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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: S5W-03514

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 25 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider reinstating the bursary for studying for an MSc in educational psychology, in light of the reported reduction in the number of applicants since it was removed in 2012.

Scottish Government funding for educational psychology students was introduced at a time when there was a significant shortage in the supply of educational psychologists compared to demand.

We are working with the National Scottish Steering Group for Educational Psychologists to take action, including exploring training provision, to ensure a sustainable and regular supply of educational psychologists to meet future needs.

Question reference: S5W-03072

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 5 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much direct investment in college estates it has made in (a) real and (b) cash terms in each year since 2007, and how much it will provide in each of the next five years.

Funding made available by the Scottish Government to invest in college estates from 2007-08 to 2016-17, in cash terms, is shown in the following table. In addition, colleges have been awarded £10 million accelerated capital funding in 2016-17 to help improve existing estates, as included in the recent Programme for Government announcement.

Year	Cash Terms (£m)
2007-08	122
2008-09	92
2009-2010	107
2010-2011	109
2011-2012	50
2012-2013	28
2013-2014	28
2014-2015	27
2015-2016	25.5
2016-2017	27

Real terms figures can be calculated using the GDP deflators available through the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/gdp-deflators-at-market-prices-and-money-gdp

Future capital budgets for the FE sector will be determined as part of the forthcoming Draft Budget process.

Question reference: S5W-03071

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 29 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will provide in (a) real and (b) cash terms in each of the next five years to make Educational Maintenance Allowance an entitlement in Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-03069

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 29 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) full- and (b) part-time college students there have been in each year since 2007, broken down by gender.

The latest available data on students at college in Scotland are Scottish Funding Council data for 2014-15. Table 1 shows the number of full-time and part-time students at college in Scotland in each year since 2006-07, broken down by gender.

Table 1: Number of full-time and part-time students at college in Scotland, by gender, 2006-07 to 2014-15

Mode of study

Gender

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

Full-time

Female	37,064	37,167	39,068	41,603	42,494	42,968	41,807	42,709	42,974
Male	30,920	30,382	31,600	35,094	37,048	37,880	36,480	37,147	36,241

Part-time

Female	177,025	181,947	174,834	155,079	127,603	101,609	91,948	90,105	87,686
Male	132,256	144,610	143,394	128,452	110,222	88,609	82,658	82,935	83,978

Source: InFact Database, Scottish Funding Council

Note: Full-time and part-time headcount figures will not sum to published headcount totals. Students who enrol on both full-time and part-time courses in an academic year will be counted in both categories.

Question reference: S5W-03070

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 29 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will provide in (a) real and (b) cash terms to the Scottish College for Educational Leadership in each of the next five years to support the "aspiring, new and experienced teachers" referred to in the Programme for Government.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the Scottish College for Educational Leadership in providing a range of high-quality professional learning opportunities for all teachers and currently gives SCEL up to £1.3 million per year while also supporting the Into Headship programme at a cost of £1.5 million over the next three years. The Programme for Government confirmed that we will work with SCEL to put in place a new package of support for aspiring, new and experienced headteachers. This package is currently under discussion with SCEL and the level of funding will be confirmed further to the Spending Review.

Question reference: S5W-02731

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 September 2016
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-29137 by Michael Matheson on 13 January 2016, what progress has been made on its commitment to amend legislation to extend planning controls on changing premises into betting shops.

Question reference: S5W-02732

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 21 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will set out its response to each of the 11 recommendations for improving young people's mental health information, support and services that was put forward by the Scottish Youth Parliament as part of it's "Speak Your Mind" campaign and "Our Generation's Epidemic" report.

As in the answer to question S5W-02149 on 8 September 2016, the Scottish Government welcomes this report from the Scottish Youth Parliament, and will carefully review the recommendations that are for us. We will consider these as part of our public engagement on the next Mental Health Strategy.

During that public engagement, we have worked closely with the Scottish Youth Parliament to ensure that young people have the opportunity to contribute their views on matters that affect them. We have found the SYP’s work, including a discussion day event on 19 March, hugely valuable in ensuring we have the views of a cross-section of young people in Scotland on mental health issues.

Other recommendations have been made in the SYP's report for organisations such as Education Scotland, NHS Scotland and NHS Education for Scotland. Those recommendations are for the organisations concerned to consider.

Following our careful consideration of the views we have received, the new Mental Health Strategy will be published in late 2016.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Question reference: S5T-00070

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 19 September 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the teaching practice placements for teacher training students at the University of Strathclyde, which were due to have started on 19 September.

Question reference: S5W-02468

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 15 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5F-00177 by Nicola Sturgeon on 8 September 2016 (Official Report, c. 13), what action it is taking in response to the NSPCC annual review of Childline, which showed that 1,973 children in Scotland called the helpline for suicide and self-harm counselling in 2015-16.

We take the mental health and wellbeing of our young people very seriously.

NHS boards have put a lot of effort into reducing waiting times for access to psychological therapies and to child and adolescent mental health services and the government is committed to supporting boards to meet their access targets with a funding for a comprehensive programme of improvement.

We want to continue to improve access to mental health services and have announced an additional £150 million for mental health services over five years. The funding will be partly used to further improve child and adolescent mental health services, help to bring down waiting times and deliver sustainable improvement to services.

Our next mental health strategy will be published later in 2016, and will include a focus on prevention and early intervention, particularly for children and young people.

We continue to support NSPCC and their Childline service. In 2016-17 we provided £198,000 to Childline aimed at increasing switchboard cover, offering a more interactive service during busy times and making improvements to the website. A further £100,000 was provided in 2016-17 to NSPCC for the ‘Improving Parenting, Improving Practice’ programme.

Every school has a named contact in specialist children and adolescent mental health service services who can be contacted for advice if they have any concerns about a pupil and can provide ongoing support.

Question reference: S5O-00166

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 September 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what recent assessment it has made of the impact of Brexit on Scotland's tourism industry.