Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-05111

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 5 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will clarify the details of its aim to reduce the kilometres, or miles, travelled by car by 20% by a target date; whether the target date remains 2030; whether the aim has changed to a (a) quantity of miles or (b) target date of 2032; if so, for what reason, and, if not, for what reason the Minister for Transport stated otherwise on social media on 10 December 2021.

The commitment to reduce car kms by 20% by 2030 (against a 2019 baseline) as set out in the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan update (CCPu) published in December 2020 remains unchanged, either in terms of measurement or time scale.

An incorrect graphic was posted on social media on the 10 th of December. As soon as the error was noticed, the post was removed at the earliest opportunity to avoid further confusion, and we remain fully committed to reducing car km driven in Scotland by 20% by the year 2030.

Question reference: S6W-04865

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 22 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) planning it has undertaken and (b) action it has taken to ensure that people who experience power cuts are able to contact the emergency services in instances where they cannot make phone calls due to their mobile phone battery expiring or their landline being internet-based.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of mobile and broadband connectivity for almost all aspects of everyday life which is why we work closely with Local Resilience Partnerships, telecoms providers and the UK Government - both in preparing for, and responding to severe weather events which may impact telecommunications in Scotland.

It is important to note that resilience of the Communications Sector, which includes telecommunications and internet, is reserved and therefore the responsibility of the UK Government.

Major outages are extremely rare, but most telecoms equipment is dependent on a power supply in order to function which can be disrupted by extreme weather.

During the Storm Arwen response effort, welfare centres offered Wi-Fi and mobile phone charging facilities where possible. Additionally, in the in the run-up to Storm Arwen, the Scottish Government’s Ready Scotland campaign was activated using local radio and digital channels and was geographically targeted on the areas affected by the Amber and Red Met Office warnings.

The ‘Ready Scotland’ website, at ready.scot , provides advice to the public on how to prepare for and respond to emergencies; including utilities loss and severe weather.

We will continue to press the UK Government and the regulator (Ofcom) for assurance that increasing resilience of the telecoms network in Scotland is a priority.

Question reference: S6W-04893

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 22 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the average daily traffic flow volumes have been on the A96 Trunk Road between Aberdeen and Inverness in each year since 2017.

Question reference: S6W-04896

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 21 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much compensation ScotRail has awarded to passengers in each month or four-week recording period since the beginning of 2019, and what the estimated unclaimed compensation has been in each of these months or periods.

ScotRail is required through the Franchise Agreement to provide a delay-repay scheme to passengers, which offers compensation when their journey is delayed by more than 30 minutes.

The Delay Repay scheme operates on a railway period reporting basis from April to March.

The following tables summarise the actual compensation ScotRail awarded to passengers in each four-week period since the 2018-2019 reporting period.

Year 2018-19	Total Paid £
Period 1	42,261.90
Period 2	44,924.23
Period 3	51,287.09
Period 4	107,277.52
Period 5	64,808.78
Period 6	54,628.81
Period 7	139,931.63
Period 8	130,002.42
Period 9	92,283.63
Period 10	142,333.06
Period 11	79,312.79
Period 12	69,881.40
Period 13	100,885.09

Year 2019-20	Total Paid £
Period 1	91,429.40
Period 2	73,875.72
Period 3	72,287.62
Period 4	86,505.59
Period 5	98,903.67
Period 6	133,842.09
Period 7	91,280.73
Period 8	91,614.16
Period 9	85,063.52
Period 10	80,166.92
Period 11	66,171.83
Period 12	91,144.58
Period 13	67,697.34

Year 2020-21	Total Paid £
Period 1	2,223.01
Period 2	883.04
Period 3	765.40
Period 4	3,833.78
Period 5	15,861.08
Period 6	16,983.27
Period 7	10,114.08
Period 8	9,499.96
Period 9	6,016.37
Period 10	5,845.59
Period 11	5,749.37
Period 12	9,705.36
Period 13	2,078.74

Year 2021-22	Total Paid £
Period 1	3,613.09
Period 2	10,988.17
Period 3	14,515.09
Period 4	18,907.19
Period 5	36,904.36
Period 6	25,300.68
Period 7	18,671.16
Period 8	34,179.00
Period 9 (to date)	52,951.00

Concerning an estimate figure for unclaimed delay repay is not something that is held by Transport Scotland or ScotRail.

Question reference: S6W-04895

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 21 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what cycling projects it has supported in each of the regional transport partnership areas, and how much funding it has provided for these in each year since 2017.

Question reference: S6W-04894

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 21 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) fatal and (b) serious accidents there have been on each road in the trunk road and motorway network in each year since 2017.

The following table presents the total number of fatal and serious accidents for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. However, the information on the total number of fatal and serious accidents for 2021 are only available up to the date stated in the table.

