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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: S6O-00578

Asked by: Jim Fairlie, MSP for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 December 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made in recruiting STEM teachers, especially in rural areas.

Question reference: S6W-04805

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to publish data on the number of applications that were submitted to the Winter Support Fund, the success rate and other monitoring data, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S6W-04786

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans are in place to manage the reported rising number of people experiencing homelessness being placed in temporary accommodation within the Glasgow area.

Temporary accommodation offers an important safety net for anyone who finds themselves homeless. However, it should only ever be temporary. Our commitment to invest £50 million over this parliamentary term to end homelessness builds on the £37.5 million we have already provided to local authorities to implement plans for rapid rehousing and Housing First and prioritise settled accommodation for all.

Both the pandemic and Brexit have created challenges for social landlords in repair, maintenance and allocation of stock which is leading to longer waits for new permanent homes. My officials are in regular contact with Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership who are working hard to address these challenges and move people as quickly as possible into appropriate settled accommodation.

We have established a working group to develop a legally enforceable temporary accommodation standards framework. The group will bring forward concrete proposals in 2022 which will help ensure that temporary accommodation is of a good standard and well regulated, and that time spent in it is limited.

Question reference: S6W-04797

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that children and young people are not without warm and weatherproof clothing this winter due to poverty.

Tackling child poverty is a national mission for this government and we are delivering a range of direct support to families.

The Scottish Child Payment is currently supporting around 106,000 children under 6 with £10 a week payments. Together with Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods this provides families with £5,300 of financial support by the time their first child turns 6.

For children of school age, we are paying £520 this year through Bridging Payments, supporting around 150,000 children and young people from low income families ahead of the roll out of the Scottish Child Payment to under-16s by the end of 2022 – with £160 to be paid this month. We have also increased the School Clothing Grant to a new national minimum of £120 for primary school and £150 for secondary school children – helping to meet the cost of the school day for families.

Additionally we delivered a £130 Low Income Pandemic Payment for around 500,000 low income households by the end of October, helping to meet increased costs of living for families.

We have also announced plans to invest a further £41 million in a Winter Support Fund for low income households to help people struggling financially during the winter. This includes £10 million to help people who are struggling to pay fuel bills, £25 million of flexible funding for local authorities to help support wellbeing and respond to financial insecurity based on local needs, and £6 million for third sector partners to support low income families.

Question reference: S6W-04801

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 03 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when the Parole Board for Scotland will publish its annual report and accounts for 2020-21.

Question reference: S6W-04899

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many inspections of care homes for adults have been carried out by the Care Inspectorate in each year since 2017, and how many of these were return inspections.

The relevant data is provided in the following table.

Summary of inspections completed in Care Homes for Adults since 2014-15 up to Q2 2021-22 (April 21- Sep21)

	Inspection year
	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22 (Apr 21 - Sep21)
Total number of inspections completed in Care Homes for Adults	1372	1286	1250	1129	812	419
'Return inspections' in care homes for adults (i.e. number of second and subsequent inspections carried out)	242	186	166	84	268	147

Source data: end of year inspection data files 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17. 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and 30 September 2021 inspections completed files

Note: the return inspections are a subset of the total number of inspections completed, not in addition to the total number.

Question reference: S6W-04842

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 06 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what guidance community choirs should follow when meeting for rehearsals.

People who participate in performing arts, including community choirs should follow general Covid-19 guidance ( Coronavirus in Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . This encourages people to get vaccinated, take regular lateral flow tests, wear face coverings, self-isolate and book a PCR test at the onset of symptoms of Covid-19, keep good hygiene and hand-washing practices, open windows indoors, keep distance from people outwith their immediate group, and use the Covid Status, Protection Scotland, and Check In Scotland apps.

In addition to this, community choirs should also follow the Coronavirus (COVID-19): reopening of cultural performances and events guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) which contains further information including on face coverings for rehearsals and performances.

Question reference: S6W-04757

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its news release on 29 October 2021 regarding a £41 million Winter Support Fund for low-income households, which organisations have received funding from the £6 million for third sector organisations and how much each received.

To date, the following organisations have been awarded funding from the £6 million funding available through the Winter Support Fund for the third sector:

ORGANISATION	AMOUNT
Aberlour	£250,000
Action for Children	£450,000
Barnardo’s	£345,000
Cash for Kids	£1,250,000
Children 1st	£300,000
Citizens Advice Scotland	£140,000
Churches Action for the Homeless	£500
Corra Foundation	£750,000
Family Fund	£300,000
Families Outside	£52,500
One Parent Families Scotland	£275,000
STV Appeal	£1,200,000
Transform Community Development	£1,000
Who Cares? Scotland	£401,000
TOTAL	£5,715,000

Question reference: S6W-04811

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Friday, 03 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) FTE staff and (b) staffing hours have been assigned to assessing applications for grant assistance to deliver affordable housing above Affordable Housing Investment Benchmark level, in each quarter since Q1 2016.

Question reference: S6W-04965

Asked by: Tess White, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 15 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how many and (b) what percentage of children in the NHS Grampian area who were referred for mental health treatment in (a) 2020 and (b) 2021 started treatment within the 18-week target.

The following table provides statistics for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) in the NHS Grampian area. It is possible that children were seen within Psychological Therapy in addition to this however it is not possible at present to disaggregate child data from the wider adult PT data return.

2021 is not complete at present, therefore a partial 2021 has been presented including activity from Jan 2021 to Sep 2021, compared to the whole of 2020 (Jan – Dec).

Table 1 - NHS Grampian

Children and Young People (CYP)

Number of CYP starting Treatment in CAMHS within 18 weeks

Percentage of CYP starting treatment within 18 weeks

2021 YTD (Jan – Sep)

1,045

92.7%

2020 (Jan – Dec)

1,188

87.4%