- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 16 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35432 by Kaukab Stewart on 19 March 2025, whether it will provide a breakdown of the costs associated with the "New Scots Partnership Costs".
Answer
The New Scots Partnership staffing costs came to £87,333 between January to March 2024. The following table provides a further breakdown on how this funding was spent.
Staff | Salary costs Jan 2024 – March 2024 |
Helpline Advisor | £27,201 |
Senior Administrator | £9,067 |
Community Development Officer | £23,566 |
Storytelling Officer | £8,750 |
Refugee Festival Manager | £11.645 |
Refugee Festival Assistant | £7,104 |
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 16 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35432 by Kaukab Stewart on 19 March 2025, whether it will provide a breakdown of the costs associated with the "New Scots welcome video project December 2021 to March 2022".
Answer
The Scottish Government committed £16,000 to the New Scots welcome video project December 2021 to March 2022. We do not currently plan to publish a further breakdown of cost.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 16 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35432 by Kaukab Stewart on 19 March 2025, whether it will provide a breakdown of the costs associated with the "New Scots Community Engagement".
Answer
All funding for Community Engagement was distributed in the form of small grants for refugee assisting communities and groups, to enable their engagement in the development of the New Scots Strategy held between Q4 2023-2024. As published in the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy 2024: Engagement Analysis Report, 72 groups were funded and 81 events were held.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 16 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35432 by Kaukab Stewart on 19 March 2025, whether it will provide a breakdown of the costs associated with the "New Scots refugee integration strategy intermediary/strategic funding through Equality, Connected Communities and Mainstreaming and Inclusion Budgets between July 2019 and March 2024".
Answer
The Scottish Government provided £1.9 million (1,957,987.36) in associated costs to the New Scots refugee integration strategy intermediary/strategic funding through Equality, Connected Communities and Mainstreaming and Inclusion Budgets between July 2019 and March 2024. We do not currently plan to publish a further breakdown in costs.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 16 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35432 by Kaukab Stewart on 19 March 2025, whether it will provide a breakdown of the costs associated with the "Lived Experience on New Scots Core Group".
Answer
The Scottish Government have committed £6,000 to Scottish Refugee Council for Lived Experience on New Scots Core Group. We do not intend to publish a further breakdown of cost.
- Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 16 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to update its 2021 guidance for public bodies on data collection and publication of sex, gender identity and trans status.
Answer
The Office of the Chief Statistician published guidance for public bodies in Scotland on the collection of data on sex and gender in 2021. This guidance recommends that statistics producers should collect data that best serves the needs of users in their specific context, an approach with aligns with the guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2024.
The Sullivan Review specifically recommends that the Scottish Government reviews its guidance in light of its recommendations. The Scottish Government has previously committed to reviewing its guidance on collecting data on sex and gender by the end of 2026 as part of the Non-Binary Equality Action Plan.
Ahead of this review, the Office of the Chief Statistician is engaged with wider-UK work on this topic. The Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation Team is currently developing harmonised standards for collecting data on sex and gender identity. The Office of the Chief Statistician is contributing to this work, and will consider its outputs as part of its review of the Chief Statistician’s guidance.
- Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 16 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the report, Review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender [the Sullivan review]; whether it will implement the recommendations in the review, and what plans it has to meet Professor Alice Sullivan to discuss the findings.
Answer
The Office of the Chief Statistician published guidance for public bodies in Scotland on the collection of data on sex and gender in 2021. This guidance recommends that statistics producers should collect data that best serves the needs of users in their specific context, an approach with aligns with the guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2024.
The Sullivan Review specifically recommends that the Scottish Government reviews its guidance in light of its recommendations. The Scottish Government has previously committed to reviewing its guidance on collecting data on sex and gender by the end of 2026 as part of the Non-Binary Equality Action Plan.
Ahead of this review, the Office of the Chief Statistician is engaged with wider-UK work on this topic. The Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation Team is currently developing harmonised standards for collecting data on sex and gender identity. The Office of the Chief Statistician is contributing to this work, and will consider its outputs as part of its review of the Chief Statistician’s guidance.
There are currently no plans to meet with Alice Sullivan directly, however the Scottish Government will be attending upcoming events to engage with a range of stakeholders to hear wider views on this topic.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Dorothy Bain on 15 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the longest duration has been from the date of death to the conclusion of a fatal accident inquiry since 1999, and what the reasons were for the duration of this process.
Answer
COPFS holds records of all concluded Fatal Accident Inquiries dating back to 1 April 2013.
For that period, the longest duration from the date of death to the conclusion of the Fatal Accident Inquiry was in relation to the FAI into the death of Boguslaw Kopec. The date of Mr Kopec’s death was 13 March 2011. A First Notice commencing the FAI process was issued on 24 August 2020 and the Inquiry commenced on 9 November 2020. Evidence was concluded on 3 December 2020 and the Sheriff’s Determination was published on 11 March 2021.
The investigation into Mr Kopec’s death was hampered by difficulties tracing and obtaining the evidence of essential witnesses. In addition, Inquiry proceedings could only be commenced after criminal proceedings had been ruled out. Nevertheless, the Crown at that time acknowledged that the time taken to conduct its death investigation in this case had been far too long and apologised for the fact that its investigation and the Inquiry proceedings were not concluded sooner.
COPFS has significantly reformed its processes in recent years to improve the quality of death investigations and reduce the time taken to investigate deaths and bring FAIs to court. However, in some cases FAIs have taken too long to commence and we understand the impact that waiting for investigations to conclude has on families.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 15 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the average pupil-teacher ratio has been in schools in each local authority area in each year since 1999, also broken down by (a) primary, (b) secondary and (c) special schools.
Answer
Statistics on pupil teacher ratio at local authority and sector level are published annually the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/
Statistics prior to 2004 are not available.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Siobhian Brown on 15 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many callouts have been made to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to respond to fires involving rechargeable lithium-ion battery devices in flats in each year since 2010.
Answer
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) have provided some of the information requested. According to SFRS data since 2009-2010 there have been a total of 39 lithium-ion battery related fires and incidents in purpose-built flats, converted flats and tenement buildings.
SFRS aims to capture additional data, via their Incident Recording System on any fires, suspected or confirmed, relating to rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. There is ongoing work being undertaken by the SFRS led Electrical Infrastructure Working Group to better understand the risks to communities from fires linked with lithium-ion batteries.