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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: S6F-00388

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 25 October 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 October 2021

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s position is regarding the use of facial recognition technology in schools.

Question reference: S6W-03476

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 04 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it will provide a substantive answer to question S6W-02293, which received a holding response on 13 September 2021.

Question reference: S6W-02293

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 16 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 4 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-00855 by Humza Yousaf on 19 July 2021, whether it will provide equivalent information on (a)(i) amber- and (ii) yellow-coded calls and (b) the total number of calls responded to over the same period.

Please find the requested information set out in the following table.

Purple/Red/Amber/Yellow Incidents Attended, 01-01-2017 - 31/05/2021

		2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Purple	Incidents Attended	8,677	9,591	13,547	15,091	6,987
	>8 Minutes	2,544	2,874	4,463	6,278	2,978
	>8 Minutes %	29.3%	30.0%	32.9%	41.6%	42.6%
	>10 Minutes	1,623	1,826	2,903	4,243	1,992
	>10 Minutes %	18.7%	19.0%	21.4%	28.1%	28.5%
	>15 Minutes	542	604	1,028	1,518	790
	>15 Minutes %	6.2%	6.3%	7.6%	10.1%	11.3%
	>20 Minutes	206	230	376	608	314
	>20 Minutes %	2.4%	2.4%	2.8%	4.0%	4.5%
Red	Incidents Attended	55,549	67,535	80,867	70,105	32,923
	>8 Minutes	21,214	28,568	37,101	36,495	17,529
	>8 Minutes %	38.2%	42.3%	45.9%	52.1%	53.2%
	>10 Minutes	13,933	19,238	25,877	26,043	13,042
	>10 Minutes %	25.1%	28.5%	32.0%	37.1%	39.6%
	>15 Minutes	5,293	7,632	10,610	10,989	6,006
	>15 Minutes %	9.5%	11.3%	13.1%	15.7%	18.2%
	>20 Minutes	2,339	3,381	4,783	4,931	2,804
	>20 Minutes %	4.2%	5.0%	5.9%	7.0%	8.5%
Amber	Incidents Attended	105,429	119,018	152,784	176,805	82,021
	>8 Minutes	70,466	87,016	118,086	145,243	69,955
	>8 Minutes %	66.8%	73.1%	77.3%	82.1%	85.3%
	>10 Minutes	57,333	72,152	101,481	128,125	63,024
	>10 Minutes %	54.4%	60.6%	66.4%	72.5%	76.8%
	>15 Minutes	30,226	41,185	64,791	87,859	46,120
	>15 Minutes %	28.7%	34.6%	42.4%	49.7%	56.2%
	>20 Minutes	14,096	21,252	38,611	57,032	31,801
	>20 Minutes %	13.4%	17.9%	25.3%	32.3%	38.8%
Yellow	Incidents Attended	326,824	318,361	295,428	238,862	87,232
	>8 Minutes	237,968	256,714	245,468	205,797	79,726
	>8 Minutes %	72.8%	80.6%	83.1%	86.2%	91.4%
	>10 Minutes	208,160	230,742	225,055	190,443	75,636
	>10 Minutes %	63.7%	72.5%	76.2%	79.7%	86.7%
	>15 Minutes	147,207	175,591	180,932	156,806	66,670
	>15 Minutes %	45.0%	55.2%	61.2%	65.6%	76.4%
	>20 Minutes	103,170	131,965	144,713	129,370	59,113
	>20 Minutes %	31.6%	41.5%	49.0%	54.2%	67.8%

SAS launched its New Clinical Response Model (NCRM) in November 2016, based on a detailed clinical analysis of around half a million 999 calls. Since then, following triage, 999 calls are coded to one of five categories based on the likelihood of serious outcomes or the requirement for specific interventions:

Purple: where a patient is identified as having a 10% or more chance of cardiac arrest.

Red: where a patient is identified as having a likelihood of cardiac arrest between 1% and 9.9%,or having a need for resuscitation interventions such as airway management above 2%.

