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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-04053

Asked by: Elena Whitham, MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will review whether the Parliament is providing sufficient resourcing for the Legislation Team to support MSPs to lodge amendments to Bills.

Question reference: S6O-04039

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what progress has been made on the development of a Scottish Parliament app.

Question reference: S6O-04043

Asked by: Tess White, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will provide an update on the output of the working group that was established to review the visitor experience in the chamber.

Question reference: S6O-04046

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will consult MSP staff trade unions before deciding on uprating the Staff Cost Provision in the 2025-26 financial year.

Question reference: S6W-31184

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on what the total number of staff dedicated to child protection services has been in each year since 2012, including the current year to date, also broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-31151

Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what actions are being taken to protect children from alcohol advertisements in shops and stores.

The Scottish Government remains committed to progressing work on protecting children and young people from exposure to alcohol marketing. It was clear from our earlier public consultation that there was a wide range of views on alcohol marketing proposals, including uncertainty about the existing evidence base for many proposals.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) are being commissioned to carry out a review of the evidence for the range of options that are available to the Scottish Government under devolved powers. This will ensure that our work is evidence based and will deliver clear public health outcomes. We will consider PHS’ findings, and consider where the evidence supports further action or consultation on alcohol marketing restrictions.

If the evidence supports it, the Scottish Government will return with a further consultation on a range of targeted proposals. No decisions have been taken yet on what these areas may be.

Question reference: S6W-31198

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will ensure that any upcoming inspections of maternity services account for any local discrepancies between safe staffing requirements under the common staffing methodology and current staffing levels, so that the quality of care can be evaluated in this context.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS)’s Healthcare Staffing Programme monitors NHS Boards’ compliance with the Common Staffing Method. The HIS Healthcare Staffing Operational Framework sets out HIS’s methodology for monitoring compliance. The HIS Healthcare Staffing Programme forms part of the HIS Safe Delivery of Care (SDoC) inspections, both in terms of pre-inspection activity and as part of the onsite inspection team. The SDoC inspection methodology is used for the current acute hospital inspection programme and will therefore also be applied to the maternity inspection programme when it commences from January 2025.

Question reference: S6W-31175

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, not including any other non-domestic rates relief schemes that it has in place, how much it has spent on non-domestic rates relief specifically for the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors in the financial year (a) 2022-23, (b) 2023-24 and (c) 2024-25 to date.

The outturn cost to the Scottish Government of providing each relief, including Retail, hospitality, and leisure relief in 2020-2023, are available in Table 3 of Non-domestic rates income statistics, available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/non-domestic-rates-income-statistics/.

At the December 2023 Budget, Islands and specified remote areas hospitality relief was forecast by the Scottish Fiscal Commission to cost £4 million in 2024-2025, available in Figure A.10 in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2023, at https://fiscalcommission.scot/publications/scotlands-economic-and-fiscal-forecasts-december-2023/. Updated forecasts for 2024-2025 will be released alongside the December 2024 Budget.

Question reference: S6W-31180

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) average time for a child to be seen for an initial hearing following a referral to the children's hearings system and (b) the total number of children referred to the system has been in each year since 2012.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government as it relates to an operational matter for the children’s hearings system.

The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) publish their annual statistics, which sets out a measure on time taken to progress referrals through the children’s hearings system and total number of children referred to the children’s hearings system. The information is available on the SCRA website: Official Statistics - SCRA.

Question reference: S6W-31181

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases in the children’s hearings system have been subject to delay due to a shortage of panel members or professionals since 2012.