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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.

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Question reference: S5W-16384

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 May 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 15 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what measures are in place to support employers that employ people, including apprentices, with autism.

The Scottish Government is committed to reduce by more than half, the disability employment gap.

A number of specific actions, including those commitments undertaken since the launch of A Fairer Scotland for Disabled people in 2016 have been taken to support more disabled people into work including those with Autism. These include:-

Support through Scottish Employer Recruitment Incentive (SERI) and Community Jobs Scotland (CJS) for private and third sector employers to help more young people who face barriers to employment, including Autism.
Fair Start Scotland – our devolved employment service which will aim to support at least 38,000 people over 3 years of referrals. FSS commenced in April this year and disabled people are a specific priority group for support.
Putting in place the highest amount of Modern Apprenticeship Funding for disabled people up to the age of 29;
The launch by Skills Development Scotland of new digital guides for employers including the Employers’ Guide to Inclusive Recruitment
Funding for the National Autistic Society’s ‘moving forward’ programme from the CashBack for Communities funds, helps target the specific barriers faced by autistic people – a necessary step in the pursuit of meaningful employment. This includes but is not limited to, awareness training for employers.

We recognise more needs to be done. At a Congress on Disability Employment and the Workplace, the First Minister announced the publication later this year of a Disability Employment Action Plan. This will set out the Cross-Government actions we will take towards achieving our long term ambition for more disabled people to be able to enter and sustain employment. We will work with disabled people and their representative bodies to develop this plan. Those supporting people with learning disabilities or difficulties will be a key part of that engagement.

We also recognise the key role employers have to play in this, so an initial key action also announced at Congress was up to £1m for business engagement and support, providing ready access to support for employers to recruit and retain disabled people.

Question reference: S5W-16318

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 May 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 14 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how many hectares and (b) what percentage of (i) privately- and (ii) publicly-owned land has been registered on the land register in each year since April 2014.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that that the total number of additional hectares registered in each year since April 2014 is as follows:

2014-15: 58,456

2015-16: 120,115

2016-17: 94,491

2017-18: 137,514

Applicants for registration are not required to provide information on whether the land in question is public or private sector and therefore information is not held on the percentage of public and private sector land respectively that has been registered since April 2014.

Question reference: S5W-16230

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 April 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 11 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to publish the findings of its research on improving the Energy Performance Certificate methodology to ensure that it works for all homes and, if so, when it will do so.

Question reference: S5W-16315

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 May 2018
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 10 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many customers will see (a) an increase and (b) a decrease in their water charges as a result of the proposed changes that use rateable values assigned to non-household premises as part of the 2017 rates revaluation.

Question reference: S5W-16127

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 4 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) plans to adopt the latest National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines regarding Lyme disease and, if so, by what date.

Where there is no SIGN guideline on a particular topic, SIGN would expect healthcare professionals in Scotland to look for another high quality, evidence based guideline, such as the recently published NICE guideline on Lyme disease. This latest NICE guideline is a valuable publication, it is high quality and evidence based. Healthcare professionals in Scotland will be able to use this guideline to inform their current practice in the management of this condition.

Question reference: S5O-02071

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 May 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that all NHS boards provide out-of-hours dental care.

Question reference: S5O-02042

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 2 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what measures are in place to support young people with autism and Asperger's who are in mainstream education or who are seeking apprenticeships or other work placements.

There are a range of mechanisms in place to support young people with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome in schools, who are seeking apprenticeships or other work placements.

These include:

additional support for learning in schools;
support for apprenticeships from Skills Development Scotland delivered via Career, Information and Guidance services, and funding and promotion of apprenticeship programmes.
support for work placements is encouraged through the Developing the Young Workforce programme.

This work is delivered in the context of the Autism Strategy Outcomes and Priorities which seeks to improve outcomes on, health, choice and control, independence and active citizenship

Question reference: S5W-16082

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on developing a (a) platform that showcases the digital health options that are available to people and (b) formal approval system of health apps.

As set out in my answer to S5W-14011 on 1 February 2018, the Scottish Government is undertaking a Proof of Concept with the West of Scotland NHS Boards to examine how a Health and Social Care Services Portal may be developed to help citizens in the management of their health and wellbeing. Scotland's Digital Health and Care Strategy published on 25 April 2018 further confirms that to support excellent care at point of contact we will deliver the digital capability for citizens to access and update information about their health and wellbeing, including their records and from personal monitoring, and to interact with services. This will build on Proof of Concept work and through developments such as NHS Inform.

A multi-disciplinary working group convened by Scottish Government is currently testing a Quality Assurance Framework for Mobile Health apps for Health and Care Professionals in Scotland. The intention of the Framework is to provide quality and risk assessment for apps in relation to technology, information governance, use of high quality up to date evidence, sustainability and impact evaluation.

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 .

Question reference: S5W-16058

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on developing an equivalent body to the NHS Digital service that is in place in England.

The Scottish Government, in partnership with COSLA, has now published Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy which sets out a clear national direction for digital health and care delivery. We will now be working across the Scottish Government, NHS Scotland and Local Government to ensure that the capability required to successfully delivery on the strategy is in place, and will consider any requirement for organisational change as part of that process.

Question reference: S5W-16126

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 1 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to publish leaflets and information for (a) medical practitioners and (b) the public in all NHS board areas regarding Lyme disease.