Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-31240

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 25 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government which drug rehabilitation programmes it provides funding for, broken down by NHS board.

In general, the Scottish Government provides funding to all Health and Social Care Partnerships to commission and fund Residential Rehabilitation (RR) placements on the advice of their Alcohol and Drug Partnership. To support local commissioning, the Scottish Government also fund Scotland Excel for the National Commissioning Framework which aims to standardise commissioning for RR placements.

The Scottish Government also directly fund the following residential rehabilitation providers through the Residential Rehabilitation Rapid Capacity Programme (RRRCP) – 4 of these are new projects and 4 are expansions to existing services, which will provide 140 more bed by 2025-26.

NHS Board	Residential Rehabilitation
Ayrshire & Arran	Phoenix Futures Harper House
Ayrshire & Arran	River Garden Auchincruive
Forth Valley	Aberlour’s Mother and Child recovery unit - Falkirk
Grampian	Phoenix Futures Northeast
Highland	CrossReach
Highland	Maxie Richards Foundation
Lothian	Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP)
Tayside	Aberlour’s Mother and Child recovery unit - Dundee

Question reference: S6W-31207

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 25 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) homicides, (b) culpable homicides, (c) attempted homicides, (d) inmate-on-inmate assaults and (e) inmate-on-prison officer assaults have been recorded in each prison in each year since 2016.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

1.In the period 2016-17 – 2023-24 there was 1 death in custody which has been classified as a Homicide.

2.In the period 2016-17 - 2023-24 there were 2 deaths in custody which have been classified as Culpable Homicide.

3.There have been no attempted homicides in the period 2015-16 - 2023-24. It should be noted however, that SPS are unlikely to record an instance of attempted homicide until the individual has been found guilty in a court of law, until such time it will be recorded as an assault.

4.The following table provides a breakdown of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults for the period 2016-17 – 2023-24:

Prisoner on Prisoner Assaults
Establishment	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
Addiewell	38	38	77	126	82	77	116	165
Barlinnie	53	67	115	193	123	163	117	120
Bella							0	0
Dumfries	12	12	11	13	6	8	12	10
Edinburgh	64	82	116	98	83	81	61	94
Glenochil	22	34	71	47	26	27	12	25
Grampian	64	71	67	56	37	38	37	30
Greenock	15	16	14	9	15	12	16	12
Inverness	16	12	18	25	24	21	15	15
Kilmarnock	33	49	61	141	65	52	65	83
Lilias							0	0
Low Moss	39	47	72	61	36	53	54	44
Castle Huntly	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	0
Perth	76	65	74	103	59	75	55	88
Polmont	69	138	170	189	193	248	165	98
Shotts	27	25	21	37	30	28	14	31
Cornton Vale/Stirling	13	11	11	4	5	0	2	0

1.The following table provides a breakdown of prisoner on staff assaults for the period 2016-17 – 2023-24:

Prisoner on Staff Assaults
Establishment	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
Addiewell	24	29	38	46	51	51	44	62
Barlinnie	30	30	35	44	35	49	30	45
Bella							0	0
Dumfries	1	28	26	4	4	6	2	5
Edinburgh	14	3	3	26	33	29	21	21
Glenochil	6	26	42	20	8	19	6	7
Grampian	25	11	19	37	29	29	19	21
Greenock	2	26	37	5	5	0	9	4
Inverness	2	4	3	18	11	11	5	4
Kilmarnock	9	3	1	39	25	32	24	38
Lilias							0	0
Low Moss	9	9	22	22	15	20	10	41
Castle Huntly	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Perth	16	11	27	40	23	29	29	21
Polmont	23	24	35	32	29	43	23	18
Shotts	15	19	15	20	33	12	8	12
Cornton Vale/Stirling	14	28	26	16	6	4	9	2

Question reference: S6W-31195

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what further action it can take to support individuals with learning disabilities into work.

No One Left Behind, our shared approach with Local Government to delivering devolved employability services, has a key role to play in meeting our commitment to halving the Disability Employment Gap by 2038. Whilst we have seen positive progress to date in the number of people with learning disabilities accessing support, we are committed to going further. That is why our Programme for Government sets out that we will have Specialist Employability Support in place across all 32 local authority areas by Summer of 2025.

Additionally, as outlined in the refreshed Fair Work Action Plan, we are working with partners to develop a central resource hub for employers. Feedback from surveys of a range of employers and engagement with key stakeholders is being used to inform the design of the resource in an accessible way to help ensure that organisations of all sizes and sectors across Scotland can access advice and support to better implement Fair Work.

Question reference: S6W-31208

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government of how many deaths was pulmonary fibrosis cited as the cause, in each year since 2016, also broken down by NHS board area.

