- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 25 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 7 December 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has recently evaluated infusions and injections for the treatment of chronic pain, and, if so, whether it will provide details of the treatments and methods by which they have been evaluated.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12496 on 5 December 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 5 December 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what part infusions and injections will have in future plans to treat chronic pain.
Answer
I understand how important infusions and injections are for those patients receiving them, and that work is needed to improve care for people with chronic pain and the sustainability of our pain management services.
It is our intention that people can access safe, effective, evidence-based care and support. Therefore, as set out in the Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan which we published in July, we are taking action to develop a more consistent, nationally agreed approach to the provision of specialist medical interventions, such as infusions and injections.
This will take into account existing clinical evidence, the variation in approach between Health Boards and seek to reflect the views and needs of both the patient and clinical community.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 5 December 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the debate on chronic pain services on 16 November 2022, during which several members expressed support for NHS specialist chronic pain services being provided as a priority for patients requiring treatment following a referral from a clinician, whether it will clarify whether (a) specialist chronic pain services will be protected and (b) it will analyse relevant staffing levels, in order to decrease waiting times for these services.
Answer
The Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery – Implementation Plan was published in July 2022 and sets out the actions the Scottish Government are taking to improve care and services for people with chronic pain.
The Implementation Plan acknowledges the importance of specialist pain management services and includes a number of specific actions to improve access and quality of care provided by these services. This includes convening an expert working group to review pathways into specialist care and identify opportunities to share and promote best practice as well as piloting new digital pathways to improve how people access specialist services.
As part of this work it is expected that challenges around staffing of specialist services will also be explored. This activity will also be informed by a new national pain service managers network which will help to identify and prioritise key issues affecting the resilience and quality of specialist pain services, including workforce. In addition, the Scottish Government will publish, for the first time, projections of required workforce growth across health and social care as part of the National Workforce Strategy. Once generated these will be reviewed annually.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 21 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 1 December 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-05564 by John Swinney on 10 January 2017, whether it will provide an update on how many school support staff each local authority has employed in each year since 2010, broken down by category of employment.
Answer
Data on school support staff are collected as part of the annual school staff census.
National Statistics on selected categories of school support staff (pupil support assistants, home-school link workers, behaviour support staff, educational psychologists, school nurses and library staff) can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-support-staff-statistics/
Management information (which are not subject to the same quality assurance procedures by Scottish Government statisticians as Official Statistics) for all other support staff roles for which data is collected centrally can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-support-staff-management-information/
Statistics for all categories of support staff prior to 2017 are available as part of the Teacher Census Supplementary Data: https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/
The processing and quality assurance of the statistics on school support staff from 2017 onwards has been brought into line with procedures for National Statistics on pupils and teachers. This means that statistics from 2017 onwards are not directly comparable with the data on support staff from previous years.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 November 2022
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 7 December 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to increase the allocation of police officers in Edinburgh.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 7 December 2022
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 30 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many new homes have been built in Scotland in each year since 1999.
Answer
Statistics relating to new housebuilding are published quarterly on the Scottish Government website. They can be accessed using the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-for-scotland-new-house-building/
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 30 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many modular homes have been built in each local authority area in each year since 1999.
Answer
The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 30 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been recovered in total by each local authority for homelessness prevention from payments made through Integration Joint Boards.
Answer
The majority of homelessness funding provided to local authorities is provided via the block grant, Scottish Government has provided £11.2 billion to Local Authorities as part of the block grant in 2022-23. It is at each local authority’s discretion as to how they use this resource to prevent and respond to homelessness. Decisions as to whether the responsibility for homelessness services are delegated to the local authority or the integration joint boards are made locally.
In addition to the block grant are specific allocations of funding for the purpose of addressing homelessness. Information on these additional funding allocations provided to local authorities can be found in the responses to parliamentary questions S6W-10127 on 22 August 2022 and S6W-06821 on 10 March 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 29 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of non-electric heat in buildings is directly supplied by renewable sources.
Answer
In 2020, 6.4% of non-electrical heat demand was met by renewable technologies. This represents an increase of 4.5 percentage points (up from 1.9%) since 2010 and an increase of 0.2 percentage points from 2019.
The most recent statistics on renewable heat in Scotland are published in the 'Renewable Heat in Scotland – 2020 report’ ( Renewable-heat-in-Scotland-2020-report-version-2 ; produced for the Scottish Government by Energy Saving Trust).
As set out in the ‘Heat in Buildings Strategy: 2022 update’ ( Heat in Buildings Strategy: 2022 update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , we will publish an update to our heat statistics in May 2023 as part of the Climate Change Plan monitoring report. This will not only align with our climate change reporting, but will also provide more time to gather and review the necessary statistics.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 November 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 29 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to fund free tram travel for under-22s as part of the Young Persons’ (Under 22s) Free Bus Travel scheme.
Answer
As Transport for Edinburgh owns and operates the tram system, any decisions on concessionary travel on Edinburgh trams are for the City of Edinburgh Council to make. We are, however, undertaking a Fair Fares Review that will look at the range of discounts and concessionary schemes which are available on all modes.