Amber: where a patient is likely to need diagnosis and conveyance to definitive care.

Yellow: a patient who has a need for emergency care but has a very low likelihood of requiring life-saving interventions. For example, patients who have tripped or fallen but not sustained any serious injury.

Green: a patient does not fit the above categories and there is potential for an alternative care pathway.

Question reference: S6O-00232

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 30 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the scale of unemployment among qualified teachers.

The recruitment and retention of teachers is a matter for local authorities.

However, I am determined that teachers have strong job opportunities. We have provided significant additional funds for the recruitment of additional teachers and I have committed to increasing teachers numbers by 3,500 during the course of this parliamentary term.

We have provided £240 million of additional investment to local authorities to support the recruitment of additional education staff to support education recovery. We have also allocated £145.5 million annually to the local government settlement which will support councils to employ additional staff on permanent contracts.

Question reference: S6O-00252

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it plans to implement the recommendations made by the OECD on Scottish National Standardised Assessments in its report, Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future.

Question reference: S6O-00190

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide additional financial support for the fruit and vegetable agricultural sector, in light of the losses incurred as a result of labour and logistics issues.

Question reference: S6W-02027

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 02 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 26 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to routinely publishing (a) details of when it has (i) sought and (ii) obtained Queen's consent and (b) associated correspondence in advance of the passage of legislation.

The Scotland Act 1998 requires the Standing Orders of the Scottish Parliament to include provision that if a Bill in the Scottish Parliament contains provisions which would, if it were a Bill in the UK Parliament, require the consent of the Queen, Crown consent is required.

Rule 9.11 of the Scottish Parliament’s Standing Orders therefore stipulates that if a Bill requires Crown consent, the Parliament cannot debate whether a Bill should be passed unless Crown consent is signified by a member of the Scottish Government. In most cases, where Crown Consent is required and as has been the case since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, Crown consent is sought and obtained by the Government shortly before Stage 3 proceedings. On occasion, it may be obtained prior to Stage 1 when the matter is central to the Bill in question.

Members have – and have always had – the opportunity to raise questions as to whether and why Crown consent is required for a particular Bill during its parliamentary passage. Information about the number of times Crown consent has been sought and obtained, and for which Bills, is already available through the Parliament's Official Reports.

In line with the Scottish Government's commitment to transparency we will explore options to provide Parliament with further information about the application of Crown consent in relation to future Bills.

Question reference: S6W-02030

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 02 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 26 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will (a) provide details of what interests would determine whether it seeks Queen's consent under Rule 9.11 of the Standing Orders and (b) publish any guidance on this matter that it has (i) produced and (ii) received from representatives of the Crown.

The Parliament’s Standing Orders are required, in accordance with the Scotland Act 1998, to set out that should provisions within a Bill require the Queen’s consent if the Bill were an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament, the Bill requires Crown consent. This means that since the establishment of Scottish Parliament in 1999 the interests that determine this matter in the UK Parliament affect the application of Crown consent in the Scottish Parliament. Guidance prepared by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel for the United Kingdom Government – Queen's or Prince's Consent – explains details of these interests and is taken into account by the Scottish Government. This guidance is accessible here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/queens-or-princes-consent

The Scottish Parliament's guidance on Public Bills, available on its website, also outlines the interests that would determine the requirement for Crown Consent, notably at paragraphs 2.51-2.54: https://archive2021.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/GuidanceonPublicBills_S5v2_FINAL.pdf

No guidance has been received from representatives of the Crown on the issue of Crown consent.

Question reference: S6W-02028

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 02 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 26 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many times it has sought Queen's consent in each year since 2007, broken down by the (a) title of the legislation and (b) date on which consent was (i) sought and (ii) obtained.

Question reference: S6W-02029

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 02 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by George Adam on 26 August 2021

To ask the Scottish Government which pieces of legislation have been amended as a result of exchanges prompted by Rule 9.11 of the Standing Orders in each year since 2007, and, for each of these, whether it will publish (a) the details of any concerns raised by any party representing the Crown and (b) its response.