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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-35082

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 February 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 28 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it last engaged with the clinical director of rheumatology in each territorial NHS board.

Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with the leadership of all NHS Boards to provide support and scrutiny whilst reinforcing national priorities, including further action to reduce waiting times.

Scottish Government officials do not routinely engage with speciality clinical directors in territorial boards. They do meet with the Scottish Association of Medical Directors with representation provided by the Executive Medical Director for each board, both special and territorial rather than individual clinical directors.

In addition, the Scottish Government commissions the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) manage a Rheumatology Specialty Delivery Group, which includes nominated multi-disciplinary representation from all Health Boards providing Rheumatology services.

Finally, Scottish Government officials and the CfSD national planned care team meet monthly with Chief Operating Officer and/or Acute Directors from all mainland Health Boards to review performance and delivery across all Planned Care specialities, including rheumatology. Meetings with island Boards are generally on a bimonthly basis.

Question reference: S6O-04358

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 February 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 February 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that the number of police officer and police staff working days lost due to mental health illness has risen in recent years.

Question reference: S6W-33358

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 28 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made any assessment of the experiences of children and families regarding whole family support during the lifetime of the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund.

We have commissioned external evaluations to understand how the Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) Programme is delivering on its purpose to enable the local transformational system change necessary to ensure that families are able to access holistic whole family support wrapped around their needs. Recognising that system change takes time, the Programme has identified a range of early, intermediate and long term outcomes. The experience of children, young people and families are covered in a range of intermediate outcomes which the evaluation of Years 3 and 4 will focus on.

In the Year 1 evaluation (2022-23) (https://www.gov.scot/publications/whole-family-wellbeing-funding-wfwf-year-1-process-evaluation-final-report/pages/2/ ) IFF Research (our external evaluator), interviewed 12 children and young people, along with 18 parents and carers about their experiences with whole family support. As the WFWF programme had only just begun, the evaluation’s focus was largely on how CSPPs were setting up their WFWF activity. These interviews highlighted some valuable insights from children and families at a very early stage of the programme. Children and young people described being involved in activities to support the design of family support services and expressed appreciation towards trustworthy and friendly practitioners. Parents and carers explained how some initial activities they had done as an entire family they as part of the support they received had helped strengthen bonds between members.

During the Year 2 evaluation (2023-24), IFF continued to speak with children, young people and families about the relevance of, accessibility, timeliness, satisfaction with, process for providing feedback on, and outcomes of family support. Additionally, young people with experience of family support were invited to participate in a ‘Young People’s Panel’ to directly contribute to the design, delivery, and outputs of the Year 2 evaluation. This evaluation report will include the experiences of children and families who have benefited from the enhanced family support provided through the WFWF programme. We intend to publish the results of our evaluation in due course.

In addition the link to a case study on East Lothians’ Families Together programme gives some insight into experiences through WFWF : https://stories.celcis.org/families-together-programme/

Question reference: S6W-33359

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 28 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has received any reports of underspend in Whole Family Wellbeing Fund allocations, and, if so, how much this has amounted to in each financial year that the fund has operated.

In line with other reporting from programmes funded via the General Revenue Grant, we do not routinely gather detail on the totality of Children’s Services Planning Partnerships spend, instead focusing on the activities they are delivering, outcomes achieved, and resources allocated to each activity. However, to help understand future funding needs we did gather some limited data from CSPPs regarding their spending plans.

The following table collates information from the 29 CSPP areas who responded.

	Year 1 – 22-23	Year 2 – 23-24
Spend	£5.2m	£16.5m
Allocated funding (29 CSPPs)	£25.5m	£25.5m

It was anticipated that CSPPs may not spend their full allocations in the early years of the Programme, as CSPPs were encouraged to assess their current delivery of family support and develop plans accordingly. Wider factors will also have influenced spend, such as year 1 funding being announced mid-year; recruitment challenges which have hindered spend; and proactive multi-year profiling of allocations by individual CSPPs to support their local planning and delivery.

CSPPs are permitted to carry over underspend into the subsequent year, and WFWF allocations must be spent in line with criteria which provides flexibility whilst protecting the objectives and outcomes of the funding.

Our evaluation of Year 1 of the WFWF has shown that CSPPs are finding the funding beneficial, and that our approach to the funding has afforded them the autonomy and flexibility needed to tailor their family support activities to local needs.

A breakdown of Whole Family Wellbeing Funding can be found in the answer to question S6W-29612 on 17 September 2024. 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

Question reference: S6W-33233

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of any legal agreement regarding the (a) back-to-back deal that it facilitated between Tata Steel and Liberty Steel in 2016 to buy Dalzell Steel Works and (b) £7 million loan from the Scottish National Investment Bank provided to Liberty Steel, whether there were any conditions placed on Liberty Steel to submit fully audited accounts every year.

Question reference: S6W-33234

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, as part of the guarantee that it provided for the purchase of the Lochaber smelter, whether there were any conditions placed on (a) Alvance and (b) GFG Alliance to submit fully audited accounts every year.

Question reference: S6W-33235

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 13 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the reportedly overdue filing of audited accounts by Alvance and Liberty Steel, whether any conditions, as part of any legal agreements between these companies and the Scottish Government, have been broken.

Question reference: S6O-04222

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the rural affairs secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding what funding will be available in the next financial year to support farmers to address water management issues impacting on agricultural land.

Question reference: S6W-32519

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 14 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it expects the results of the Instrumental Music Service Survey 2024 to be published.

Question reference: S6O-04112

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 December 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that both of the privately-run nurseries in the East Neuk, in the North East Fife constituency, will close by the end of 2024.