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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: S4O-05489

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 27 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with the General Teaching Council for Scotland about teacher recruitment issues.

Question reference: S4F-03196

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 January 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 January 2016

To ask the First Minister what role the Scottish Government considers that cadet forces play in society.

Question reference: S4W-29097

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 18 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many full school inspections have taken place in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in each year since 2000.

Education Scotland, our national improvement agency for education, undertakes a wide range of activities to promote assurance and improvement in the quality of education provided by Scottish schools, including undertaking a sample of full inspections annually. The number of full inspections Education Scotland undertakes each year varies. Inspection is one strong driver of improvement, but the national inspection programme is designed to recognise that local authorities retain primary responsibility for securing improvement in their schools.

Education Scotland does not retain the number of inspections by sector prior to 1 April 2002 and as such we have provided the number of school inspections for the period 2002 onwards. The figures for 2015-16 include both the inspections that have taken place since 1 April 2015 as well as those Education Scotland plans to undertake up to 31 March 2016.

Year (1 April to 31 March)	Primary	Secondary	Special	Total
2002-03	191	46	21	258
2003-04	221	44	34	299
2004-05	412	53	26	491
2005-06	264	55	29	348
2006-07	244	50	26	320
2007-08	237	50	28	315
2008-09	262	55	34	351
2009-10	304	76	37	417
2010-11	223	33	29	285
2011-12	175	53	23	251
2012-13	106	31	25	162
2013-14	162	33	15	210
2014-15	96	22	19	137
2015-16	105	23	20	148

Scotland has a tri-level approach to quality assurance and improvement in schools:

At the first level all schools undertake systematic self-evaluation and improvement planning, using a common framework of quality and performance indicators;

At the second level local authorities have a statutory duty to assure the quality of provision in their schools and secure improvement; and

At the third level, Education Scotland inspects a national sample of schools each year and enhances that sample with individual schools judged to be at risk.

Over and above the national sample of schools inspected annually, Education Scotland undertakes additional inspections of any school where there is a clear need for external review, for example to ensure a quick response to an identified risk of serious under-performance.

During the period of implementation of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), Education Scotland deployed its staff to a number of other intensive support and challenge activities with schools and local authorities. This involved visits from Education Scotland staff, including HM Inspectors to a large number of schools across Scotland. While these types of visits and activities are not full inspections they have played a strong role in driving improvement in schools across Scotland.

Over the period September 2010 to March 2015, HM Inspectors and Education Scotland staff provided targeted support for schools and local authorities as follows:

September 2010: 48 additional support for CfE activities were undertaken by HM Inspectors, in partnership with local authorities, SQA and Learning and Teaching Scotland. They included 18 whole-schools visits of different kinds, 18 subject-based support events, seven senior manager/cluster support visits and five sessions with Education Authority senior managers/quality improvement officers and headteachers, one of which involved five education authorities.

October to November 2010: 147 additional support for CfE activities were carried out by HM Inspectors in partnership with local authorities, Learning and Teaching Scotland and SQA.

January to June 2012: a total of 39 support events took place across 20 authorities to support changes to the primary curriculum.

April 2012 to March 2013: following an audit with local authorities to identify what further support might be needed on introducing new National Qualifications, Education Scotland staff carried out visits to 49 secondary schools.

April 2013 to March 2014: Education Scotland carried out visits to 70 secondary schools across all local authorities.

April 2014 to March 2015: Education Scotland carried out visits to 47 secondary schools across 30 local authorities.

Education Scotland is now refocusing its resources to increase the number of school inspections. This increase in inspections will be complemented by new types of improvement activity, in particular the work of the Attainment Advisors working on the Scottish Attainment Challenge.

Question reference: S4W-29096

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 14 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) since 5 August 2015 regarding the method of payments made to cover the costs of requests to review marking of SQA examinations.

Question reference: S4F-03162

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 January 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 January 2016

To ask the First Minister what criteria the Scottish Government is using to allocate funding and teacher support for schools in deprived communities.

