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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-24941

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Broad General Education (BGE) benchmarking tool, including the school level information dashboard, is (a) fully operational and (b) available to all local authorities and schools.

The Broad General Education (BGE) benchmarking tool is fully operational and available to all teachers who have a registered account on Glow: https://glowconnect.org.uk/ . It is also available to other staff on request. The School Information Dashboards are also fully operational, and publicly available to anyone via the Scottish Government Education Analytical Services tableau website:https://public.tableau.com/profile/sg.eas.learninganalysis#!/ .

Question reference: S5W-24887

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 23 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 12 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when the new careers strategy will be published.

The new careers strategy is being developed collaboratively by the Scottish Government and representation from across the careers sector. A steering group was established consisting of representation from Skills Development Scotland, Universities Scotland, Colleges Scotland, DWP, Education Scotland, AGCAS, the Scottish Funding Council and the SCQFP. The development process is being overseen by two expert independent advisors.

The strategy will be published in due course.

Question reference: S5O-03509

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 11 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to ensure the impartiality of its planned citizens’ assembly.

Question reference: S5W-24833

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many Attainment Advisors have been deployed in each local authority in each of the last three years.

All 32 Local Authorities have had an Attainment Advisor working either full-time or part-time with their designated local authority.

For the three year period 2016-17, 2017-18 & 2018-19 13 Local Authorities had access to a full-time Attainment Advisor and the remaining 19 had access to a part-time Attainment Advisor.

Over the course of 2019 Education Scotland has been recruiting to ensure all 32 Local Authorities have access to a dedicated Attainment Advisor. At the start of session 2019-20 19 local authorities had access to a dedicated Attainment Advisor and by October 2019 this will be the case in all 32 local authorities.

Question reference: S5W-24690

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 29 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many examination markers who were appointed for the 2019 diet of SQA qualifications left their posts before the end of the marking period.

Question reference: S5O-03195

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the impact will be on benefit recipients of the expansion to 1,140 hours of funded childcare.

Question reference: S5O-03151

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 25 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with sportscotland with regard to the development of women’s football.

Question reference: S5O-03163

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government which NHS boards offer robotic assisted prostatectomy as a method of surgery for prostate cancer.

Question reference: S5F-03268

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 April 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 April 2019

To ask the First Minister what measures the Scottish Government will put in place to reverse the reported decline in subject choice in secondary schools.

Question reference: S5W-22326

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS patients have been treated in private hospitals in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board.

The total number of NHS patients that have been treated in private (independent) hospitals in each of the last five financial years and reported to ISD is presented in the table below. The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to a publicly-owned, and operated NHS, so that the people of Scotland continue to have free, timely access to health services.

Through the new Waiting Times Improvement Plan we’ll move to a new single contract for any use of the independent sector, in order to reduce costs and maximise effectiveness. The new approach will only be used as required while NHS capacity is expanded over the longer term.

Number of NHS patients treated in Private (independent) hospitals 1 by NHS board of residence; 2013-14 – 2017-18

	Inpatients or Daycases (SMR01)					Outpatients (SMR00) 2
Health Board of Residence	2013- 14	2014- 15	2015- 16	2016- 17	2017- 18	2013- 14	2014- 15	2015- 16	2016- 17	2017- 18
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	282	307	54	43	47	2	3
NHS Borders	253	253	143	4	59	46	39	38	14	22
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	133	75	17	5	4	17	21	9	6	38
NHS Fife	379	293	84	123	63	185	321	198	91	27
NHS Forth Valley	685	629	550	435	429	880	288	294	8	1
NHS Grampian	1004	1351	1055	539	735	167	1184	1020	1381	768
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	896	943	895	963	556	4	1	9	42	306
NHS Highland	63	88	118	121	23	-	1	13	17	18
NHS Lanarkshire	610	474	1101	1480	1928	386	738	610	398	270
NHS Lothian	3682	4524	4667	697	816	5115	5183	5824	2960	2347
NHS Orkney	46	23	10	8	2	-	5	5	3	-
NHS Shetland	37	30	14	-	2	-	11	11	-	-
NHS Tayside	407	131	99	180	55	264	403	601	270	28
NHS Western Isles	43	54	51	45	42	-	-	1	-	-
Not Known	15	7	3	-	2	27	21	25	43	20
Outwith Scotland	12	4	4	1	1	3	1	2	1	1
Grand Total	8547	9186	8865	4644	4764	7096	8220	8660	5234	3846

- denotes zero
1. relates to patients treated in non-NHS locations such as private hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, care homes, etc. The data recording-completeness of Non-NHS Provider data varies from year to year.
2. Outpatient data only include patients that attended their outpatient appointment and were seen.