annual accounts return.

The National Waiting Times Centre NHS Board received £61.9 million from each NHS board broken down as:

Income Received from:	£000s
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	6,987
NHS Borders	(21)
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	2,584
NHS Fife	157
NHS Forth Valley	2,063
NHS Grampian	25
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	23,971
NHS Highland	1,886
NHS Lanarkshire	9,800
NHS Lothian	158
NHS Orkney	15
NHS Shetland	7
NHS Tayside	119
NHS Western Isles	566
NHS National Services Scotland	12,432
Scottish Ambulance Service	6
NHS Education for Scotland	494
The State Hospital	10
NHS 24	613
NHS Health Scotland	13
Healthcare Improvement Scotland	52
Total	61,937

Question reference: S4W-21402

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 06 June 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 18 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what savings were (a) planned and (b) achieved in response to the recommendation at paragraph 6.5.44 of the Budget Review Group report, Choices for a Purpose: Review of Scottish Executive Budgets, on Scottish Ambulance Service patient transport.

It is not possible to directly attribute either a) the planned savings or b) achieved savings to the recommendations in the Choices for a Purpose report.

It should however be noted that during 2009-10, the Scottish Ambulance Service completed a review of scheduled care using Lean methodology and involving frontline staff in the process. One of the outcomes of this review was the establishment of a business case for the redesign and reconfiguration of the Patient Transport Service (PTS) which detailed a five year improvement programme from 2011-12 through to 2015-16. Estimated baseline savings for the PTS following implementation of the plan are as follows:

Financial year	Baseline savings
2011-12	£1.7 million
2012-13	£2.9 million
2013-14	£4.5 million
2014-15	£5.9 million
2015-16	£7.3 million
2016-17	£8.1 million

The board is progressing with the improvement programme and is on track to deliver the baseline savings outlined in the plan with £4.4 million achieved by the end of
2013-14. The redesign and reconfiguration programme is anticipated to deliver
£8.1 million savings between 2011-12 and 2016-17.

Question reference: S4W-21403

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 06 June 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 18 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what work has been undertaken in response to the recommendation at paragraph 6.5.49 of the Budget Review Group report, Choices for a Purpose: Review of Scottish Executive Budgets, on savings to be made by consolidating the Special Health Boards into a "beefed up" National Services Scotland.

The approach of this government has been to focus on delivering savings through existing structures rather than going through extensive reorganisation. Since 2011-12, a differential efficiency target has been set for special boards budgets which do not deliver direct patient care. This has resulted in recurring savings of £49.3 million being returned centrally to Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates to be reinvested in frontline patient care such as the delivery of the new vaccines programme.

Table 1 details the contribution of each of the four boards:

Table 1 – Special Health Board Efficiencies

Year	National Services Scotland	NHS Education	NHS Health Scotland	Healthcare Improvement Scotland	In-Year Total
2011-12	£7,711	£12,014	£1,051	£897	£21,673
2012-13	£4,000	£5,000	£1,009	£866	£10,875
2013-14	£4,000	£2,500	£1,009	£866	£8,375
2014-15	£4,000	£2,500	£1,009	£866	£8,375
Total	£19,711	£22,014	£4,078	£3,495	£49,298

Question reference: S4W-21622

Asked by: Dr Richard Simpson, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2014
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 18 June 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made in implementing the recommendations of the report of the Commission on Women Offenders, which was chaired by Dame Elish Angiolini.

The Scottish Government has made substantial progress in implementing the recommendations of the report Commission on Woman Offenders.

Following the commission’s principles of coordinated multi-agency working, 16 new services for women offenders have been developed in localities across Scotland to deliver services tailored to the needs of women who offend. Where appropriate, these projects follow the model of community justice centres for women. But, where a single centre does not fit the needs of the population, the projects are using a range of models (including outreach projects and improved co-ordination of services) to deliver improved services to women in smaller or rural populations.

We are also providing mentoring services to women offenders across Scotland through the SHINE public social partnership, one of the mentoring services being funded through the Reducing Reoffending Change Fund.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) is developing a new national prison for women in Inverclyde which will open in summer 2017. The plans for HMP Inverclyde have been developed in line with the commission’s recommended standards. In addition, new women specific facilities at HMP Edinburgh and HMP Grampian will provide the opportunity for many women to serve shorter sentences closer to their families.

In the meantime, an upgrade to HMP Cornton Vale has included renovation of prison buildings, the creation of a new family/visitor hub and specialised training for all SPS staff who deal with women prisoners.