- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the cost to date has been for the development of the NHS Scotland app, including the cost of any contracts awarded, and whether there has been any budgetary overspend compared with initial projections.
Answer
Delivery of the health and social care app for Scotland is being taken forward by NHS Education Scotland (NES) as part of the wider Digital Front Door programme. The majority of costs to date have been on mobilising the team required and developing the Outline Business Case. NHS NES staff have participated in the Civtech Challenge, which has allowed NES to understand what is required to develop the app in a way that integrates into Scottish Government plans to digitise postal communications. More information about this can be found at: https://www.civtech.scot/civtech-9-challenge-8-secure-individualised-and-effective-communications-channel.
The bulk of development costs on the app specifically will be incurred from 2025-26 onwards, as part of the indicative programme budget for 2025-26 set at £12 million.
The Scottish Government has provided NES with the following funding for the Digital Front Door Programme:
Scottish Government has also awarded no contracts associated with this work, although NES, as the delivery partner, did spend £210,000 from their allocated budget on a contract to develop the Outline Business Case and further contracts will be awarded by NES as they move into this delivery phase. There has been no budgetary overspend compared with projections to date.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the Scottish Funding Council is sufficiently funded to maintain financial stability across the country's universities.
Answer
Ministers listened closely to the sector in the development of this year’s budget, and we are investing over £1.1 billion in university teaching and research. In addition, the Scottish Government has made a further £25m of funding available to the Scottish Funding Council to support the sector in mitigating financial challenges.
The Scottish Funding Council monitors financial sustainability across the sector and Ministers have confidence in their ability and expertise. There are many factors impacting universities at the present time, including UK migration policies and the UK Government’s increase to employer national insurance contributions. The latter is estimated to cost Scottish universities over £48 million.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to support universities facing financial distress, and whether it will introduce additional emergency funding to protect staff and students at the University of Dundee.
Answer
The Scottish Government has made £25m of funding available to the Scottish Funding Council to support the sector. The Scottish Funding Council has allocated £22m of this to the University of Dundee to support the university in addressing its immediate financial challenges.
The Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council will continue to explore all means possible and consider any reasonable asks to further support the University of Dundee as it develops a plan to secure a sustainable future. The Scottish Government will carefully consider any approaches for further emergency funding in relation to the financial challenges faced by the university.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to a pilot scheme allowing controlled alcohol sales at selected football grounds to assess its feasibility and potential impact, and what its response is to similar trials in other countries.
Answer
The Scottish Government would be willing to look at proposals from either the Scottish FA or SPFL. To date, we have not received any proposals.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many local authorities have (a) reduced or (b) eliminated modern language teaching in (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools in the last five years.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not publish local authority level data for the items requested.
Scottish Government does, however, publish related data on language learning and teaching at a national level. The table below provides a summary of data from the biennial 1+2 languages survey, summarising provision of language teaching for the first additional language (known as “L2”) and the second additional language (known as “L3”) in 2019, 2021 and 2023.
| | Primary schools | Secondary schools |
| | L2 | L3 | L2 | L3 |
2019 | 88% full* | 48% | 70% full | 83% |
2021 | 98% (69% full, 29% partial) | 64% | 100% (70% full, 30% partial) | 87.5% |
2023 | 99% (68% full, 31% partial) | 76% | 100% (61% full, 39% partial) | 88% |
*Note: Full implementation of L2 indicates it is taught continuously from P1-P7 in primary and S1-S3 in secondary. Partial implementation indicates the L2 is offered, but not taught continuously. The 2019 Survey only gathered data on full L2 implementation. The L3 entitlement does not require it to be taught continuously so full/partial figures are not provided.
The full Survey reports are available on the Scottish Government website:
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish all communications, meeting notes and correspondence between ministers and (a) SSE and (b) Equinor regarding the Peterhead gas-fired power station project.
Answer
To avoid accusations of bias or undue influence in planning and consenting decisions, Minsters cannot undertake any discussions with developers or objectors about the merits or otherwise of forthcoming, or live applications.
Ministers may of course undertake meetings with companies, as part of everyday Scottish Government business. However, these meetings do not contain conversations about specific planning applications and are properly recorded to ensure full transparency.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has had any discussions with (a) educational organisations, such as School Leaders Scotland, and (b) teachers' unions regarding restricting mobile phone use by pupils in school.
Answer
In August 2024, I published refreshed guidance to schools on the use of mobile phones, as part of the joint action plan to respond to the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research.
This guidance was developed in collaboration with the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS). All members of SAGRABIS were involved in discussions about the content of the guidance and agreed to its publication. Members of SAGRABIS include School Leaders Scotland (SLS), the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), NASUWT, Scottish Secondary Teachers Association (SSTA), the Association of Head Teachers and Deputes in Scotland (AHDS), and UNISON. Other members of SAGRABIS include COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education (ADES), the Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE), the Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists (ASPEP), parents’ representatives and respectme.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 28 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 25 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many businesses in Scotland have relocated (a) to the rest of the UK and (b) overseas since 2021.
Answer
Answer expected on 25 April 2025
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 28 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 25 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential impact of any United States tariffs on the Scotch whisky industry.
Answer
Answer expected on 25 April 2025
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it chose to develop a bespoke NHS Scotland app and did not adopt the NHS England model, which has been operating for several years.
Answer
Unlike the NHS App in England, which is currently just for the NHS, our planned service is for both health and social care. The development is also linked into wider digital developments for Scottish public services overall, particularly in relation to a common approach to how the people of Scotland receive official communication digitally. Officials have, however, engaged extensively with NHS England to explore both whether we could use the NHS App and to take learning from the approach to the development of the NHS App.
This engagement confirmed that the NHS App in England was developed specifically in support of NHS Trusts in England and configured specifically for England’s existing IT infrastructure that isn't used in Scotland. We are therefore unable to adopt that product or easily adapt it given our differing structures and requirements. Wales have a hybrid – they are able to use elements of the technology used to create the NHS App, as Wales share a lot of common infrastructure with England, but were also unable to fully use the NHS App in Wales so have also had to create their own app (the ‘NHS Wales App’).
We are, however, keen to learn from that experience, and continue to work closely with NHS England and the other UK nations to share our experiences and encourage common approaches, especially interfacing digital systems that are shared or used commonly across the UK.
