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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-34507

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 25 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will give retail workers priority access to the COVID-19 vaccination programme.

Those who are entitled to a vaccine will be contacted by their Health Board letting them know where they will receive the vaccine and how to book their appointment. We are adhering to the priority list devised by the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) who have advised an age-based programme will capture those with clinical risk factors as the risk of death is very strongly linked with age, more so than any other factor. A number of retail workers may fall into the priority risk groups set out by the JCVI; these individuals will receive an invitation to their vaccine appointment.

Question reference: S5W-35095

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 February 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 25 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) contractors and (b) suppliers it has engaged to support the development of the operator of last resort for the ScotRail franchise, and who those suppliers are.

Question reference: S5W-35096

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 February 2021
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 25 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much the operator of last resort for the ScotRail franchise has cost to date, also broken down by budget line.

Question reference: S5O-05077

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 February 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many Scottish Child Payment claims it has received for individual children and households, and how many have now been accepted and paid.

Question reference: S5W-34867

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 23 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what guidance it has given to NHS boards in relation to administering COVID-19 vaccinations to (a) (i) short- and (ii) long-term hospital in-patients and (b) hospital in-patients who have multiple conditions and are considered to be within a high-risk group.

The Chief Medical Officer, Dr Gregor Smith wrote a letter to all Health Boards on 5 February in which he advised all Health boards should seek to vaccinate those within eligible JCVI priority cohorts who are in hospital prior to discharge, where that cohort is currently receiving vaccination in the community.

Care should be taken to check records for previous history of COVID-19 vaccination, confirmation of vaccine should be provided and steps taken to enable a second dose as appropriate.

Question reference: S5W-34866

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to monitor the (a) accessibility and (b) availability of GP appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government does not monitor the accessibility and availability of GP appointments as GP practices are responsible for their own patient appointment and consultation arrangements.

GPs practices follow the advice in Health Protection Scotland's guidance: Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) Guidance for primary care - Management of patients in primary care .

The guidance does allow for face-to-face consultations where that is clinically appropriate, but GP practices are advised to make every effort to triage all patients by telephone to avoid patients presenting at the practice unnecessarily.

Question reference: S5O-04956

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how its Fair Work agenda can help it to take a collaborative and partnership approach to working with workers and trade unions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S5W-33964

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 14 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-32952 by Jeane Freeman on 12 November 2020, whether it will request that Public Health Scotland publishes the occupation and sector data collected during interviews, broken down by Standard Industrial Classification.

Scottish Government officials continue to work closely with Public Health Scotland to develop the range of statistics that are published. However, Public Health Scotland is an independent statistics producer, so make the decision on which data they publish. Public Health Scotland continuously review the data they publish; the contact tracing data currently collected on occupations does not allow Standard Industrial Classification to be derived. While not an SIC group, "Cases reporting an occupation in the Education and Childcare sector" are published in Public Health Scotland's weekly statistical report.

Question reference: S5W-34061

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 12 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when each of the groups listed on the webpage, gov.scot/groups/, last met.

Question reference: S5W-33927

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what weighting it plans to place on the requirement for potential contractors for the social security advocacy service to have experience of (a) directly delivering an advocacy service and (b) delivering an advocacy service in Scotland.

We are currently engaging with relevant stakeholders prior to the re-tendering process to ensure we consider and include the requirements they feel potential contractors should be able to demonstrate in order to be appointed to run the social security advocacy service.

This will help us in achieving our goal of creating a high quality, human-rights based service focussed on the needs of the client.