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 144 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-41302

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 October 2025
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Neil Gray on 13 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to explore every avenue to support the sector and bring new care workers into social care roles in Scotland.

The UK Government’s hostile and restrictive migration policies are damaging Scotland’s health and social care sector.

In Scotland we need a migration system that works for our NHS, our social care sector, our businesses and third sector. Until we have the full powers over migration that will come with independence, we will do all we can within the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament to mitigate the UK Government’s harmful approach to migration.

I am therefore pleased to confirm today that the Scottish Government will create a bespoke offering to help social care workers who have been displaced to come to Scotland and contribute to our care sector.

We will provide £500,000 to mitigate the devastating impact of the UK Government’s closure of the care worker visa route and provide targeted support to help displaced social care workers.

This will support international social care workers already in the UK who have lost their social care jobs as a result of their employer losing their visa sponsor licence, to come to Scotland and contribute their valuable skills to our social care sector. It is our intention for this work to begin immediately so that social care workers can settle into new jobs before Christmas.

Question reference: S6O-05029

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 October 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the implementation of its international strategy, how and by what mechanisms it is engaging with the governments of other European nations.

Question reference: S6W-40758

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 September 2025
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Neil Gray on 26 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the planned launch and subsequent roll-out of the digital front door for health and social care.

The Digital Front Door programme has progressed over the summer to ensure we launch the Health & Social Care online app this year. In recent months, the programme has worked collaboratively with stakeholders on technical delivery, organisational readiness and branding of the service.

Following the conclusion of the work on branding, I am pleased to confirm Scotland’s app will be called MyCare. Like any digital service, good practice means the first version of MyCare will be evaluated thoroughly in Lanarkshire before it is rolled out across Scotland for the population from April 2026. With the delivery of MyCare, Scotland’s app will go further than other models proposed elsewhere in the UK and will support services in both health and social care.

Furthermore, today the Scottish Government has published an update on our approach to rolling out MyCare.scot across Scotland and the anticipated timelines. Members can read this publication at: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781806431717

Question reference: S6O-05010

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with the UK Government regarding the closure of any Jobcentres in Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-04984

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it supports youth employment in the Rutherglen constituency, including through employability services.

Question reference: S6W-39788

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 8 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many children and young people have received support from school counsellors in each of the last three years, broken down by local authority area.

The total number of children and young people that have accessed school counselling services in the last three years can be found in the following table:

Local Authority	July 2023 – March 2024	January – June 2023	July 2023 – December 2022	January – June 2022
Aberdeen City	328	344	285	295
Aberdeenshire	562	444	330	195
Angus	190	240	145	306
Argyll and Bute	453	258	203	150
Clackmannanshire	78	90	89	142
Dumfries and Galloway	401	315	242	263
Dundee City	298	484	302	553
East Ayrshire	813	713	576	734
East Dunbartonshire	566	443	274	236
East Lothian	325	150	50	160
East Renfrewshire	151	142	65	178
Edinburgh City	745	421	597	354
Eilean Siar (Western Isles)	120	121	112	-
Falkirk	721	71	496	519
Fife	600	722	722	456
Glasgow City	140	210	1318	1459
Highland	929	814	743	879
Inverclyde	173	142	74	95
Midlothian	201	196	181	179
Moray	617	534	460	458
North Ayrshire	379	447	302	364
North Lanarkshire	2114	1830	1366	1561
Orkney Islands	-	-	77	107
Perth and Kinross	300	385	273	364
Renfrewshire	1232	1081	858	997
Scottish Borders	746	556	642	493
Shetland Islands	44	47	26	111
South Ayrshire	354	380	348	564
South Lanarkshire	1411	1162	765	929
Stirling	928	364	295	364
West Dunbartonshire	487	357	207	381
West Lothian	1215	917	727	662
Total	17621	14290	13150	14508

- Orkney Council and Eilean Siar did not submit any data during this period, resulting in gaps in the dataset. However, due to the size of these authorities, this does not impact the overall results.

A summary of the latest data for the period April 2024 to March 2025 is scheduled to be published in the coming weeks.

Question reference: S6W-39787

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many emergency mental health assessment units are operational (a) nationally and (b) in each NHS board.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of emergency mental health assessment units available nationally or in each Health Board.

This notwithstanding, we can report that all Health Boards have a 24/7 mental health unscheduled care pathway in place for anyone in need of urgent mental health assessment or urgent referral to local mental health services. These pathways enable local mental health clinicians to receive referrals from the national NHS 24 Mental Health Hub and provide advice and support to frontline services such as Police Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service. They also avoid the need to attend the Emergency Department unless that is where the person needs to be cared for.

