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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: S6W-13891

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 27 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether there is a National Managed Clinical Network on veterans’ health and, if so, what its membership is.

NHS National Services Division operated the Scottish Veterans Care Network between November 2020 and March 2022.

A range of stakeholders were involved in shaping the Network. The Network’s primary focus was on the Mental Health and Wellbeing Action Plan (MHWAP). The delivery of the MHWAP is now being taken forward by a veteran led Implementation Board, and as such the Network has been stood down.

Question reference: S6W-13889

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 27 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when the remit of the Armed Forces and Veterans Health Joint Group was last refreshed.

Question reference: S6W-14085

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 27 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government on what basis the remit of the Interim Governance Group to Develop National Anti-Racist Infrastructure was established.

In June 2020, the Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity was established to consider and inform the Scottish Government’s approach in relation to the impacts of COVID-19 on Minority Ethnic (ME) communities. This was in response to reports at a UK-wide and international level that some ME groups may be at risk of experiencing disproportionate effects, both in terms of adverse health outcomes and in a wider context, including economically.

Our current priorities are rooted in the delivery of the recommendations of our Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity (ERG). Specifically, these actions cover the ongoing work to implement the data and systemic recommendations of the Expert Reference Group (ERG) for COVID-19 and Ethnicity, as agreed to by the Scottish Government in November 2020 .

Recommendation 7 from the ERG outlined the need to establish a more effective accountability and governance infrastructure in Scotland, namely an independent Race Observatory. The Scottish Government required specific expertise to help move forward with establishing the Observatory and therefore formed a short-life working group, now known as the IGG, to provide advice and feedback to Scottish Ministers.

Question reference: S6W-13948

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-13495 by Kevin Stewart on 13 January 2023, how much it spent on the There’s More to Care Than Caring campaign, and how much it plans to spend on the 2023 campaign.

The total cost of the 2021-2022 campaign was £206,970. The 2023 campaign has been developed to have a much greater media presence and will aim to reach a broader audience than previous campaigns. With this, the projected spend for the 2023 campaign is £500,000. This also cost also includes activities on insights gathering to gain further clarity on how the campaign messaging is received and the public perceptions of a career in social care to help inform and shape future recruitment support.

Question reference: S6W-14343

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-13848

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 26 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much the Scottish Veterans Fund has given out in each year since 2008, and to what projects.

The funding awarded through the Scottish Veterans Fund in each year since it was established in 2008 are shown in the following table.

Year	Total Awarded
2008-09	£80,000
2009-10	£80,000
2010-11	£80,000
2011-12	£80,000
2012-13	£80,001
2013-14	£78,658
2014-15	£119,658
2015-16	£115,000
2016-17	£120,000
2017-18	£200,000
2018-19	£200,000
2019-20	£200,000
2020-21	£166,128
2021-22	£215,165
2022-23	£500,000
Total	£2,314,610

The full list of projects that have been awarded funding by the Scottish Veterans Fund has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib number 63949).

Question reference: S6W-13867

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 26 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it has done to improve understanding of housing support and provision available to military service leavers and veterans.

We continue to support Housing Options Scotland to provide its Military Matters project. This service focuses on housing issues affecting people serving in the Armed Forces in Scotland; all UK Service personnel transitioning into civilian life in Scotland, and veterans – helping them to find the right home in the right place.

We have also published a housing guide which provides information about housing in Scotland and contacts of organisations who may be able to help Armed Forces and ex-service personnel obtain housing suitable for their needs. The guide also directs veterans to the Veterans Gateway which provides information and support to veterans and their families.

Question reference: S6W-13850

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 26 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is providing a programme of development for breakfast club volunteers to receive formal training on (a) befriending and (b) mental health first aid.

The Scottish Government provided £3,000 in 2020-21 to Legion Scotland to deliver Befriending and Mental Health First Aid training to individuals from the veterans community, including breakfast club volunteers. These sessions were initially delayed due to the pandemic. However, Legion Scotland successfully delivered the Mental Health First Aid training in March 2022. The planned Befriending courses were cancelled due to lockdown and the funding initially allocated was refunded to Legion Scotland and re-purposed to support the delivery of the MHFA training. In total, 28 people attended the courses including several admin staff from multiple breakfast clubs.

Question reference: S6W-13521

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 January 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 26 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has undertaken with NHS boards and health and social care partnerships to ensure that workforce plans are part of wider integrated plans, which include and triangulate with financial and service/operational planning arrangements.

The Scottish Government has engaged directly with representatives from NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to develop, deliver and subsequently assess workforce, finance and service plans in 2022-23. As part of the planning process, health boards were set workforce priorities in connection with their Annual Delivery Plan. Further, Scottish Government guidance on the production of three-year workforce plans, issued in April 2022, set out expressly how and where medium-term workforce planning should be directly aligned with financial and service planning priorities, taking into account assessments of changing service demand and relevant financial/budgetary forecasting.

Question reference: S6W-13440

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 26 January 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has identified options for obtaining accurate data on any unregistered members of the health and social care workforce, ensuring the whole workforce is considered when planning.

The Scottish Government does not hold official data on the unregistered workforce. However we do know that there were at least 4,869 Personal Assistants (PA’s) providing social care support to adults who were in receipt of either Self-directed support option 1 or from Independent Living Fund Scotland in 2021.

This data was captured from those Personal Assistants who applied for the Scottish Government Covid-19 thankyou payment which can be found here PA Programme Board Resources - Self Directed Support Scotland | Self Directed Support Scotland (sdsscotland.org.uk) .

A PA Programme Board was established in 2021 with a membership from the public, third sector and organisation’s representing disabilities. A co-produced Work Plan was developed which includes objectives to understand, grow and support the PA workforce including developing better research of this little known workforce.

The Personal Assistant workforce are employed by the person with social care needs or their family. The employer may also use funding from a variety of public sources as well as self-funding, as such there is no locus for SG to mandate the collection of this data. However, there will be an option to count all those non family member PAs from 2024 onwards as this workforce must be PVG checked from that date.

There has been a successful application for a PHD funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. This position will start in October and will research PA assistance for disabled people, changing labour markets and social care reform. The PA Programme Board will be a collaborative partner with Glasgow University.