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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-25651

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 30 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many Fair Start Scotland participants there are in each local authority area, broken down by health condition.

Question reference: S5W-25702

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-21923 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 13 March 2019, whether it is in a position to provide more information regarding the estimated costs of the agency agreements for disability and winter heating assistance.

Question reference: S5W-25701

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-21923 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 13 March 2019, at what stage discussions are with the DWP, and when these discussions (a) began and (b) are scheduled to conclude.

Question reference: S5W-25721

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how much its Social Security Directorate budgeted to spend on salaries for contingent workers in each quarter since 2016-17, and how this compared with actual spend.

The budgets for the Scottish Government, including Social Security Directorate, are set out in the Scottish Budget each year, and links are provided below to each year’s Budget. These include budget lines for Social Security, which include the cost for directly employed staff and contingent workers.

2016-17: https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20170702005839/
http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/12/9056/0

2017-18:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-budget-draft-budget-2017-18/

2018-19:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-draft-budget-2018-19/

2019-20:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2019-20/

Regarding a comparison of actual spend to budget, we report this annually in the “final outturn report for the Scottish budget”, and links are provided below to each year’s report:

2016-17 (provisional):
https://www.gov.scot/news/provisional-budget-outturn/

2017-18:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/final-outturn-report-scottish-budget-year-
ended-31-march-2018/

2018-19:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/final-outturn-report-scottish-budget-year-
ended-31-march-2019/

2019-20: to be published

For further information on the specific costs for contingent workers, we publish information on our procurement awards here, including contingent workers:

https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/search_mainpage.aspx .

Question reference: S5W-25700

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-21923 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 13 March 2019, and in light of the Audit Scotland report, The 2018/19 Audit of Social Security Scotland, whether forthcoming agreements for disability and winter heating assistance will resolve the reported issue that Social Security Scotland cannot directly assess the levels of error and fraud under agency arrangements with the DWP.

Question reference: S5W-25699

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 07 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the mean salary is for staff in the (a) Programme Management and Delivery and (b) Chief Digital Officer division of the Social Security Directorate, broken down by grade, and how this compares with that of contingent staff.

We publish the following information on staff salaries in the Scottish Government, which includes the Social Security Directorate:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/public-sector-pay-policy-staff-pay-remits-2019-20-technical-guide/pages/9/

https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-19-00145/

https://www.gov.scot/policies/public-sector-pay/pay-transparency/

And we publish the following information on our staff numbers:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/workforce-information/

Regarding the salaries for contingent workers, we refer you to the PQ responses in the following links:

S5W-25516 – https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx?SearchType=Advance&ReferenceNumbers=S5W-25516&ResultsPerPage=10

S5W-25345 – https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx?SearchType=Advance&ReferenceNumbers=S5W-25345&ResultsPerPage=10

Question reference: S5W-25615

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether a parent will have to reapply for the Scottish Child Payment in 2022-23 in the event that their child, for which the parent received the under-sixes payment of the Scottish Child Payment, reaches the age of six before 2022-23.

Given the speed at which the Scottish Child Payment is being rolled out, policy and delivery development to date has primarily focussed on the early payments for children aged under 6 which will begin before Christmas 2020.

Across social security, we are committed to reducing the barriers to claiming benefits and promoting take up, making the process as simple and straightforward as possible, and ensuring people are treated with dignity and respect. Ahead of the payment being fully rolled out by the end of 2022, we will continue to undertake detailed stakeholder engagement and user research, alongside operational and technical requirements, to inform future application and payment processes.

The latest policy position paper, published on gov.scot, provides further detail on this: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-child-payment-updated-position-paper/ .

Question reference: S5W-25614

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether a payment of the Scottish Child Payment for children under the age of six will continue to be paid in the event of a child reaching the age of six during (a) 2020-21 and (b) 2021-22.

When the Scottish Child Payment was launched, it was made clear that while the payment would be fully introduced by the end of 2022, early payments would be made for children under 6. In order to introduce this payment early, and significantly ahead of schedule, we have had to work within certain legal and technical parameters. This is, therefore, a standalone payment for eligible families with children under 6, and, at this stage, payments will not continue beyond this age during 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Full details of the legal and technical issues is set out in an updated position paper, published on Friday 4 October and available on the Scottish Government’s website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-child-payment-updated-position-paper/ .

Question reference: S5W-25769

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many permanent staff in the social security programme have submitted overtime claims in (a) each month and (b) total since May 2018.

(a) each month

Table 1. Number of permanent staff who made an overtime claim for programme management and delivery division.

Month claim refers to	Number of staff who made an overtime claim
Month claim refers to	Monday to Saturday	Sunday	Public and Privilege
May-18	3	1	0
Jun-18	5	1	0
Jul-18	2	1	0
Aug-18	1	0	0
Sep-18	6	1	1
Oct-18	3	4	1
Nov-18	3	2	0
Dec-18	8	6	3
Jan-19	4	2	0
Feb-19	1	0	0
Mar-19	0	1	0
Apr-19	1	1	0
May-19	3	3	0
Jun-19	3	4	1
Jul-19	0	3	0
Aug-19	2	2	0
Sep-19	2	3	2

Notes:

Permanent includes permanent, fixed term appointment with fair and open competition.

An individual may have claimed one or more types of overtime in any given month.

Claims were attributed to each month based on the date the claims were processed (not the dates worked or the dates that claims were submitted on). Therefore the claims may relate to work undertaken in earlier periods, including before May 2019.

Each month shows the number of different individuals who had a claim in that month. Some of those individuals will have made claims in more than one month, so the columns should not be totalled.

(b) total since May 2018.

There were 28 unique individuals in the programme management and delivery division who made any kind of overtime claim during the period 1 May 2018 to 30 September 2019.

Question reference: S5W-25771

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 24 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23228 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 28 May 2019, how much it has spent on overtime for permanent staff in the social security programme in each month since May 2018.

Table 1. Cost of overtime claims for permanent staff in programme management and delivery division.

Month claim refers to	Cost of overtime claims
Month claim refers to	Monday to Saturday	Sunday	Public and Privilege
May-18	£335	£210	£0
Jun-18	£852	£289	£0
Jul-18	£997	£157	£0
Aug-18	£486	£0	£0
Sep-18	£4,995	£1,591	£467
Oct-18	£2,249	£1,210	£470
Nov-18	£2,579	£720	£0
Dec-18	£8,337	£1,575	£328
Jan-19	£1,112	£415	£0
Feb-19	£45	£0	£0
Mar-19	£0	£221	£0
Apr-19	£979	£261	£0
May-19	£748	£1,636	£0
Jun-19	£265	£1,269	£339
Jul-19	£0	£701	£0
Aug-19	£1,005	£906	£0
Sep-19	£361	£2,608	£966

Notes.

Permanent includes permanent, fixed term appointment with fair and open competition

Costs relate to claims listed in the table in the answer to S5W-25769 on 24 October 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .