- Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has evaluated what positive or negative impact the Bright Start Breakfasts programme may have on breakfast clubs within schools that are organised by not-for-profit providers for primary school pupils.
Answer
The Draft Scottish Budget on 4 December 2024 announced plans to invest £3m in 2025-26 in Bright Start Breakfasts.
At this stage the Budget remains subject to Parliamentary approval and therefore, more detail about Bright Start Breakfasts will be provided ahead of the fund launching in Spring 2025.
Recent mapping work carried out by the Improvement Service and Assist FM shows that nearly half of all primary and special schools in Scotland are already providing breakfasts at the start of the school day, with a range of delivery models and service providers supporting delivery. Bright Start Breakfasts aims to enhance and expand provision across Scotland, building on this existing local delivery.
- Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether any of the finance that has been announced for the Bright Start Breakfasts initiative will be allocated to not-for-profit organisations that operate breakfast clubs within schools, and, if so, whether this will include organisations that are not currently in receipt of public funding to support such activities.
Answer
The Draft Scottish Budget on 4 December 2024 announced plans to invest £3m in 2025-26 in Bright Start Breakfasts.
At this stage the Budget remains subject to Parliamentary approval and therefore, more detail about Bright Start Breakfasts will be provided ahead of the fund launching in Spring 2025.
- Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6O-04138 by Gillian Martin on 19 December 2024, and its statement that the new hub for offshore wind "is not going to be a training hub as such", how much of the £150 million of public funding will be used to fund the cost of retraining offshore oil and gas workers to transition to the offshore wind sector.
Answer
Offshore wind offers a significant opportunity to create thousands of good jobs in Scotland, and the Scottish Government will drive forward skills development for the sector, including supporting the transition of workers from oil and gas.
We are almost tripling our capital funding to £150 million for 2025-26, year two of our five-year commitment to invest up to £500 million in critical infrastructure and manufacturing and fabrication facilities to support the growth of the offshore wind sector. Our Offshore Wind Focus paper sets out the priorities for investment, underpinned by a strategic assessment of current market opportunities that will have a catalytic effect and maximise the economic value to Scotland.
In addition, we remain committed to our ten-year Just Transition Fund, which has allocated £75 million to date supporting projects and communities across the North East and Moray to create jobs, support innovation, and secure the highly skilled workforce of the future. This involves a dedicated package of skills interventions, including £4.5 million over 5 years for the Energy Skills Transition Hub which aims to support 1,000 people into energy transition roles, £3.7 million for the development of the Energy Skills Passport (an initial version of which was launched by industry partners on 22 January) and £1 million for a National Energy Skills Accelerator pilot scheme to better understand future energy skills needs and deliver workforce training.
- Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to integrate the Bright Start Breakfasts initiative with breakfast clubs operated in primary schools by not-for-profit providers.
Answer
The Draft Scottish Budget on 4 December 2024 announced plans to invest £3m in 2025-26 in Bright Start Breakfasts.
At this stage the Budget remains subject to Parliamentary approval and therefore, more detail about Bright Start Breakfasts will be provided ahead of the fund launching in Spring 2025, including how the scheme will operate.
- Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it monitors the number of redundancies among oil and gas contractors in Scotland, and, if so, how many redundancies were made in 2023-24, and, based on asset owners' decommissioning schedules, how many it estimates will be made in each year from 2024-25 to 2029-30.
Answer
There is no obligation on private companies to inform the Scottish Government of their redundancy figures, therefore we do not hold this information centrally. However, the Scottish Government engages regularly with the oil and gas industry and the relevant trade unions and monitors company announcements.
In the unfortunate event of any employees facing redundancy, the Scottish Government will always offer and provide support through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment, PACE. Through providing skills development and employability support, PACE aims to minimise the time individuals affected by redundancy are out of work.
- Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide more information on what specific formula and criteria will be used to determine the allocation of Bright Start Breakfasts funding across Scotland to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Answer
The Draft Scottish Budget on 4 December 2024 announced plans to invest £3m in 2025-26 for Bright Start Breakfasts.
At this stage the Budget remains subject to Parliamentary approval and therefore, more detail about Bright Start Breakfasts will be provided ahead of the fund launching in Spring 2025, including eligibility criteria and application processes.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 10 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its resonse is to reported concerns that elements of the new Parkhead Hub facilities in Glasgow are not a friendly environment for dementia patients.
Answer
It is the responsibility of local authorities, health boards and health and social care partnerships to manage and provide appropriate services in their area, and to engage with their communities on how this is provided.
The Scottish Government is committed to improving the dementia experience, and the 10-year Dementia Strategy for Scotland recognises the critical role of community services and supports in enabling people to live well for longer following a dementia diagnosis. We are now working to realise the ambitions of this Strategy through initial activities set out in the first 2-year Delivery Plan. This includes efforts to deliver the SIGN dementia guidelines, which provides evidence-based guidance on where and how care and support should be provided across primary and secondary care settings.
- Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 10 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many signs are located along the A90, and what proportion meet current standards for visibility and effectiveness.
Answer
There are a total 4,552 road traffic signs on the A90 trunk road network. Of these, a total of 185 signs do not meet the current standards for visibility and effectiveness and are on a works programme for future replacement. Where regulatory signage and warning signage are noted as defective they are categorised as Category 1 defects. These are required to be made safe when identified, following which a temporary or permanent repair must be undertaken as soon as possible and no later than 24 hours following first identification. Where possible, Category 2 sign replacement is coordinated with other works on the network to mitigate disruption to road users.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many people with a terminal neurological condition have met the criteria for requiring palliative care in each year since 2021-22, broken down by how many received specialist palliative care.
Answer
This information is not held centrally by either Scottish Government or Public Health Scotland (PHS).
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 10 January 2025
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 24 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how many local authorities have received funding to forgive school meal debt.
Answer
The Scottish Government has made £2,877,287.97 of funding available to local authorities to enable them to cancel school meal debts within their respective local areas. This sum represents the entire amounts bid for by each local authority.
29 local authorities submitted applications to receive funding from the School Meal Debt Fund and, to date, 16 of those local authorities have returned their completed grant acceptance forms to us and we have now taken steps to issue those payments to all 16 local authorities. The combined amount issued to all 16 of those local authorities totals £2,164,575.52.
Information about those local authorities whom have received funding so far, plus the amounts issued so far, is contained within the following table:
Local Authority | Funding received from School Meal Debt Fund (£) |
| |
Aberdeen City | 411,970.90 |
Aberdeenshire | 145,751.82 |
City of Edinburgh | 89,321.00 |
Clackmannanshire | 30,624.00 |
Dumfries and Galloway | 29,439.63 |
East Dunbartonshire | 74,230.69 |
East Lothian | 54,354.71 |
East Renfrewshire | 53,760.77 |
Glasgow City | 655,032.00 |
Highland | 115,747.76 |
Inverclyde | 74,041.99 |
Midlothian | 50,030.00 |
North Ayrshire | 314,843.00 |
North Lanarkshire | 21,263.00 |
Shetland Islands | 15,949.52 |
South Ayrshire | 28,214.73 |
| |
Total | 2,164,575.52 |