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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: S6W-32193

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 17 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-22849 by Angela Constance on 21 November 2023, whether the "review of the suite of Preparing Scotland guidance" was completed in spring 2024 as proposed, and when any new guidance on responding to emergencies will be published.

The review of the Preparing Scotland guidance has been completed by officials within Civil Contingencies Division in early 2024 as initially planned. Due to a number of competing demands on the time of responder agencies, and a range of other consultations and requests for participation in working groups etc, the draft document has not yet been circulated for consultation and approval. This decision has also been influenced by the fact that the existing guidance is still current, valid and fit for purpose and therefore there is no immediate disadvantage or danger in postponing the circulation in favour of other work. It is expected to consult on the refreshed guidance by summer 2025.

Question reference: S6W-31921

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 17 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it is ensuring that people in (a) rural and (b) remote areas have access to special care dentists.

Question reference: S6W-31923

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to improve access to special care dental care for people with complex needs, including disabled people, older people and people with underlying health conditions.

Question reference: S6W-31922

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many special care dentists there are.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on dentists working in NHS dentistry in Scotland who are also registered with the General Dental Council (GDC) as a specialist in special care dentistry.

However, the Public Dental Service (PDS) does provide special care dentistry for their registered patients. Information on the number of PDS dentists in Scotland is available online at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence.

Question reference: S6W-31988

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 13 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the current policy guidance is on the evidence and processes required by local authorities before making decisions on the demolition of listed buildings under emergency powers.

Guidance on enforcement powers for local authorities in the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 is provided in the Building Standards Enforcement Handbook and the Building Standards Procedural Handbook. The National Planning Framework 4 states that development proposals for the demolition of listed buildings will not be supported unless it has been demonstrated that there are exceptional circumstances and that all reasonable efforts have been made to retain, reuse and/or adapt the listed building.

A local authority will rely on evidence from a survey carried out by a structural engineer to advise on all options that minimise the extent of any demolition work. A local authority may engage an accredited conservation engineer on a case by case basis following advice from the structural engineer.

Question reference: S6W-31799

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 12 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-04899 by Kevin Stewart on 15 December 2021, how many inspections of care homes for adults have been carried out by the Care Inspectorate in each year since 2021, and how many of these were return inspections.

Inspections of care homes for adults and older people completed 2021-22 to 2024-25 (to date)

	Inspection year
	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25 (Apr24 - Oct24)
	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25 (Apr24 - Oct24)
Total number of inspections completed in care homes for adults and older people	848	1151	1034	583
of which: 'Return inspections' completed (i.e. number of second and subsequent inspections)	391	329	346	120

Source: end of year inspection data files 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, and 31 October 2024 inspections completed files.

Note: the return inspections are a subset of the total number of inspections completed, not in addition to the total number.

Question reference: S6W-31800

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 9 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has undertaken of any impact of ticket office closures on rail passenger numbers, and what measures it has put in place to mitigate any accessibility problems caused by closures.

There will be no ticket office closures or job losses further to the adjustments to the ticket office opening hours proposed by ScotRail and Scottish Rail Holdings.

The purpose of these adjustments is to enable ScotRail to provide assistance to passengers, where it is most required, thus enhancing passenger experience.

The Scottish Government’s acceptance to these proposals is predicated on some conditions, including that the arrangements for disabled passengers will not be affected.

Question reference: S6O-04113

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 December 2024
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what additional support it will provide to local authorities in relation to holding public inquiries into onshore wind farms.

Question reference: S6W-31260

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 26 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will apply the consequentials it receives from any increased funding from the UK Government to children with special educational needs and disabilities directly to ASN services in Scotland.

Scottish Ministers continue to assess the full implications of the Chancellor’s autumn Budget statement and political parties are encouraged to engage with the Scottish Government on the Scottish budget ahead of 4 December 2024.

Funding for schools is provided through the local authority block grant and local authorities have a statutory duty to identify, provide for, and review the ASN support provided for pupils in their local community.

The Scottish Government is making £145.5M available to local authorities to protect teacher numbers. In addition, we remain determined to improve the educational experiences of children and young people with additional support needs with spending on additional support for learning by authorities reaching a record high of £926m in 2022-23.

We published an updated action plan and progress report on 5th November 2024, highlighting progress made to address recommendations from Angela Morgan’s Additional Support for Learning (ASL) Review (2020) and we are committed to delivering the ASL Action Plan.

Question reference: S6W-31357

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 15 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 22 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many calls to the Scottish Ambulance Service made in the last year have been taken from sites outside of Scotland.

At times of peak demand callers may have to wait longer for their call to be answered. Because of this, the Scottish Ambulance Service utilises the Intelligent Routing Platform (IRP) where, after waiting for 180 seconds, a caller is transferred to the next available call handler at another UK ambulance service.

The IRP is utilised by all other UK ambulance services.

The call is then sent back through a digital gateway to the appropriate regional Scottish Ambulance Service Ambulance Control Centre, who have local knowledge, and will dispatch the most appropriate resource.

Below is the number of calls between November 2023 and October 2024 that were transferred to another UK ambulance service from Scotland. It is important to note that over the last 12 months the Scottish Ambulance Service has answered 1,066,121 calls so the number of patients whose calls are answered by an ambulance service outwith Scotland is incredibly low.

November 2023 – 137

December - 28

January 2024 - 10

February - 6

March - 10

April - 4

May - 16

June - 13

July - 27

August - 12

September - 84

October - 183