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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-04066

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 11 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what qualifies as "appropriate" in the context of its plans to introduce appropriate remuneration for board members of national culture and heritage public bodies, as referred to in A Culture Strategy for Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-04271

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 November 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 11 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many vacancies for qualified STEM teachers are unfilled in secondary schools.

Question reference: S6W-03062

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 11 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many errors have been recorded with COVID-19 vaccination records, and how many (a) have been and (b) are yet to be rectified.

Question reference: S6W-03896

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 11 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the cost is of training a nursing student.

The Scottish Government package of support for Scottish student nurses and midwives is currently at its highest level. The average cost of training a nursing student, over three years of full-time university education, is £55,000. This comprises:

Teaching grant and tuition fee payments to the university;
£10,000 non-means tested, non-repayable annual bursary payments to the student;
travel costs;
uniform costs;
health checks;
disclosure checks;
and a range of additional funding students can also apply for, such as Dependant’s Allowance, Single Parent’s Allowance, Childcare Allowance for Parents and Disabled Students’ Allowance.

Question reference: S6W-03898

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 11 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many additional nursing students it believes will be needed to resolve the reported staffing issues, and how much it believes it will cost to fill these places.

Growing our nursing workforce is crucial and we have steadily increased places on undergraduate nursing courses over 9 consecutive years. Each year we undertake a robust nursing student intakes planning process to determine the target number of nursing students to which Scottish universities should recruit to meet future nursing workforce demands. The process involves significant input from key stakeholders from across the health and education sectors, and uses detailed modelling of current and projected staff and student numbers, including workforce supply and demand for 3-5 years hence, as well as anticipated key service drivers, in coming to a decision.

To address more immediate staffing pressures, the NHS Recovery Plan, which was published on 25 August 2021, commits more than £1 billion of targeted investment for the recovery and renewal of our health service. A key requirement to delivering the Recovery Plan is having the right workforce in place at the right time and it is therefore key that we now develop a new supporting workforce strategy to enable us to do this. We will therefore publish a National Workforce Strategy by the end of this year, which supports remobilisation, recovery and renewal of Health and Social Care Services.

Question reference: S6W-03881

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 11 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to applications to study nursing, how many (a) were received and (b) were successful, broken down by each year since 2007.

Table 1 highlights data from UCAS showing both the number of applications and number of accepted applicants to pre-registration nursing programmes from 2007 to 2020. Figures for 2021 have not yet been published yet.

Table 1

Applications and acceptances to nursing at Scottish providers by year

Source: UCAS

Year	Applications	Acceptances
2007*	2,715	285
2008*	2,540	330
2009*	2,515	325
2010	17,125	3,530
2011	19,230	3,265
2012	18,440	2,940
2013	18,800	3,040
2014	21,260	3,370
2015	21,105	3,355
2016	20,725	3,350
2017	20,900	3,615
2018	20,435	3,725
2019	21,710	4,040
2020	23,640	4,785

*Prior to 2010, the Centralised Applications to Nursing and Midwifery Training Clearing House (CATCH) was not incorporated into the UCAS undergraduate admissions scheme. This means that UCAS data is not comparable over the longer term due to changes in the courses included within the UCAS application process. For time comparisons, therefore, data prior to 2015 is used not included.

In 2015, around 120 courses at providers in Scotland that were previously part of the UCAS Teacher Training scheme moved into the UCAS undergraduate scheme. The numbers for providers in Scotland in 2015 and later recorded through the UCAS Undergraduate scheme will include those which were previously part of UCAS Teacher Training – estimated to be around 2,000 acceptances per year, mostly aged 21 or over.

For the 2010 cycle, the Centralised Applications to Nursing and Midwifery Training Clearing House (CATCH) was incorporated into the UCAS Undergraduate admissions scheme. Data from 2010 onwards includes nursing and midwifery diploma courses in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-03769

Asked by: Richard Leonard, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 11 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many organisations approved to be on the Crown Commercial Service framework agreement, RM6008, in the Management Consultancy Framework Two, it considers have expertise in the delivery of social care.

The Framework represents a range of skills required for major transformation programme support including programme management and governance setup as opposed to social care delivery experience. The Framework was established specifically in recognition of the need for such services on an occasional basis and is available for use by all UK public bodies. It sought to address the understandable lack of such specialist internal resources due to the temporary nature of such a requirement. Calling off from the Framework provides access to a range of skill sets, and levels and areas of specialism drawn from a team of resources as opposed to reliance on single individuals.

Question reference: S6W-04380

Asked by: Gillian Martin, MSP for Aberdeenshire East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 November 2021
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Humza Yousaf on 11 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what action NHS Scotland is taking to help tackle the climate emergency.

Question reference: S6W-04333

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-04332

Current Status: Withdrawn