	Fatal and Serious Collisions 2017 to 2021
Route	2017		2018		2019		2020		2021		TOTAL
Route	Serious	Fatal	Serious	Fatal	Serious	Fatal	Serious	Fatal	Serious ‎ up to 7 Sept	Fatal ‎ up to 13 Dec
A1	5	2	7	1	3	0	9	1	6	0	34
A6091	0	0	1	1	2	0	1	0	1	2	8
A68	3	0	7	2	5	0	2	2	5	0	26
A7	1	1	4	2	4	0	2	0	4	0	18
A701	3	0	6	1	3	0	0	0	3	0	16
A702	8	1	1	3	4	0	4	0	4	0	25
A720	2	0	10	0	10	1	4	0	2	0	29
A725	4	0	4	1	5	0	5	0	2	0	21
A726	3	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	2	0	6
A737	7	1	5	0	7	0	4	0	3	0	27
A738	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	3
A75	7	3	8	1	7	2	7	1	10	2	48
A751	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
A76	3	1	11	2	5	0	4	2	5	1	34
A77	13	4	10	1	17	2	10	0	6	1	64
A78	13	0	12	0	7	0	10	2	9	0	53
A8	3	1	2	0	4	1	3	1	3	0	18
A82	25	7	20	4	27	7	22	5	16	6	139
A828	0	0	5	0	1	1	1	0	1	0	9
A83	7	1	6	2	17	0	6	1	3	1	44
A830	1	0	0	0	2	2	1	0	1	0	7
A835	0	0	2	4	5	1	2	0	2	0	16
A84	7	1	5	0	7	0	3	1	0	1	25
A85	11	1	15	0	13	4	11	0	3	4	62
A86	3	0	3	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	7
A87	4	0	4	2	5	1	7	0	5	1	29
A876	1	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	4
A887	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
A889	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
A893	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
A898	1	0	1	0	1	0	2	0	1	0	6
A9	15	5	27	10	35	6	19	2	15	4	138
A90	27	2	19	1	26	3	19	5	11	1	114
A92	10	0	15	0	10	1	16	2	4	0	58
A95	5	1	2	0	4	0	2	0	1	0	15
A956	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
A96	12	2	11	1	16	5	9	3	8	2	69
A972	0	0	1	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	3
A977	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2
A985	1	0	3	0	4	2	3	2	1	0	16
A99	1	0	0	0	1	0	2	0	0	1	5
M8	12	1	14	1	21	1	16	6	23	3	98
M74	7	2	7	5	21	5	17	1	9	3	77
M73	0	0	1	1	2	0	1	0	2	0	7
M77	4	0	5	0	1	0	3	0	1	0	14
M80	4	1	5	0	8	1	3	0	2	1	25
M823	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	2
M876	2	0	1	0	1	0	2	0	0	0	6
M898	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
M9	5	0	5	2	6	1	5	1	4	0	29
M90	6	0	5	0	8	1	4	1	3	1	29
TOTAL	248	38	271	49	328	49	246	39	184	36	1488

Transport Scotland only holds accident information which is provided to us by Police Scotland. Please note that the information provided is based on the current figures available at the time of retrieving the data from Transport Scotland’s accident manager system. The following are potential reasons for an accident not appearing on our system:

• Transport Scotland only holds accident information which is provided to us by Police Scotland.

• Transport Scotland does not hold information relating to damage only accidents (i.e. not involving an injury).

• Transport Scotland only holds accident information for the trunk road network.

• The accident information Transport Scotland holds is subject to change. E.g. we receive late returns from Police Scotland, who are responsible for recording details of injury accidents.

• Annual Scottish accident figures are published by Transport Scotland on a yearly basis and can be found by entering Reported Road Casualties Scotland into your search engine.

• From summer 2019, Police Scotland introduced a new system for recording traffic collisions. Due to improved recording and categorisation processes, it is expected that there will be an increase in the number of casualties and accidents on Scottish roads that are classified as serious. The evidence from other police forces within the UK that introduced the same system is that this increase will be around 20%. This increase would not reflect an actual change in the severity of accidents occurring on Scottish roads, but would instead reflect more accurate recording.

• Statisticians within the Department for Transport have devised a method for adjusting the road casualty figures to ensure that they can be compared over time on a consistent basis. Transport Scotland’s Key Reported Road Casualties and Reported Road Casualties statistics publications will present both adjusted and unadjusted figures.

Question reference: S6W-04970

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to introduce a targeted, rural heat transition package, which would recognise any distinct challenges and opportunities of rural, remote and island communities.

The Scottish Government already offer bespoke and targeted advice and support to rural, remote and islands communities through a number of its delivery programmes, and the Heat in Buildings programme will take into account the distinct challenges facing these communities. The Scottish Government launched on Wednesday 15 December a further funding call to support heat decarbonisation and energy resilience in Scotland’s more remote, rural and island off electricity grid networks. Information on this can be found on the website, by accessing this link.

The Scottish Government currently provide support for community groups and organisations to explore their renewable heat options through the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) delivered by Local Energy Scotland on the Scottish Government’s behalf. CARES provides advice and support including funding support (grants and loans) to community groups and organisations, rural SME’s, and other eligible organisations seeking to explore their renewable energy options.

