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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S6W-03337

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 13 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when police officer base operational levels in C Division were last reviewed.

Question reference: S6W-03486

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 13 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the average number of hours per week that convicted prisoners spend on purposeful activity (a) across the prison estate and (b) in each penal establishment has been in each year since 2016-17, also broken down by those on (i) short sentences, (ii) long sentences and (iii) remand.

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

The average number of hours per week that convicted prisoners spend on purposeful activity a) across the prison estate and (b) in each penal establishment in each year since 2016-17 is as follows: -

Year	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22 ‎ (Apr to Aug 21)
Average Purposeful Activity hours per week	22	21	20	19	14	17

Per Establishment	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22 ‎ (Apr to Aug 21)
Barlinnie	16	16	14	12	10	10
Cornton Vale	22	21	19	20	20	28
Dumfries	19	19	18	15	8	10
Edinburgh	14	12	12	13	9	11
Glenochil	20	18	17	16	11	11
Grampian	31	28	25	25	19	16
Greenock	20	22	20	22	19	22
Inverness	27	27	25	25	24	26
Low Moss	27	24	23	22	16	16
Open Estate	23	22	22	21	20	23
Perth	21	21	18	14	9	12
Polmont	20	20	21	18	14	21
Shotts	22	22	25	25	9	10

Unfortunately, the SPS does not record the information relating to sentence length for reporting or recording purposes, and are therefore unable to break down purposeful activity hours by (i) short sentences, (ii) long sentences and (iii) remand.

Question reference: S6W-03334

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 13 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the police officer base operational level was in the Forth Valley region on 16 August 2021.

Question reference: S6W-03339

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 13 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many police drivers are trained in standard response driving, and what proportion of the force this represents.

Question reference: S6W-03335

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 13 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many times in the last 12 months there has been a police officer base operational level in the Forth Valley region that has been below what is considered safe.

Question reference: S6W-02926

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 12 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to reduce waiting times for dermatology services, and whether it will extend the collection of waiting times data in dermatology.

The NHS Recovery Plan sets out how we will take forward our aim of increasing NHS capacity by at least 10% in order to address the backlog of care and meet the ongoing healthcare needs of the country. The plan, backed by more than £1 billion of investment, focuses on providing alternative pathways of care that allow people to be treated more quickly and closer to home.

As part of this the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) is working with all Health Boards to support better use of the Active Clinical Referral Triage and Discharge Patient Initiated Review to ensure patients who need to be seen get access to the care they require in a timely manner. There is work ongoing with a number of Health Boards to implement the Digital Dermatology app, which allows patients to interact with a clinician at a time convenient to the patient and without needing to attend a hospital site.

There is also considerable work underway to educate the nursing workforce with regards to skin conditions, in order to maximise the capability of this group of staff to support patients. This will, in turn, help to maximise capacity for dermatology services.

Finally, the Dermatology Pathways app provides clinically validated pathway information to GPs and other health professionals for many of the most common skin conditions, with the aim of supporting access for patients who most need treatment in the most appropriate care setting. As part of this CfSD, is working with the British Association of Dermatologists to increase the number of pathways covered by this approach.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) do not hold sub specialty data for Dermatology, this information would be held by Health Boards.

Question reference: S6W-02957

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 12 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much has been paid out in compensation by each NHS board in each year since 1999.

Regarding payments made under the NHS Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme (CNORIS), I refer the member to the answers to questions S5W-01770 on 24 August 2016 and S5W-32423 on 30 October 2020 . All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Regarding compensation payments made outwith the CNORIS scheme, the information requested is not collected or held centrally by the Scottish Government and would require to be obtained from Health Boards.

Question reference: S6W-02811

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 12 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential impact that COVID-19 vaccine status checks and vaccine passports will have on (a) vaccine uptake and (b) COVID-19 case numbers.

Evidence from overseas suggests there may be an uptake in vaccination after an announcement to introduce certification.

In Scotland, in the two weeks since the announcement on 1 September, there has been a 10% increase in uptake for 18-29s first doses in comparison to the two week’s prior to the announcement (18 – 31 August).

In addition to the individual level of protection against severe disease or hospitalisation afforded by vaccination, a further benefit of the vaccination programme is to assist in developing widespread community immunity, reducing the force of transmission and viral reproduction rate, in order to help control the prevalence of COVID-19.

Studies have demonstrated that being vaccinated against COVID-19 significantly reduces your risk of being infected. Research by Public Health England (PHE), which monitors vaccine effectiveness within the UK, shows that those who become infected 3 weeks after receiving one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech (Cominarty) or AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria) vaccine were between 38% and 49% less likely to pass COVID-19 on to their household contacts than those who were unvaccinated.

Further research into the COVID-19 vaccines’ impacts on transmission is underway. Weekly COVID-19 vaccine surveillance reports monitoring vaccine effectiveness, including evidence on effectiveness against transmission, are published here: COVID-19 vaccine surveillance reports - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .

Question reference: S6W-02794

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 12 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many GP vacancies there are; where they are located, and what plans it has to recruit GPs.

The numbers of vacancies for GP posts are not held centrally, as this is a matter for individual independent GP contractors as employers.

We have a record number of GPs working in Scotland with more per 100,000 population than the rest of UK . We are committed to increasing the number of GPs by a further 800, supported by our wider commitment to increase Primary Care funding by 25% over the course of this parliament.

The trainee recruitment this year has so far been the most successful year of any of the last five, with 97% of GP training posts having been filled so far, with one recruitment round remaining.

We have also announced a commitment in the latest NHS Recovery Plan for £11m over 2021-2026, for new national and international recruitment campaigns and establishing a national Centre for Workforce Supply. The Centre will support our commitments to increase GP numbers and ensure workforce sustainability.

Question reference: S6W-02970

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 12 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what planning it is undertaking to ensure that there are sufficient nurses with the right competencies and skills to fill vacant specialist roles as they arise.

Over nine consecutive years, qualified nursing numbers have grown and we have also steadily increased places on undergraduate nursing courses. Ahead of each academic year, the Scottish Government undertakes a robust student intake planning process which seeks to estimate the levels of student intake necessary to service Scotland’s nursing workforce requirements in future years. At the conclusion of each year’s process, recommended target intake figures are agreed across four fields of nursing: adult, mental health, learning disability, and children’s nursing. This allows us to ensure there are sufficient nurses entering the healthcare system who specialise in each field of nursing each year.

The Scottish Government is also committed to the growth of advanced nursing practice, which is why in 2017 we committed £3m investment over 5 years to train an additional 500 advanced nurse practitioners. In April 2021, the Scottish Government published a paper setting out key areas for further expansion of advanced nursing practice. The paper can be found at the link below:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/transforming-nursing-roles-advanced-nursing-practice-phase-ii/