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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-34453

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it anticipates that it will deliver on its commitment to allocate 10% of NHS spend to mental health and 1% to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

Latest data published by Public Health Scotland on 25 February 2025 shows total spend on mental health in Scotland has increased by £179.6 million to £1.486 billion in 2023-24. That is 9.03% of total net NHS expenditure, up from 8.53% in 2022-23. Spend on child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) has increased by nearly £19.4 million to over £134 million. This is 0.82% of total spend, up from 0.75% in 2022-23.

We remain committed to delivery of the commitment and the latest data shows good progress is being made, however, as we all know, there are continued and unprecedented challenge to the public finances.

That means that achieving the targets in practice will depend on the outcome of future budgets. It is also dependent on the financial decisions taken by NHS Boards, and their partners, on the continued local investment needed to achieve the targets.

We will continue to closely monitor our progress towards both the 10% and 1% over the remainder of the Parliamentary term.

Question reference: S6W-34443

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many shared headteacher roles have been in place in schools in each local authority area in each year since 1999.

Following clarification, this question refers to multi-establishment leadership models.

The following table shows the number of schools which share a headteacher with at least one other school, known as multi-establishment leadership models, by Local Authority. This does not include Grant-Aided schools or centrally employed headteacher posts. Data from before 2007 is not available.

Table 1. Schools in a multi-establishment leadership model, by Local Authority, 2007-2023.

LA Name	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Aberdeen City	0	0	0	0	1	2	0	0	0	4	2	0	2	0	0	2	2
Aberdeenshire	4	12	10	16	12	8	8	8	16	12	12	14	16	18	16	18	25
Angus	5	7	7	8	6	12	12	12	10	6	6	8	8	8	10	10	12
Argyll and Bute	6	6	12	4	6	8	16	19	21	26	29	32	28	28	32	32	38
City of Edinburgh	1	0	2	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	2	3	2	0	0	2	2	2	4	2	2	2	2
Dumfries and Galloway	4	6	17	9	15	13	15	64	69	64	68	68	61	64	67	69	64
Dundee City	1	1	1	1	2	0	2	2	4	0	2	0	0	0	0	2	2
East Ayrshire	2	2	13	10	4	6	2	4	4	4	4	4	6	4	6	4	0
East Dunbartonshire	2	2	4	4	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	4	4	2
East Lothian	1	1	1	1	2	2	4	4	2	3	5	6	8	9	4	6	6
East Renfrewshire	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	2	2	0
Falkirk	0	0	0	0	0	2	7	11	8	8	12	12	6	4	4	4	8
Fife	4	4	10	10	8	11	7	9	20	29	35	38	32	40	42	48	48
Glasgow City	4	2	5	3	3	0	0	3	2	2	4	6	4	6	6	6	10
Highland	28	50	47	59	62	67	72	71	66	72	87	90	95	96	90	83	91
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	4	6	6	2	4	0
Moray	2	4	4	4	4	6	4	6	6	10	8	8	8	8	8	8	6
Na h-Eileanan Siar	13	10	10	18	16	10	6	12	12	10	12	12	14	22	18	18	15
North Ayrshire	1	0	0	2	4	8	11	13	11	12	12	10	10	6	6	10	12
North Lanarkshire	0	0	0	4	6	4	8	10	4	4	4	9	7	7	13	13	13
Orkney Islands	6	6	6	4	6	4	9	9	8	8	6	6	7	6	10	5	8
Perth and Kinross	0	0	4	8	8	8	10	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	10	8	8
Renfrewshire	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Scottish Borders	18	22	45	43	41	38	42	42	42	38	36	36	32	32	27	28	29
Shetland Islands	6	6	2	4	4	4	6	4	2	4	5	5	4	4	8	2	2
South Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	2	2	6	8	8	10	12	14	12	12	14	10	12
South Lanarkshire	14	14	16	16	18	16	16	12	14	14	14	14	16	14	14	14	14
Stirling	8	12	12	10	13	17	17	16	14	10	10	10	12	13	12	12	12
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	2	0	2	6	4	4	6	4	6	8	8	8	12
West Lothian	4	6	8	8	8	8	10	8	10	8	6	4	10	10	10	10	16
All Local Authorities	134	173	236	248	257	264	296	364	369	374	409	426	426	437	445	442	469

Question reference: S6W-34938

Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many train (a) arrivals and (b) departures there have been at (i) Cameron Bridge and (ii) Leven rail station each month since June 2024.