Table 1: Deaths registered in Scotland in which the underlying cause of death was 'other interstitial pulmonary diseases with fibrosis’ by NHS Board area, 2016-2023

NHS Board area	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Ayrshire and Arran	27	36	35	34	44	35	29	36
Borders	8	4	13	9	8	11	14	20
Dumfries and Galloway	9	13	9	9	9	16	8	8
Fife	28	41	29	34	32	31	27	37
Forth Valley	25	29	24	24	26	23	32	26
Grampian	36	28	47	36	30	38	47	28
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	93	105	103	93	85	75	91	78
Highland	20	27	27	24	17	22	27	37
Lanarkshire	64	70	64	71	51	51	40	52
Lothian	67	62	63	66	50	53	61	50
Orkney	2	3	2	3	5	0	2	3
Shetland	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	4
Tayside	39	46	49	35	36	29	40	41
Western Isles	4	1	2	1	3	3	2	2

Source: National Records of Scotland

Question reference: S6W-31192

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 21 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that more than a quarter of a million calls to the NHS24 service in Scotland were not picked up in 2023.

NHS 24 is committed to providing safe and effective care to our patients across Scotland 365 days of the year. During times of peak demand staff work hard to answer as many calls as quickly and safely as possible.

Calls to the 111 service can be unanswered for a variety of reasons, including callers choosing to end their call after being connected to the automated messaging service and hearing the options available to them.

These include accessing self-care advice via NHS Inform or contacting another area of the health service which may be more appropriate to meet their needs.

The Scottish Government continues to support NHS 24's on-going work to help reduce unanswered calls, including recently revising NHS 24's key performance indicators to help better reflect and understand the current demands on the service.

This work allows the Service to capture any unmet demand, and any potential risks where callers have made multiple attempts to access 111 without success.

It will also allow the Service to continue to make improvements to service delivery moving forward.

Question reference: S6O-04023

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported comments from the director of the human rights charity, Making Rights Real, that "the long arm of the government often stretches to silence organisations that receive funding from the state".

Question reference: S6W-31194

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the Ardrossan-Brodick ferry route is still viable, in light of reports of further delays to the MV Caledonian Isles return to service.

Question reference: S6W-30832

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much each local authority has received from the Attainment Scotland Fund in each year since 2016.

The Attainment Scotland Fund has been providing funding to local authorities and schools since 2015 with the aim of using education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.

The Scottish Attainment Challenge began in 2015, when funding was distributed to targeted local authorities through the Schools Programme and Challenge Authorities. In 2017, the Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) was introduced, providing funding direct to schools. In 2018, the Care Experienced Children and Young People fund (CECYP) began, providing funding to local authorities to enable them to target initiatives, activities, and resources that will improve the educational outcomes of this group of young people.

In 2022, the Scottish Attainment Challenge was refreshed, and the ‘Schools Programme and ‘Challenge Authorities’ funds were replaced by Strategic Equity Funding (SEF) which provided grants to all 32 local authorities.

The total amount provided to each local authority within these funding programmes in each financial year* since 2015-16 are as follows:

