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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-19132

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 23 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-18198 by Jenny Gilruth on 7 June 2023, which states that it will provide a total of £205 million in 2023-24 to help meet the costs of the final March 2023 pay deal, in light of its officials stating in the Education, Children and Young People Committee meeting on 17 May 2023 that the total cost for the 2023-24 financial year was £188 million, whether it will confirm what the total cost of the teachers' pay settlement is in the 2023-24 financial year.

The total cost to the Scottish Government, in the 2023-24 financial year of the teachers’ pay deal agreed in March 2023 is £205 million.

The figure of £188 million quoted by officials at the Education, Children and Young People Committee meeting on 17 May 2023 represents the cost to the Education and Skills Portfolio of funding overall teachers’ pay costs in 2023-24. This figure also includes recurring costs relating to the 2021-22 teachers’ pay deal but does not include the proportion of costs relating to the teachers’ pay deal agreed in March 2023 that are being met directly through the local government finance settlement, as these costs do not sit within the Education and Skills Portfolio budget.

Question reference: S6W-19133

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 23 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-18198 by Jenny Gilruth on 7 June 2023, whether it can confirm that only £50 million has been allocated to fund the teachers' pay settlement and that the remaining £155 million is still to be found within the education and skills budget for 2023-24.

Question reference: S6W-18875

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 23 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is considering the banning of homework in schools.

The Scottish Government does not prescribe approaches to items of practice on matters such as providing homework to children and young people.

In April 2023, Education Scotland published an update on ‘Engaging Parents and Families: A toolkit for practitioners’, which is available on the National Improvement Hub along with case study examples of learning at home. This resource, which includes a short review of the evidence surrounding homework, also provides schools and practitioners with good practice examples of effective approaches to learning at home.

Accordingly, decisions on providing homework are a matter of broader policy and approach that schools and headteachers are empowered to make decisions on. This is in line with other such decisions that headteachers make at a local level on learning and teaching practice, including the curriculum design, the vision, aims and rationale of the school or setting.

Question reference: S6W-18672

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 19 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has received the final report of the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment.

Question reference: S6W-18857

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 16 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when the employability and individual training account budgets will be confirmed and announced.

The 2023-24 budgets for employability programmes, including No One Left Behind and Fair Start Scotland were confirmed by the Deputy First Minister on 25 May, with Grant Offer Letters issued to local authorities on 30 May for No One Left Behind. The budget for Individual Training Accounts has now been confirmed and the scheme will re-open during the week commencing 19 June 2023.

We are currently considering the budget for the Flexible Workforce Development Fund in 2023-24 through colleges and the Open University in Scotland and will provide a further update once budget discussions have concluded.

Question reference: S6F-02250

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 June 2023

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on the future and viability of rural schools.

Question reference: S6O-02389

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the newest developments are in the creation of Scottish Parliament apps to allow the public easier access to parliamentary business papers and other resources.

Question reference: S6W-17956

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 7 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-16779 by Patrick Harvie on 27 April 2023, how households will be successfully engaged with, as part of Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES) delivery plans, in order to take action to retrofit their homes with energy efficiency and low carbon heating measures.

Advice and support for households is currently accessed via Home Energy Scotland or via local authority-led Area Based Schemes. It is likely that this arrangement will continue in the short term, but we are committed to working with delivery partners, including Local Government to ensure the efficient delivery of advice and support to households.

This year we will publish a Public Engagement Strategy setting out how we will raise public awareness and understanding of the changes we all need to make to our home heating to meet the net zero targets by 2045. We will need to communicate in a coordinated way across all levels, including nationally and through trusted grassroots and local messengers.

This will include taking a place-based approach through working with local government to communicate to the public what the transition will mean for them, informed by upcoming Local Heat & Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES) Delivery Plans. This will help to ensure that people know whether they can expect to connect to a local heat network or will need to install renewable technologies such as a heat pump, the steps involved and how they can access any support available. We will use a range of tactics to achieve this, including multi-channel marketing and community engagement initiatives.

Question reference: S6W-18287

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 7 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether there have been any cuts to the funding set out in the Level 3 budget lines that were published in the Scottish Budget 2023-24 as a result of the teacher pay settlement agreed in March 2023.

The pay offer was made at a time of extraordinary financial pressure on the Scottish Government budget. As the previous Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills made clear when the teachers’ pay deal was agreed, difficult decisions will be necessary to free up the required resources. As is normal practice, changes to allocations will be reported to Parliament through autumn and spring budget revisions.

Question reference: S6W-18198

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 7 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will confirm the initial amount of funding that was set aside for a provisional teacher pay settlement in December 2022, when the Scottish Budget 2023-24 was first published, and how much additional funding is required from the 2023-24 Budget to pay for the final pay settlement, agreed in March 2023, which cost £188 million.

The Scottish Budget 2023-24 published in December 2022 did not include any budget provision for teachers’ pay. At that time, the Scottish Government was participating in discussions on a 2023 pay offer through the tripartite SNCT and, as always, it was for COSLA – as the employer – to make any pay offer. Publishing a budget at that stage would have risked undermining COSLA’s position and the negotiations themselves. We continued to work with COSLA to assess what specific support was needed. At the point of the Scottish Budget 2023-24 being published, we had confirmed a contribution of over £50 million to the pay offer made to teachers.

The Scottish Government will provide a total of £205m in 2023-24 to help meet the costs of the final March 2023 pay deal, £50 million of which is included in the local government finance settlement.