The Scottish Government will be consulting in 2022 on its draft Islands energy strategy. This will set out an approach to decarbonisation for Scotland’s island communities that will support them to develop renewable energy solutions that promote resilience, enhance sustainability and meet their energy needs now and in the future. As part of this work, where not already in place, the Scottish Government intend to explore the evidence base and options for an islands specific uplift, as part of our commitment to provide additional support for rural and island homes for heat and energy efficiency.

Question reference: S6W-04958

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what additional steps it has taken to increase the resilience of power networks, following Storm Arwen.

Throughout Storms Arwen and Barra the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division maintained daily contact with the power companies and close engagement continues.

It must be noted that resilience of the electricity networks is reserved and is the responsibility of the UK Government. The Scottish Government will be engaging with both the upcoming Ofgem and UK Government Storm Arwen reviews.

In addition, the Deputy First Minister requested that the Scottish Government’s Resilience Division begin work on the scope and terms of a review into the Storm Arwen response on 30 November 2021, and on 14 December 2021 he formally commissioned the Scottish Resilience Partnership to collate evidence from local resilience partnerships to inform the findings of the review.

The Scottish Government will also gather evidence from other relevant groups, for example the voluntary sector and utilities companies, including power companies.

‎This work is already well underway and we aim to publish a review paper with recommendations in mid-January.

Question reference: S6W-04891

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 20 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5O-03945 by Humza Yousaf on 19 December 2019, what the staff (a) recruitment, (b) retention and (c) absence rate has been at each prison and young offenders institution in the last 12 months.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The SPS can provide the following information in response to the questions asked:

(a)Recruitment of prison staff between 1 December 2020 and 30 November 2021, by prison establishment.

The table below outlines the number of external appointments made into the SPS for requested date range, detailed by establishment and role type (either non-operational or operational):

Table 1

Establishment	Non-operational appointments	Operational appointments	Total appointments
HMP Barlinnie	10	39	49
HMP Cornton Vale	2	13	15
HMP Dumfries	1	10	11
HMP Edinburgh	11	26	37
HMP Glenochil	7	31	38
HMP Grampian	4	21	25
HMP Greenock	3	9	12
HMP Inverness	1	9	10
HMP Low Moss	7	18	25
HMP Castle Huntly	4	5	9
HMP Perth	5	23	28
HMP Polmont	9	22	31
HMP Shotts	8	23	31
Total	72	249	321

(b) Retention (turnover) rate of prison staff between 1 December 2020 and 30 November 2021, by prison establishment.

The table below provides the Retention (turnover) rate of prison staff between the requested date range.

Table 2

Establishment	Non-operational leavers	Operational leavers	Total leavers	Turnover % vs establishment complement
HMP Barlinnie	6	31	37	5.9%
HMP Cornton Vale	3	6	9	5.2%
HMP Dumfries	1	9	10	6.1%
HMP Edinburgh	2	15	17	3.5%
HMP Glenochil	6	25	31	7.6%
HMP Grampian	4	20	24	7.6%
HMP Greenock	2	10	12	5.9%
HMP Inverness	2	12	14	11.3%
HMP Low Moss	5	12	17	4.9%
HMP Castle Huntly	4	2	6	4.9%
HMP Perth	8	16	24	6.7%
HMP Polmont	10	13	23	5.2%
HMP Shotts	4	19	23	6.1%
Total	57	190	247	6.2% (average)

(c) Rate of absence between 1 December 2020 and 30 November 2021, broken down by prisonsite.

The SPS monitors and presents staff absence in ‘Average Working Days Lost’ (AWDL) per year, per ‘Full Time Equivalent’ (FTE). The table below provides the AWDL figure for each prison over the above 12 month rolling period:

Table 3

Establishment	AWDL (Over 12 month period, 1 Dec 2020 – 30 Nov 2021)
HMP Barlinnie	22.8
HMP Cornton Vale	23.2
HMP Dumfries	16.1
HMP Edinburgh	16.0
HMP Glenochil	18.6
HMP Grampian	12.7
HMP Greenock	23.4
HMP Inverness	22.7
HMP Low Moss	21.0
HMP Castle Huntly	9.5
HMP Perth	18.5
HMYOI Polmont	24.9
HMP Shotts	18.8
Establishment Average	19.09

Question reference: S6W-04867

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) strategy and (b) resilience planning was undertaken to account for the possibility of extraordinary events, such as Storm Arwen, occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic and associated measures, such as lockdown.

Resilience structures in Scotland are designed to be adaptable and responsive to a wide range of risks.

Ministers regularly receive briefing on specific risks or emergencies throughout the year and the Scottish Government’s resilience arrangements constantly monitor for emerging issues and threats.

In the autumn of 2021, recognising the heightened risk of concurrent events – including COVID, winter weather, and supply chain issues – additional reporting and monitoring arrangements were put in place to ensure Ministers retain a close oversight of the complex and overlapping risk picture. Since 30 September, this has included daily reporting and weekly meetings of SGORR, with assessments on the key concurrent risks facing Government and planning activity being taken.

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