	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
Aberdeen City	£115,254	£328,243	£3,264,876	£3,409,052	£4,021,781	£4,113,976	£4,777,267	£4,163,137	£4,302,373
Aberdeenshire	£0	£0	£2,569,200	£2,906,520	£3,430,600	£3,233,185	£3,823,272	£3,909,227	£4,226,527
Angus	£0	£0	£2,113,200	£2,118,240	£2,394,880	£2,382,431	£2,815,731	£2,718,079	£2,919,059
Argyll & Bute	£16,665	£19,879	£1,340,202	£1,425,495	£1,563,762	£1,473,413	£1,746,517	£1,637,110	£1,776,791
Clackmannanshire	£482,208	£1,242,458	£3,108,000	£3,151,211	£3,427,165	£3,264,342	£3,570,907	£3,186,389	£2,924,359
Dumfries & Galloway	£43,936	£60,481	£2,998,509	£3,109,671	£3,435,706	£3,316,675	£3,883,445	£3,879,174	£4,175,854
Dundee City	£701,329	£3,135,370	£10,045,244	£10,568,958	£11,150,976	£11,181,281	£12,442,488	£10,325,609	£9,181,564
East Ayrshire	£291,470	£814,836	£5,897,260	£7,090,299	£7,621,819	£7,565,208	£8,250,453	£7,224,930	£6,594,511
East Dunbartonshire	£0	£0	£1,564,800	£1,588,440	£1,782,434	£1,788,723	£2,120,338	£1,986,260	£2,119,730
East Lothian	£0	£0	£1,569,600	£1,565,160	£1,823,557	£1,814,715	£2,134,716	£2,175,877	£2,384,767
East Renfrewshire	£0	£0	£1,370,400	£1,412,040	£1,556,240	£1,442,825	£1,721,026	£1,719,495	£1,842,830
Edinburgh City	£304,535	£742,935	£8,257,293	£8,276,495	£9,547,788	£9,164,717	£10,540,094	£9,377,776	£9,976,813
Eilean Siar	£0	£0	£274,800	£290,880	£338,391	£327,413	£388,016	£476,241	£477,189
Falkirk	£73,000	£169,463	£3,797,974	£3,835,057	£4,263,853	£4,177,157	£4,935,327	£4,602,820	£4,948,309
Fife	£416,112	£666,213	£10,750,302	£11,151,018	£12,023,174	£11,660,123	£13,609,549	£12,045,243	£12,846,433
Glasgow City	£1,389,969	£7,537,018	£29,022,634	£30,200,152	£33,197,000	£32,416,002	£36,713,592	£32,941,570	£32,577,601
Highland	£91,269	£385,146	£4,695,262	£5,269,590	£5,699,886	£5,509,668	£6,346,310	£5,545,507	£5,536,773
Inverclyde	£580,092	£1,512,219	£5,154,900	£5,399,265	£6,013,910	£6,028,744	£6,517,856	£5,503,244	£4,767,926
Midlothian	£0	£0	£2,272,800	£2,315,195	£2,513,155	£2,415,784	£2,837,045	£2,766,037	£2,924,641
Moray	£0	£0	£1,270,800	£1,341,960	£1,575,607	£1,564,920	£1,833,754	£1,812,530	£1,970,831
North Ayrshire	£635,530	£2,670,922	£8,513,518	£9,906,960	£10,841,444	£10,523,195	£11,382,620	£9,284,763	£8,153,571
North Lanarkshire	£1,340,200	£5,539,184	£15,052,052	£15,519,383	£16,411,949	£17,266,164	£19,078,558	£16,749,486	£15,683,771
Orkney Islands	£0	£0	£206,400	£232,200	£252,280	£270,404	£310,786	£379,394	£380,038
Perth & Kinross	£0	£0	£1,608,000	£1,661,520	£1,983,400	£1,930,393	£2,268,976	£2,359,726	£2,611,357
Renfrewshire	£177,272	£850,670	£7,611,801	£8,796,635	£9,753,471	£9,439,188	£10,321,570	£8,902,256	£8,099,877
Scottish Borders	£36,500	£24,462	£1,986,781	£2,075,633	£2,146,802	£2,130,518	£2,486,595	£2,299,996	£2,552,944
Shetland Islands	£0	£0	£188,400	£233,880	£264,800	£256,116	£295,476	£374,749	£372,732
South Ayrshire	£150,400	£296,668	£2,822,323	£2,812,723	£3,152,671	£3,075,598	£3,531,679	£3,146,264	£3,258,733
South Lanarkshire	£548,690	£1,008,444	£9,595,144	£9,901,641	£10,354,517	£10,802,098	£12,479,203	£11,052,369	£11,076,881
Stirling	£39,261	£118,916	£1,598,425	£1,660,079	£1,906,328	£1,809,478	£2,095,137	£1,808,754	£1,938,886
West Dunbartonshire	£778,595	£1,674,611	£5,393,508	£5,469,695	£5,883,735	£5,593,331	£6,248,668	£5,518,428	£5,207,971
West Lothian	£24,750	£172,829	£5,304,893	£5,538,606	£5,836,535	£5,619,145	£6,611,595	£6,172,245	£6,551,661

*CECYP funding is distributed across the academic year rather than financial year.

Question reference: S6W-30858

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much basic payment scheme funding has been awarded to crofters in each year since 2016, also broken down by what proportion of the scheme's budget this represented.

Details are as follows:

Scheme Year	Basic Payment Scheme	Greening	Young Farmer Payment	Total Payments	Percentage of Budget
2016	£13,159,516.98	£8,034,413.77	£82,710.65	£21,276,641.40	5.3%
2017	£14,717,656.80	£8,346,051.08	£100,820.05	£23,164,527.93	5.4%
2018	£15,897,839.65	£8,341,637.76	£104,294.50	£24,343,771.91	5.7%
2019	£16,706,540.21	£8,297,249.49	£104,464.03	£25,108,253.73	5.9%
2020	£17,464,866.57	£8,473,816.01	£96,699.60	£26,035,382.18	6.1%
2021	£17,419,003.61	£8,418,431.75	£87,894.17	£25,925,329.53	6.1%
2022	£17,303,035.99	£8,356,501.06	£82,654.19	£25,742,191.24	6.0%
2023	£16,190,430.99	£7,790,318.31	£68,886.59	£24,049,635.89	5.6%
2024*	£14,867,321.75	£7,165,412.11	£386.82	£22,033,120.68	5.2%

*Note: 2024 payment processing is ongoing.

Question reference: S6W-30833

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the average class size has been for each primary school year group in each year since 2016.

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