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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-24031

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 June 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 July 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what support it has provided to improve digital skills in schools.

The Government’s STEM Strategy specifically highlights the importance of providing opportunities for young people to develop their digital skills. In line with the Strategy, we are providing dedicated support for digital learning and teaching through a range of projects for early years, primary and secondary schools. We have updated the school curriculum guidance to introduce a clear expectation that young people learn the fundamentals of computing science and digital skills from the earliest years.

Education Scotland is continuing to provide professional learning opportunities for teachers, including through the establishment of Computing Science Lead Teacher networks (one for primary and early years and 6 regional networks for secondary) whose members will receive national-level training to be cascaded to local practitioners.

Education Scotland has also worked with the Barefoot Computing programme to ensure that teaching resources are linked to the curriculum. The latest available data shows that 69% of schools in Scotland have engaged with the programme through workshops or by teachers downloading resources. In addition, Education Scotland along with British Computing Science has published “Quick Start” guides for primary schools along with a Computing at Schools Scotland resource for early years and primary. Other support activity has included work with Police Scotland to promote a resource it created for Cyber Resilience aimed at pupils in S1 to S3 .

The Digital Schools Award provides primary and secondary schools with a framework to embed digital technology within learning and teaching. The scheme offers a step by step framework for primary and secondary schools to support the best use of technology in learning.

Question reference: S5W-23692

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 5 July 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it has taken to ensure that the delay in appointing a bidder for R100 will not impact on the delivery of R100 by 2021 deadline.

We are determined that the R100 programme delivers the best possible value and benefit for Scotland. The highly competitive procurement process we have designed seeks to achieve this. The R100 procurement is ongoing and delivery timescales will be confirmed once we have a supplier in place. Given the complexity of the procurement, legally, financially and technically, we have always acknowledged 2021 would be a challenging target to meet.

Question reference: S5W-23688

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 26 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when the six-week extension to enable bidders to prepare initial submissions for R100 was granted, and for what reason this information has not been included in its previous answers to questions on this issue.

Question reference: S5W-23691

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the financial implications are of the delay in appointing a bidder for R100.

Question reference: S5W-23689

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will inform the Parliament by means of a Government Initiated Question as soon as possible should there be any further delays to the R100 procurement process.

Question reference: S5W-22176

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 March 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 25 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government by what date it will announce the contractor for the R100 project, and when work on the project will commence.

Question reference: S5O-03444

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 June 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that services for older people in Dumfries and Galloway are facing an in-year deficit of £6.85 million.

Question reference: S5W-23690

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 June 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 19 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to ensure that there will be no further delay in appointing a bidder for R100.

Question reference: S5W-22978

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 May 2019
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 13 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that lessons have been learned from any previous failures to roll-out community broadband for rural communities.

The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme has been very successful, delivering truly transformative results across all 32 Scottish Local Authorities, with fibre broadband access extended to over 930,000 homes and businesses across Scotland – many of these in remote and rural locations – with over 26,800 premises in the constituency of Galloway and West Dumfries alone.

Of course, it has been a challenge to deliver broadband infrastructure improvements to some of the most remote and rural areas, especially given the fact that all regulatory and legal responsibility for telecommunications in the UK rests solely with the UK Government, under the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998.

The Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) initiative helped to support a number of successful community-run networks across Scotland. However, an extensive review of how best to deliver continued support to such networks concluded that – despite its successes – the CBS model was no longer the most viable approach, not least because of constraints around state aid challenges. Communities within the project pipeline were given the option of continuing with their own projects or being included in planning for our £600 million Reaching 100 percent programme (R100), and the vast majority of communities indicated a preference to wait for the R100 rollout, give the commitment to deliver services at superfast speeds of 30 Megabits per second or better.

The lessons learned from this process have helped to shape the design of the R100 programme. Primary amongst those lessons was the need to continue engagement with communities and suppliers to ensure their voices are heard. The result has been an extensive and ongoing engagement process, with R100 officials visiting all parts of Scotland to speak with stakeholders, and with the objective of ensuring that no communities are left behind.

Question reference: S5W-23605

Asked by: Finlay Carson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 11 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government following the increase in the Low Carbon Transport Loan from to £20 million for 2018-19, what plans it has to increase and create further support measures for those seeking to purchase an electric vehicle.

The Scottish Government has demonstrated a strong commitment to the phase out the need for new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2032. Our increase in funding for the Low Carbon Transport Loan (LCTL) from £8M to £20M is one of many measures we have taken to incentivise ultra-low emission vehicle uptake across Scotland.

We are considering a number of options on how we can incentivise ULEV uptake further through the loan fund and we will be able to provide further details in due course.

The Scottish Government has funded the development of one of the most comprehensive charge point networks in Europe. The 1,000th charge point will soon be installed on the ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) network and the average distance from any given location to the nearest public charge point is just 2.78 miles in Scotland, the lowest in the UK where the average is 4.09 miles.