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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: S6O-04296

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6O-04265

Asked by: Emma Roddick, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what support it is providing to the Scottish Prison Service to help give people in custody the best chance of reintegrating into the community at the end of their sentence.

The Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities and third sector delivery partners to provide throughcare support to people leaving custody to help them transition back into the community.

This includes over £3 million a year to support short-term prisoners address essential needs such as healthcare, social security payments, housing and employment opportunities. This support is available across the prison estate and begins 12 weeks before an individual is released.

We will be building on this existing support by funding a new national throughcare service for all short-term prisoners and those on remand, commencing in April 2025.

Question reference: S6W-33703

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its strategy is for the digitisation of people’s medical records.

Question reference: S6W-33337

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) neuropsychologists and (b) trainee neuropsychologists there are, broken down by NHS board.

The latest data received by the Scottish Government from NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is as follows:

a) WTE Applied Psychologists working in Neuropsychology in NHS Scotland as of 30 September 2024:

NHS Board	WTE Applied Psychologists working in Neuropsychology
NHS Scotland	53.1
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	5.9
NHS Borders	0.0
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	0.8
NHS Fife	2.3
NHS Forth Valley	2.4
NHS Grampian	8.6
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	14.8
NHS Highland	3.1
NHS Lanarkshire	3.6
NHS Lothian	8.3
NHS Orkney	0.0
NHS Shetland	0.0
NHS Tayside	3.4
NHS Western Isles	0.0
State Hospital	0.0
Golden Jubilee National Hospital	0.0
NHS Education for Scotland	0.0

b) NHS Education for Scotland (NES) does not hold this information centrally.

Question reference: S6W-33860

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what statistical evidence it uses to underpin the continued application of the Sea Fish (Prohibition on Fishing) (Firth of Clyde) Order 2024.

The Clyde closure is in place to maximise the opportunity for cod to reproduce and hence recover the stock. The closed area was defined according to extensive published literature on the types of seabed substrate on which cod prefer to spawn, and data on substrate type distribution provided by the British Geological Survey (BGS). This information has not changed since the closure was put in place.

When the Sea Fish (Prohibition on Fishing) (Firth of Clyde) Order 2024 was made, it was accompanied by a Business Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA).

Following the 2025 closure there will be a public consultation on future management. That consultation will assess any changes that have happened since 2022 and make recommendations for the future on that basis.

Question reference: S6W-33906

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Shetland Fisherment's 2024 report, Trends in the Abundances of North Sea Fish.

The Marine Directorate is aware of this report and recognises its findings. The conclusions of the paper are very similar to those presented annually in the Scottish Sustainable Fishing Index (SFI, Sustainability of Fish Stocks | National Performance Framework).

The SFI has increased from 37% in 1992 to 71% in 2023, highlighting an overall improvement in Scottish commercial fish stocks that is very similar to that presented in the Shetland Fishermen’s report.

Marine Directorate scientists would however recommend interpreting this report with some caution due to methodological issues which depart from the normal way in which stocks are assessed by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) and on which basis international advice is derived for international negotiations and setting of total allowable catches.

Question reference: S6W-33640

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting (a) small- and (b) medium-sized enterprises in rural areas to implement healthy workplace initiatives.

Through our vision for ‘a Scotland where people live longer, healthy and fulfilling lives we are focused on improving the health of the population. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the lifeblood of the Scottish economy and so we want to create an economy that prioritises the wellbeing of staff and employees of SMEs.

The Scottish Government supports the Healthy Working Lives (HWL) initiative, hosted by Public Health Scotland, which offers a range of materials to support employers on all aspects of work-related health promotion and ill health prevention, return to work and workplace safety.

The Scottish Government funds Working Health Services Scotland (WHSS), a service delivered by individual territorial health boards that provides occupational health advice and support for people who are self-employed or working in companies with 250 or less employees and have a health condition or injury which they feel is impacting on their work. This service is coordinated by Salus Occupational health, safety and return to work services (NHS Lanarkshire), who work in partnership with all 14 NHS Health boards delivering the service, including coverage across rural areas.

