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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: S5W-20331

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government further to the answer to question S5W-19399 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 5 November 2018, how many (a) payments of carer's allowance supplement have been recovered and (b) times the recovery process has been initiated.

Question reference: S5W-20328

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the social return on investment of the Universal Credit Scottish choices scheme.

Question reference: S5W-20193

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government when it will hold its planned summit on minority ethnic employment and enterprise in 2018, and whether this will take place before the end of the year.

Question reference: S5W-20275

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-19666 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 13 November 2018, whether it will explain in more detail the reasons for suppressing some of the monitoring data; how it assessed that publishing the data would present a risk of possible disclosure, and what the risk is of potential disclosure.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 impose obligations on the use of all personal data held by the Scottish Government. They require personal data to be processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security and confidentiality of the personal data.

Most employee (or prospective employee) diversity information is classed as special category data under data protection laws which requires greater care when processing to protect security and confidentiality.

Producing data sets with less than 5 counts, risks being able to link that data to individuals and hence to identify them. For this reason, the data is suppressed.

Question reference: S5W-20166

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 23 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-19500 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 November 2018, whether the DWP is aware of its ambition to extend winter fuel payment to families with severely disabled children.

The Scottish Government set out its' ambition to extend Winter Fuel Payments to families with disabled children on the higher rate of DLA as part of the Consultation on Social Security in Scotland in July 2016.

The commitment to extending winter fuel payments to families with severely disabled children was also included in our Programme for Government published in September 2016. Details of our Programme for Government were shared with the UK government as a matter of course.

We are actively working with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the devolution of powers works for both the people of Scotland the UK.

Question reference: S5W-20165

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 23 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 12 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-02679 by Jeane Freeman on 28 September 2016, how many families would currently benefit from extending eligibility for Winter Fuel Payments to families with children in receipt of the highest care component of the Disability Living Allowance.

Question reference: S5W-20267

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 11 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S5W-19085 and S5W-19086 by Jamie Hepburn on 24 October and 13 November 2018 respectively, in light of the report, Scotland’s Devolved Employment Services, not setting out this data, whether it will provide the information that was requested and confirm how (a) many performance-related fees have been paid to Fair Start Scotland providers based on the (i) 13- and (ii) 26-week employment milestones, and what the value of these fees is, and (b) much has been paid in service fees to Fair Start Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-20268

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many members of the Social Security Scotland (a) senior management team and (b) executive advisory body identify as black or minority ethnic (BME).

Question reference: S5W-20108

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 23 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government which (a) "go" and (b) "no go" gates the Social Security Programme Board is expected to give a formal view on in the year ahead; which it has given a formal view on, and what these views were.

Question reference: S5W-20141

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 November 2018
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has not commenced sections 77 and 78 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 in respect of carer's and funeral expense assistance.

Sections 77 and 78 relate to uprating of devolved social security assistance.

Carer’s Allowance will be uprated (in line with inflation) this coming spring, and we intend to lay the necessary legislation early in the new year. This is unrelated to sections 77 and 78 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. Carer’s Allowance Supplement will also be uprated in spring and the mechanism for that is set out in section 81 of the Act.

Draft regulations for Funeral Expense Assistance will be brought forward next year for Parliamentary approval, and until payments of this assistance have begun to be made, commencement of sections 77 and 78 of the Act would serve no purpose.