Question reference: S6W-34865

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the operational base level is for each division of Police Scotland, and how often Police Scotland has been unable to meet that level in each division in the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-34912

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards its commitment in the Respiratory Care Action Plan to improve and simplify access to appropriate diagnostic tests for respiratory conditions and explore the use of high quality, consistent spirometry testing and chest and lung CT scans.

Improved access to diagnostic tests remains a wider commitment for the Scottish Government and we are working closely with Primary Care colleagues to determine ways to improve spirometry.

The Scottish Government has established a Scottish Expert Advisory Group to support the work of the UK National Screening Committee Lung Task Group and inform the implementation of a targeted lung cancer screening programme for Scotland.

Introducing a new screening programme such as Chest and Lung CT scanning is inherently complex, and the required evidence and information must be fully developed before implementation begins. This is likely to take several years for each UK nation.

The Scottish Government-funded LungScot study, led by the University of Edinburgh, provided further information on the feasibility of lung screening and the influences of sociodemographic and other patient characteristics. The Scottish Expert Advisory Group is incorporating these findings into their business case which will inform the next steps towards implementation.

Question reference: S6W-35055

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to harmonise the reporting of violent and abusive behaviour towards teachers and staff in schools.

The Scottish Government expects all incidents of violent and abusive behaviour towards staff to be recorded.

In Scotland our local councils employ education staff and we expect all local authorities to be ensuring that their schools have policies in place which determine clearly what action should be taken to address challenging behaviour and to best protect their staff in the workplace. This would include having processes in place to record violent and abusive incidents towards teachers and staff.

The joint relationships and behaviour in schools action plan includes an action to review all current processes for recording incidents, to identify potential means of streamlining processes and improving consistency. An update on the plan will publish in the coming weeks.

Question reference: S6W-34896

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its news release of 1 December 2017, 800 more GPs for Scotland, and the commitment set out in it that it would "aim to increase the number of GPs in Scotland by at least 800 over the next decade", how many GPs have been permanently recruited to date, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S6W-34917

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards its commitment in the Respiratory Care Action Plan to ensure that people with respiratory conditions have access to tools, resources and information that support them to manage their own condition.

We have recently published the Quality Prescribing Guide for Improvement that aims to keep people at the centre of their treatment, and promote safe, evidenced based, sustainable prescribing.

The guide was developed by a wide range of stakeholders including experts in the field and lived experiences. The guide is intended to support clinicians across the multidisciplinary team and people living with respiratory conditions in shared decision-making and the effective use of medicines and offers practical advice and options for tailoring care to the needs and preferences of individuals

Question reference: S6W-35059

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many socially rented properties were vacant in each of the last 12 months, broken down by local authority area.

The information is not available in the format requested, however, the Scottish Government routinely publishes data on local authority voids, with the latest data available here: Housing statistics: Local authority housing stock - gov.scot.

Social housing landlords will start collecting data from 1 April 2025 which will report the number of self-contained properties void at the year end and, of those, the number that have been void for more than six months by category. The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) will then collect this information in May 2026, to monitor performance over that year. In addition, the SHR has recently supported an ad hoc data collection on behalf of the Scottish Government, to collect information on empty homes/voids. The letter can be accessed here:Letter to Registered Social Landlords - collection of information on empty homes / voids | Scottish Housing Regulator.

THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT

Question reference: S6W-35067

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 4 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the reported decision by the health secretary not to act in response to a letter warning about potential non-compliance by NHS Fife with its legal obligations is consistent with the Scottish Government’s duty to uphold the Equality Act 2010.