Question reference: S6W-39789

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 26 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many people in each (a) local authority and (b) NHS board area have accessed distress brief intervention services in each of the last five years.

Since launch in 2017, over 92,000 people have now been referred to our world-leading Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme. DBI is now live in every Health and Social Care Partnership area across Scotland, providing timely support to those in distress and easing pressures on frontline services.

A breakdown of Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) referrals by NHS Board level area for the financial years 2020-21 to 2024-25 is included in the following table. This data is not held at local authority level.

Table 1 – DBI Level 2 Local Referrals Across Scotland by Health Board for Financial Years 2020-21 to 2024-25

Health Board	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	23	264	455	861	953
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	0	85	451	776	702
NHS Fife	0	0	0	40	448
NHS Forth Valley	0	0	0	0	67
NHS Grampian	1,092	1,244	1,276	1,612	1,664
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	22	329	546	4,601	5,405
NHS Highland	863	888	917	1,208	1,539
NHS Lanarkshire	2,451	2,283	2,463	2,722	2,404
NHS Lothian	0	65	396	1,131	2,010
NHS Orkney	0	7	31	123	40
NHS Scottish Borders	922	1,148	1,103	1,120	889
NHS Shetland	0	0	0	6	12
NHS Tayside	0	0	195	1,380	1,525
NHS Western Isles	0	0	0	0	35

Source: PHS DBI Level 2 Dataset for all referrals up to 31st March 2024 and from DBI Level 2 Provider Monthly Returns from 1st April 2024.

In addition to local provision, people can access DBI through national routes via NHS 24 and Police Scotland & Scottish Ambulance Service Call Centres. In total, 26,332 referrals have been made through the national pathways across 2020-21 to 2024-25.

Question reference: S6W-39107

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has given to Clyde Gateway in each year since it was established, broken down by the purpose of the funding.

The Scottish Government has awarded over £213 million of regeneration funding to Clyde Gateway Urban Regeneration Company (URC) from 2007 for the purpose of supporting the delivery of its 20-year operating plan. This includes direct support through annual capital and resource funding to develop and regenerate key sites identified in the plan, support core running costs and other activities it delivers in support of local communities.

Grant awards were made in each financial year are provided in the following table:

Financial Year	Capital funding £000	Resource funding	Comment
2006-07	3,022
2007-08	5,000
2008-09 to 2010-11	57,000		Three-year funding from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2011
2011-12	11,554	746
2012-13	17,725	1,525
2013-14	19,525	1,525
2014-15	9,290	1,850
2015-16	1,816	184
2016-17	3,070	500
2017-18	5,000	500
2018-19	5,000	500
2019-20	6,130	500
2020-21	6,000	1,000	£500k revenue funding provided to support COVID-19 response.
2021-22	9,000	500
2022-23	5,500	500
2023-24	5,000	500
2024-25	1,000	500
2025-26	3,000	500

Additionally the Scottish Government agreed to a contribution of £3.8 million in capital funding from the Net Zero portfolio in 2024-25 toward the ongoing remediation works at Shawfield.

We understand that Clyde Gateway in delivering their strategic operational plan have, since their formation in 2007, developed numerous projects to support the communities. Information on all of the grants Clyde Gateway may have received from various funding bodies supported with Scottish Government funding is not held centrally in the format requested

Question reference: S6W-39486

Asked by: Clare Haughey, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish National Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 July 2025
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Neil Gray on 23 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the number of appointments and procedures that the additional £106 million investment will provide in 2025-26.

Through our £106 million additional investment targeted at the longest waits, NHS Boards plan to deliver more than 300,000 appointments and procedures this year.

The additional appointments and procedures are expected to break down as follows:

195,000 imaging scans;
31,000 inpatient or day-case procedures; and
88,000 new outpatient appointments.

A proportion of funding will also support cancer activity and provide critical supporting services which help our NHS deliver activity including pathology, diagnostic reporting and pre-assessment.

In addition, the Government has also now committed a further £4 million to deliver extra dermatology activity, bringing total additional funding for this year to over £110 million. This will support a planned:

4,100 new outpatient appointments; and
1,500 ‘see and treat’.

This funding will also see photo-triage of up to 8,300 digital images, allowing clinicians to triage, diagnose and assess some skin conditions, leading to a better and quicker service for patients.

Today’s announcement means 213,000 more appointments will be delivered this year than in 2024-25 and exceeds our Programme for Government target of delivering 150,000 extra appointments by more than 60,000.

NHS Boards will receive their allocated funding on delivery of activity. The Scottish Government may move funding between Boards and specialities throughout the year, subject to progress.