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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-04648

Asked by: Bob Doris, MSP for Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the justice system aims to support women who experience financial and economic abuse from a partner.

Question reference: S6O-04667

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has undertaken with the education sector in island communities, such as Orkney, which are reportedly seeing increasing pressures around funding and staff retention, particularly in relation to the provision of additional support for learning.

Question reference: S6O-04669

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how many school pupils are currently studying computing science and how this compares to recent years.

Question reference: S6O-04666

Asked by: Stephanie Callaghan, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the provision of vocational skills training, whether it will provide an update on its response to the 2025 ClimateXChange report, Training provision in Scotland’s onshore wind and solar industries.

Question reference: S6O-04652

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what further action it can take in the current parliamentary session to tackle abuse against women and girls.

Question reference: S6W-37172

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that all retired police officers receive their full pension entitlements without any undue delay.

I have asked Stephen Pathirana, Chief Executive of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, to respond. His response is as follows:

The overall programme to deliver the 2015 remedy in Scotland is being managed by the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA). This is a complex undertaking as it requires a remediable service statement (RSS) to be sent to eligible members numbering over 200,000 across the four pension schemes administered by the SPPA. Within that number more than 5,000 retired police officers are entitled to receive a RSS and make a choice about their pension benefits.

SPPA has introduced new digital automation processes which have had a positive impact on delivery speed and capability. The statutory deadline for providing a RSS was by 1 April 2025 or at a later date decided by the scheme manager. This discretion has been exercised and dates are set out on SPPA’s website: https://pensions.gov.scot/sites/default/files/2025-04/2025-04_Police_Circular_McCloud_Remedy_administration_%E2%80%93_Remediable_Service_Statements.pdf.

To date more than 3,400 RSS have been sent. SPPA expects to send most of the remainder by 31 May, with a small number of more complex cases issued by 31 July 2025.

Question reference: S6W-37097

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on Amazon Web Services in each of the last three years.

The Scottish Government spend with Amazon Web Services in each of the last 3 financial years is detailed in the following table:-

Financial Year	Total spend
April 22-March 23	£534,815.88
April 23-March 24	£1,698,666.07
April 24-March 25	£1,659,999.71

New services hosted on Cloud Platform Services (CPS) are built on AWS – ScotPayments, Digital Identity & Digital Connectivity – these have all gone live over the past 3 years, increasing AWS spend as the services scale to meet their customer demand.

Currently there are 45 workloads on the CPS, 27 of which are on the AWS element of the platform. Through using the services contract with public cloud companies, SG services have to date saved £409,414 – these savings are against open market AWS costs.

Savings are being made through migration of applications to CPS from the SG data centre, which is due to close in December 2026. The closure of the data centre is expected to save an estimated £3.6M, between data centre upgrade requirements and increases in energy running costs.

Question reference: S6W-37175

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many former police officers are currently awaiting resolution of their pension scheme choice following the 2015 pension changes.

I have asked Stephen Pathirana, Chief Executive of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA), to respond. His response is as follows:

SPPA is in the process of providing retired police officers with a remediable service statement (RSS) in order to allow them to make an informed choice of benefits in respect of their service between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022. To date more than 3,400 RSS have been sent to retired police officers. Approximately 1,850 statements are outstanding, though the majority of retired officers are already in receipt of their final salary scheme benefits, which are anticipated to be more favourable. All retired police officers are expected to receive a RSS by 31 July 2025.

Question reference: S6W-37174

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will offer compensation to any retired police officers who have been financially disadvantaged due to delays in implementing pension entitlements.

I have asked Stephen Pathirana, Chief Executive of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, to respond. His response is as follows:

The legislative provisions of the McCloud remedy ensure that where there is an uplift in pension benefits as a result of an officers choice, interest applies to any arrears. Any retired officers who are entitled to arrears of pension will receive their entitlement in full, plus that interest.

Question reference: S6W-36841

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its justification was for reportedly spending £11.2 million on decarbonising the headquarters of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Edinburgh, in light of the building reportedly being valued at £4.75 million.

The Scottish Government are contributing £9.08 million towards the cost of this project through the Scottish Central Government Energy Efficiency Grant Scheme and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service are contributing the remainder. While the cost of the works exceeds the value of the property, the market value of the property does not relate to its importance either as part of the historic environment or its usefulness as a public building.

This building is used to provide a vital local service in the area and will remain in public ownership over the longer term. Therefore, we must invest in it – and our other public buildings – over time to support public bodies, and other building owners, to end their use of polluting heating to reach net zero by 2045. The Edinburgh Crown Office occupies a Category B listed building, situated in the Old Town UNESCO World Heritage Site in the city centre of Edinburgh. We recognise it will be more challenging and more expensive for some properties to achieve this, particularly where they are part of the historic environment and are therefore harder to treat.