Question reference: S6W-33591

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many employees are shared across more than one of the executive non-departmental public bodies.

Question reference: S6W-33305

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many children and young people have been placed on part-time timetables in schools in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The number of pupils that have been recorded with a part-time timetable absence code for 1 or more openings (half-day sessions) in each local authority from 2018-19 is set out in the following table.

Local Authority	2018-19	2020-21	2022-23	2023-24
Aberdeen City	175	245	403	566
Aberdeenshire	263	249	522	635
Angus	122	142	229	230
Argyll and Bute	46	75	160	191
City of Edinburgh	223	527	780	986
Clackmannanshire	11	c	12	c
Dumfries and Galloway	34	87	241	619
Dundee City	46	107	164	139
East Ayrshire	219	341	572	627
East Dunbartonshire	27	100	102	138
East Lothian	122	217	250	189
East Renfrewshire	c	18	75	156
Falkirk	72	133	140	104
Fife	86	94	128	76
Glasgow City	100	215	196	350
Grant Aided	0	0	0	0
Highland	264	426	556	623
Inverclyde	46	39	76	168
Midlothian	177	274	305	442
Moray	86	164	187	186
Na h-Eileanan Siar	c	c	7	c
North Ayrshire	49	72	74	113
North Lanarkshire	148	156	253	410
Orkney Islands	16	14	36	60
Perth and Kinross	102	154	257	377
Renfrewshire	44	63	106	119
Scottish Borders	72	113	124	202
Shetland Islands	13	41	34	47
South Ayrshire	13	47	58	97
South Lanarkshire	84	201	447	389
Stirling	75	134	148	205
West Dunbartonshire	39	152	160	270
West Lothian	288	547	995	1094

c = value suppressed to protect against the risk of disclosure of personal information.

Note that information on pupils recorded with a part-time timetable code was not collected centrally by the Scottish Government before the 2018-19 school year. Two new absence codes – part-time timetable (health related) and part-time timetable (exclusion related) – were available for schools to use from the 2018-19 school year. As with any new coding, variation in the use and application of these new absence codes was identified during the quality assurance of the 2018-19 attendance and absence data. There is evidence to suggest that this is still happening, although to a lesser extent.

These part-time timetable absences are part of the ‘other authorised absence’ category for the purposes of reporting in the 2018-19 statistics onwards. The number of absences reported using these new part-time timetable codes was very small so the inclusion of them as ‘other authorised absence’ does not have a large impact on the size or quality of this category.

Furthermore, prior to 2022-23, statistics on school pupil attendance and absence were collected and published biennially. The table above sets out the number of pupils that have been recorded with a part-time timetable absence code for 1 or more openings (i.e. half day) in each school, local authority and school year. However, due to pupils moving schools’ part-way through the school year, some pupils may be double-counted within and across local authorities.

Question reference: S6W-33282

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 29 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made in delivering a national round-the-clock thrombectomy service, in line with the Stroke Improvement Plan 2023.

The Scottish Government remains committed to expanding the national thrombectomy service, and ensuring access to this treatment is as equitable as possible. The delivery of a national thrombectomy service has already received over £38m of investment.

Most NHS Boards now refer to thrombectomy Hub centres, increasing geographical access to thrombectomy procedures. We have also funded thrombectomy specialist nurse posts in spoke hospitals with high rates of ischaemic stroke to ensure people who would benefit from thrombectomy are promptly identified.

Through the National Thrombectomy Programme Board and Thrombectomy Advisory Group, planning is being undertaken to drive expansion of the thrombectomy service. Work is ongoing to establish how the £16 million funding announced in the Scottish budget, subject to parliamentary scrutiny, will be best used to maximise the number of patients able to benefit from thrombectomy.