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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: S5O-02122

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 May 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support the Fife economy.

Question reference: S5W-16231

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 27 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 10 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle deliberate fire raising.

As part of the Scottish Government’s wider agenda on anti-social behaviour, we support the excellent work being delivered by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and other partners to develop programmes to target those groups with the potential to become involved in wilful fire-raising. SFRS delivers a range of schemes aimed at educating and supporting young people, who are responsible for a high percentage of deliberate fires, to reduce and prevent the instances of deliberate fire setting and fire related anti-social behaviour.

This includes education and diversion work to improve citizenship, reduce offending by children and young people and education on the dangers and social impact of fire setting through the delivery of interventions such as the ‘Fire setter Intervention and Re-Education Scheme’ (FIReS), ‘FireSkills’ and ‘Adverse Childhood Experience Awareness Programme’.

Recorded Crime in Scotland 2016-17 statistics show that fire-raising has decreased by 40% over the ten year period from 2007-08 to 2016-17. But we must not be complacent, deliberate fire setting and fire related anti-social behaviour continues to be a serious concern in many communities and local authority areas as well as placing a very significant operational demand on the SFRS. That is why prevention will continue to be a central objective being pursued by the SFRS.

Question reference: S5W-16232

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 27 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 10 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many instances of deliberate fire raising have been recorded in each parliamentary constituency in the Mid Scotland and Fife region in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S5O-02098

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 May 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government on what date the first payments of the carers allowance supplement will be made.

Question reference: S5T-01069

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 May 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with DF Barnes since the announcement of redundancies at BiFab on 4 May.

Question reference: S5W-16094

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 20 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 4 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications to introduce the sexual history or sexual character evidence of a victim in a sexual offence or rape trial have been (a) requested, (b) unopposed, (c) granted in full, (d) granted in part and (e) rejected, in each year since 2002.

Data on the use of sections 274 and 275 Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 are not routinely collected by the Scottish Government.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-16093 on 1 May 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Question reference: S5O-02061

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 May 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with Fife Health and Social Care Partnership since its decision to suspend overnight out-of-hours services in Dunfermline, St Andrews and Glenrothes.

Question reference: S5W-16093

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 20 April 2018
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 1 May 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its report, Impact of Aspects of the Law of Evidence in Sexual Offence Trials, published in September 2007, what plans it has to conduct a further evaluation, including on the issue of sexual history or character evidence.

As the question notes, the operation of the law in the area of the use of character evidence and sexual history evidence was subject to a full and independent evaluation in 2007. The law in this area has not changed substantively since the 2007 evaluation.

However, in December 2015 a commitment was provided to parliament to undertake a small high level data collection project to review the usage of section 274/275. This exercise concluded in June 2016 and the results can be found here: http://www.parliament.scot/General%20Documents/20160624CSfJtoConvenerILR.pdf . The Scottish Government is working with Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to interrogate this data further. This exercise will inform any future consideration of the operation of the law in this area.

Question reference: S5W-15711

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government when the Aspiring Communities Fund opened for applicants at stage 1; how many applications were (a) received and (b) granted, broken down by (i) name of organisation and (ii) amount granted, and what criteria were used to determine whether to approve a grant.

The Aspiring Communities Fund opened for Stage 1 applicants in February 2017.

a) the total number of Stage 1 applications received was 108.

b) The total number of Stage 1 projects approved was 60.

Eligibility of organisations was determined through their completion of a pre-eligibility checklist. All eligible proposals were then carefully checked and scored against the Fund’s criteria and scoring framework. All eligible applications were then considered by an independent panel.

Name of successful organisation and amount granted is listed in the following table:-

LEAD ORGANISATION NAME	TOTAL GRANT APPROVED
Aberlour Childcare Trust	£23,622
Active Communities	£21,493
AddAction	£47,335
Aspire2Access	£19,286
Bethany Christian Trust	£43,947
Brag Enterprises Ltd	£34,201
Broadford and Strath Community Company Ltd	£32,500
Calman Trust	£23,265
Cernach Housing Association	£23,380
Childcare in the Community	£48,739
Churches Action for the Homeless (CATH)	£39,021
Citizens Advice Edinburgh	£23,254
Cloch Housing Association	£35,845
Coalfields Regeneration Trust	£38,064
Community InfoSource	£38,191
CVS Inverclyde	£30,682
Cyrenians	£13,609
Darvel Community Trust	£33,354
Deaf Connections	£49,874
Deveron Projects	£44,081
Dundee and Angus ADHD Support Group	£42,000
Dundee International Women's Centre	£49,101
Edinburgh Food Project	£8,667
Elderpark Housing Association	£22,335
FEAT Trading CIC	£9,343
Forward Coupar Angus	£20,585
Furniture Plus Ltd	£15,400
Galgael Trust	£14,325
Glasgow Homelessness Network	£17,878
Glen Housing Association	£13,585
Healthy n Happy CDT	£43,179
Inch Park Community Sports Club	£19,448
Irvine Community Sports Club	£12,000
Kirkcaldy YMCA	£49,182
Letham Community Sports Club	£28,865
Midlothian Voluntary Action	£20,266
Money Matters Money Advice Centre	£47,783
Nari Kallyan Shangho (NKS)	£30,081
North Lands Creative Glass	£17,508
Ore Valley Housing Association	£13,175
PAS (Planning Aid for Scotland)	£31,791
RAMH	£20,492
Regenfx Youth Trust	£28,694
RockSolid Dundee	£15,204
Sacro	£47,768
Simon Community Scotland	£8,698
Studio Pop CIC	£48,875
Support in Mind Scotland	£31,183
SURF	£39,304
The Ayrshire Community Trust	£36,644
The New Tannahill Centre	£50,000
The Pollokshields Trust	£46,788
The Village Storytelling Centre	£33,621
The Yard Adventure Centre	£40,445
Third Sector Dumfries & Galloway	£25,415
Tollcross Housing Association	£49,000
Toonspeak Young People's Theatre	£23,073
Visibility	£12,126
Voluntary Action Orkney	£26,390
With Kids	£47,945

Question reference: S5W-15710

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 April 2018

To ask the Scottish Government when the Aspiring Communities Fund will open for applicants at stage 2; how many applications it expects; how much funding will be made available for this, also broken down by how much will be ring-fenced for applicants that have completed the stage 1 process, and whether any funding will be made available to stage 1 applicants that are not successful at stage 2.

The date for Aspiring Communities Fund applications for existing Stage 1 projects to progress to Stage 2 is still under consideration. The fund currently supports 60 Stage 1 projects and it is expected that the majority of these projects will apply for Stage 2 funding. The level of funding available is still to be determined. Those projects that are unsuccessful in acquiring Stage 2 funding will be signposted to alternative funding sources.