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 1866 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-39082

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 30 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 28 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has undertaken of the economic impact of hybrid and remote working policies on city centre economies, and whether it will publish any such data.

Question reference: S6W-38700

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 13 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many care homes have closed in each of the last 10 years, broken down by (a) local authority area and (b) how many residents were affected by any closures.

In regards to part A of the question, there is no definitive list of closed care homes. The Care Inspectorate publish information relating to ‘Service Cancellations and Registrations’ in their quarterly statistical reports. The most recent version was published on 9 May 2025, which can be accessed via the following link:

https://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/publications-statistics/182-statistics-and-data/statistics/quarterly-statistical-reports

This includes “care home services for older people, children & young people, mental health, alcohol & drugs misuse, learning disabilities and respite services.” The number of services that have been cancelled are available in the cancelled services column in the publication table.

It is important to note that in some cases the services listed as cancelled may have been re-registered under a different business name and care service number.

This data does not provide a breakdown to local authority or regional level, this is not available.

As regards part B of the question, no data is available on the number of residents affected by cancelled services. For more information we would suggest contacting Health and Social Care Partnerships to request this data for each area.

Question reference: S6W-38644

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 24 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) business management teachers there are and (b) schools do not currently offer the subject, broken down by local authority.

Data on full-time equivalent (FTE) secondary teachers by main and other subject taught is available in the Teacher Census Supplementary Statistics, here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/

Information is not held on the subjects offered by individual schools as schools may be able to offer a subject even if they do not have a teacher for that subject in the staff census, for example through school-school or school-college partnerships.

Question reference: S6W-38701

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 13 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 24 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent through public procurement in each of the last five years, broken down by (a) supplier location and (b) how much went to (i) small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and (ii) larger enterprises.

Using the data published from the ‘Annual Report on Procurement Activity in Scotland’ the following table provides spend from the last available five years, broken down by supplier location and size. These figures are derived from the Scottish Procurement Information Hub - Scottish Government’s spend analytics shared service.

Public Procurement Spend : Supplier Location and Supplier Size Spend

Financial year	Total Spend	Spend within Scotland	Spend not registered within Scotland	Total SME spend	Total Large spend
2022-2023	£16.6 billion	£8.9 billion	£7.7 billion	£7.1 billion	£7.9 billion
2021-2022	£16 billion	£8.9 billion	£7.1 billion	£6.4 billion	£8.1 billion
2020-2021	£14.5 billion	£8.3 billion	£6.2 billion	£5.5 billion	£7.2 billion
2019-2020	£13.3 billion	£7.4 billion	£5.9 billion	£5.4 billion	£6.3 billion
2018-2019	£12.6 billion	£6.9 billion	£5.7 billion	£5.2 billion	£5.9 billion

Supplier location is based on the registered invoice postcode of the supplier. Supplier size is based only on number of employees where known. SMEs are defined as those with fewer than 250 employees. Due to incomplete or unavailable supplier invoice data; employee size cannot be accurately determined for some spend resulting in the SME and Large Spend totals being less than the total spend figure.

Question reference: S6W-38808

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 23 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 21 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many people it currently estimates are not in education, employment or training, broken down by (a) local authority area, (b) gender and (c) the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) decile of the area in which they are located.

Question reference: S6W-38189

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 09 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 23 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of the revenue received by bus operators is currently generated from (a) full-fare-paying passengers and (b) concessionary fares subsidised by the Scottish Government; how this compares with the equivalent average figures for the last (i) three, (ii) five and (iii) 10 years, and what percentage of the subsidised fares charged by bus operators it (A) currently funds and (B) has funded on average in the last (1) three, (2) five and (3) 10 years, also broken down by operator.

Transport Scotland provides reimbursement to bus operators in Scotland for providing free bus travel to those eligible through the National Concessionary Travel Schemes (NCTS). Reimbursement is paid to operators at a level which aims to ensure they are left financially no better and no worse off as a result of their participation in the schemes, and is therefore not considered as a subsidy payment.

Details of total operator revenue over the past 10 years, including passenger revenue and concessionary travel reimbursement can be found in Scottish Transport Statistics tables 2.8 and 2.9, available at: Chapter 2 - Bus and Coach travel | Transport Scotland

Question reference: S6W-38898

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 20 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the current total economic cost associated with autistic adults is, and what percentage of this figure is a result of underemployment or unemployment.

Question reference: S6W-38902

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 20 June 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of how many small and medium-sized businesses have returned to their pre-COVID-19 pandemic profit levels, and how the value of those businesses compares with pre-pandemic levels.

Question reference: S6W-38642

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 20 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many drug finds there have been in HMP (a) Greenock and (b) Kilmarnock in each month since January 2021.

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

The health and wellbeing of those in our care is of critical importance; we not only recognise, but are tackling, the risks posed by illicit substances within our establishments.

Preventing the introduction of illicit substances is not only important to the health and wellbeing of people in custody, but also to the establishments’ wider safety and security.

SPS continue to look at a range of tactical and technological measures to keep illicit substances from being introduced into prisons.

The tables below show the drug finds each month in both HMPs Greenock and Kilmarnock between January 2021 and May 2025:

HMP Greenock						HMP Kilmarnock
	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025		2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Jan	10	7	4	5	2	Jan	86	35	50	23	13
Feb	6	7	14	3	4	Feb	66	49	46	47	20
Mar	9	7	7	12	3	Mar	123	52	44	31	21
Apr	17	8	9	7	7	Apr	122	45	48	22	18
May	12	11	4	4	8	May	121	43	63	36	19
Jun	22	13	6	2		Jun	110	62	32	23
Jul	14	9	6	6		Jul	100	42	26	10
Aug	11	7	3	2		Aug	83	43	32	36
Sep	10	5	1	5		Sep	82	30	40	21
Oct	9	12	6	6		Oct	73	36	45	15
Nov	3	4	6	7		Nov	64	43	45	10
Dec	9	8	4	1		Dec	72	39	42	9

Question reference: S6W-38702

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 13 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much small and medium-sized businesses currently contribute to the economy, and how this compares with each of the previous five years.

Data are available on the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) share of businesses, jobs and turnover. These estimates, sourced from the Businesses in Scotland 2024 publication, are shown in the following table.

Table 1: SME share of businesses, jobs and turnover – Scotland – 2019 to 2024

Year	SME share of Businesses	SME share of Jobs	SME share of Turnover
2019	99.3%	44.2%	39.2%
2020	99.3%	44.4%	39.0%
2021	99.3%	43.6%	38.0%
2022	99.3%	44.1%	37.6%
2023	99.3%	43.8%	39.5%
2024	99.3%	43.9%	39.0%

Source: Businesses in Scotland: 2024 - gov.scot

Notes:

1.Data as at March each year.

2.Includes central and local government.

3.SMEs are Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, that is businesses with fewer than 250 employees. Enterprise size is defined based on the number of employees that the business employs across the UK.

4.Turnover for Financial and Insurance Activities businesses are not available on a comparable basis. Totals exclude turnover of such businesses.