Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

Criathragan Hide all filters

Displaying 3284 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-39974

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the separate publication of audiology waiting times was discontinued in 2014, and whether it will consider reinstating this reporting to improve transparency and accountability.

Question reference: S6W-39973

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to improve access to training and continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities for audiology professionals across Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-39967

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is monitoring the ongoing implementation of the 55 recommendations of the Independent Review of Audiology Services in Scotland report, and whether progress reports will be published regularly.

Question reference: S6W-39963

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure consistent and accurate recording and reporting of audiology waiting times across all NHS boards, as recommended in the Independent Review of Audiology in Scotland report.

Question reference: S6W-39971

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in implementing recommendation 6 of the Independent Review of Audiology Services in Scotland (IRASS) report regarding the development of a robust workforce plan for audiology services.

Question reference: S6W-39547

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 19 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to review and improve the carbon calculator used to assess wind farm developments on peatlands, in light of the reported findings by ClimateXChange that it requires updating.

Question reference: S6W-39614

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 19 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that animal welfare objections that are raised in planning appeals are routinely disregarded as "non-material considerations", what steps it will take to issue guidance affirming that animal welfare can constitute a legitimate material consideration in the planning system.

Further to my answer to question S6W-38874 on 11 July 2025, in which I recognised the recent Court judgement reflecting the potential for animal welfare to be a material consideration, in determining any application or appeal, it is for the planning authority, or as the case may be the Scottish Ministers (or reporters on their behalf), who are considering the proposed development to decide what matters are material to their consideration on a case by case basis. Furthermore, the weight to be attached to any specific matter raised in any individual case rests with the decision-maker.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Question reference: S6W-39548

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 6 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to balance its target of achieving 20GW of onshore wind capacity by 2030 with the need to minimise carbon losses and ecological damage to Scotland’s peatlands.

Scottish Ministers must take into account all the views presented when considering applications for onshore wind projects. The merits of each proposal are considered on a case-by-case basis. A careful balance must be struck between the potential impacts of the development and the associated environmental, economic, renewable energy and climate change benefits.

Where new development proposals come forward, our Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) ensures the impacts of proposals on communities and nature, including cumulative impacts, are important considerations in the decision-making process. All applications are subject to site specific assessments.

Question reference: S6W-39058

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to ensure that (a) local authorities and (b) other public bodies are adequately resourced and supported to prevent, detect and respond to cyberattacks, particularly in the context of the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre’s remit and the updated Public Sector Cyber Resilience Framework.

The public sector provides a range of digital public services and it is critical that these are secure and resilient.

The Scottish Government has been encouraging public sector organisations to adopt a proactive, risk based governance approach, with board-level accountability to build their cyber resilience.

To support the sector’s ability to prevent, detect and manage cyber threats, the Scottish Government has set out a framework that provides an approach for public bodies to follow. It includes guidance on how to:

Assess their cyber resilience maturity

Align with minimum security standards

Benchmark performance, and

Prioritise investment based on risk.

It is supported by practical tools such as self-assessment templates and critical systems mapping resources which enables organisations to identify needs, engage leadership and prioritise budget and support.

The Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre (the SC3) provides:

24/7 national incident response coordination

Daily threat intelligence and early warning notifications

Cyber exercising and preparedness programmes, and

Guidance on standards and best practice.

This national support is helping to equip our public bodies with the tools, intelligence and skills needed to build and maintain strong cyber resilience.

Question reference: S6W-39057

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what immediate steps it is taking to improve cyber resilience across local authorities, in light of the recent cyber incident affecting Glasgow City Council, where personal data may have been exfiltrated following malicious activity on servers managed by a third-party supplier, and the earlier ransomware cyberattack on West Lothian Council’s education network.

Supporting cyber resilience in local authorities is a priority for the Scottish Government. We provide a range of measures to support both immediate incidents as well as helping strengthen local authorities’ cyber resilience in the longer term.

The Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre’s (SC3) core function is to work with the Scottish public sector to help them improve their preparedness, reduce vulnerabilities and learn from best practice. SC3 has 24/7 on-call arrangements to immediately engage multi-agency response, where necessary, for any public sector organisation who is subject to a cyber attack. When the cyber incidents occurred in Glasgow City and West Lothian councils, the SC3 quickly stood up a multi-agency response to support the councils.

SC3 provides several important services including:

sharing of relevant threat intelligence and early warnings,
liaising with partners such as NCSC and Police Scotland,
advising on consequence and data leak management, and
guiding on Cyber Incident Response support options.

Specific post-incident lessons learned are shared in appropriate channels. These continue to feed into scenario-based exercising through the Exercising Workstream to improve organisational preparedness. The SC3 has worked with the Digital Office CISO to deliver strategic level cyber exercising to several local authorities with more planned for later this year. Under the Standards & Insights Workstream, SC3 has also initiated two pieces of research targeted at the most common lessons from ransomware incidents, to provide additional guidance for organisations on legacy technology and multi-factor authentication.

We recognise the crucial role that councils and their employees play in communities across Scotland. That’s why the Scottish Government has made a record £15.1 billion available for local authorities for 2025-26, a real terms increase of 5.5% compared with last year.

It should be noted that local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government. Their powers are set out in statute, and it is up to each local authority to manage its day-to-day business, including the management of its IT systems. The Verity House Agreement reinforces this principle of local autonomy, while also encouraging collaboration and shared learning across the sector.