Question reference: S4W-28940

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 7 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what funding it has provided to support tennis projects in each year since 1999.

sportscotland capital funding into tennis projects in each year since 1999 (key capital programmes: Sports Facilities Fund and Legacy 2014 Active Places Fund).

This funding comprises of Scottish Government and lottery funding. Additionally, this funding is for specific tennis facilities and does not include investment into multi-sport facilities where tennis may be played.

Year	Sports Facilities Fund	Active Places Fund (administered by sportscotland)	Total sportscotland award per annum	Total project cost per annum (with partner contribution)
2015-16	£579,334	£0	£579,334	£3,658,212
2014-15	£429,862	£485,600	£915,462	£2,203,781
2013-14	£242,975	£771,735	£1,014,710	£2,174,452
2012-13	£293,269	£0	£293,269	£703,387
2011-12	£467,257	£0	£467,257	£1,570,922
2010-11	£80,192	£0	£80,192	£248,003
2009-10	£143,144	£0	£143,144	£397,736
2008-09	£70,000	£0	£70,000	£235,350
2007-08	£66,000	£0	£66,000	£147,625
2006-07	£410,000	£0	£410,000	£1,869,463
2005-06	£55,465	£0	£55,465	£168,219
2004-05	£581,200	£0	£581,200	£1,560,200
2003-04	£188,247	£0	£188,247	£346,113
2002-03	£0	£0	£0	£0
2001-02	£496,725	£0	£496,725	£1,663,425
2000-01	£315,447	£0	£315,447	£1,190,912
1999-00	£37,850	£0	£37,850	£0
			*£5,714,302	£18,137,800

*sportscotland capital funding represents 31.5% of the overall investment into tennis facilities since 1999-2000.

sportscotland investment into Tennis Scotland (sports governing body):

sportscotland investment into Tennis Scotland for 2015-16 represents 27.5% of the governing body’s overall annual turnover, an increase of 5.5% since 2011-12. It is important to highlight here that, while sportscotland’s provides investment to sports governing bodies, greater emphasis should be placed on the bodies (majority of which are private limited companies) to explain how they are generating income and how this income is being utilised to develop the sport, rather than simply focussing on sportscotland investment.

Financial Year	Total sportscotland Investment
2015-16	£438,000
2014-15	£438,000
2013-14	£224,000
2012-13	£362,100
2011-12	£353,350
2010-11	£81,070
2009-10	£60,300
2008-09	£34,188
2007-08	£303,000
2006-07	£306,094
2005-06	£296,500
2004-05	£63,000
2003-04	£82,088
2002-03	£62,000
2001-02	£228,812
2000-01	£62,000
1999-00	£64,000

Question reference: S4W-28945

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Aileen McLeod on 7 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated to flooding schemes for 2016, broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Government provides funding of £42 million a year through the local government settlement until 2015-16, for local authorities to continue to invest in major new flood protection schemes. Local authorities were able to apply for this funding on the basis of criteria agreed by the Scottish Government and COSLA. After the last round of applications, all of the available funding in the spending review period to 2015-16 was allocated. The following table shows the four flood protection schemes, which were allocated funding from the flooding component of the general capital grant to local authorities, following the last round of applications.

Flood Protection Scheme	Local Authority	Total Grant Funding
Selkirk	Scottish Borders	£25,478,658
Brechin	Angus	£13,106,400
Greenock Area A	Inverclyde	£1,760,000
Almondbank	Perth and Kinross	£11,796,702
	Total	£52,141,760

From April 2016 onwards the flooding component of the general capital grant will be allocated in line with the priorities set out in the flood risk management strategies which will be published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency by 22 December 2015.

Question reference: S4O-05234

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 January 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made in encouraging young people to try golf.

Question reference: S4O-05221

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making in processing applications for rural payments, and how many payments have yet to be made.

Question reference: S4W-28944

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 5 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many cleaners have been employed by each NHS board in each year since 1999.