- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 February 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Kevin Stewart on 21 February 2017
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on promoting a policy among local authorities of additional housing points for victims of domestic abuse.
Answer
The Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 requires local authorities to give reasonable preference, or priority, to applicants for social housing who are living under unsatisfactory housing conditions, or who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. The Scottish Government expects victims of domestic abuse to be included in these categories. In practice guidance on social housing allocations that it has issued to social landlords, the Scottish Government has advised that social landlords:
“need to develop an approach to deal sensitively with victims of abuse and to award them with priority to make sure that they can be re-housed quickly to remove themselves from the abuse. This can include dealing with harassment and abuse issues under the homeless legislation, which gives those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness reasonable preference in housing allocations.”
The guidance is available online at:
https://beta.gov.scot/publications/social-housing-allocations-a-practice-guide/
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 February 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 16 February 2017
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports on the findings of a PISA worldwide education survey, which state that 45% of head teachers in Scotland fear pupils are being held back by a lack of resources, and a third say there are not enough support staff and materials.
Answer
The Scottish Government is taking a number of actions to help recruit and retain teachers. We are spending £88 million this year to make sure every school has access to the right number of teachers, we are opening up new and innovative routes into teaching, we have increased student teacher intake targets for the fifth year in a row, and we are setting targets to train teachers in the subjects where they are needed most.
We also launched a new teacher recruitment campaign on 8 February 'Teaching Makes People'. This builds on the success of last year’s 'Inspiring Teachers' campaign which helped drive a 19% increase in Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) applications to Scottish universities compared to the previous year.
We have also gone further than our manifesto commitment by providing £120 million of Pupil Equity Funding for 2017-18. This funding will be available for headteachers to use for the additional resources that they consider will help raise attainment and reduce the poverty related attainment gap. This funding is being allocated directly to headteachers as they and other school leaders are best placed to know the needs of the children and young people in their school.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 3 February 2017
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the redevelopment of Queen Street Station.
Answer
The redevelopment of Queen Street station continues to make progress, advance works are already underway and Transport Scotland authorised a further package of enabling works in December 2016.
Further works will be reliant on powers afforded by the TAWS order and can commence following the outcome of that process.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2017
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 8 February 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how it measures economic performance.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 8 February 2017
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 1 February 2017
To ask the Scottish Government whether the NHS has a "one-size fits all" approach to patients wishing to gender transition or whether care packages are tailored to individual needs.
Answer
The Scottish Government issued a Gender Reassignment Protocol to NHSScotland in July 2012. Under this protocol we expect clinicians to take full account of the needs of each individual patient. A copy of this can be obtained at the following link:
http://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/mels/CEL2012_26.pdf
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 1 February 2017
To ask the Scottish Government whether the NHS has targets for the time taken between initial appointment and full transitioning for people who wish to gender transition and, if so, what these are.
Answer
There are no specific targets from initial referral to treatment for gender transition. This is because patients accessing these services are likely to undertake psychological therapy and significant counselling as part of their treatment. The amount of therapy or counselling required will be based on the needs of each patient. We expect boards to ensure that patients accessing gender reassignment services are seen as quickly as possible.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 26 January 2017
To ask the Scottish Government what its assessment is of the availability of maternity care, in light of reports of pregnant women being turned away by the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
Answer
The temporary divert in place for a few hours on 12 January 2017 at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital’s maternity unit was caused by an unusual combination of high levels of admissions and a number of women and babies developing complications. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde took the right steps to protect patient safety, ensuring the highest standards of care for women and babies in Glasgow.
This Government has already instructed a review of all maternity and neonatal services across the country which was published on 20 January 2017. This review, based on clinical and expert evidence, will make recommendations for a new model of maternity and neonatal care for delivery of the best and safest possible maternity and neonatal services, in the face of changing demographics and birth rates.
We expect NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to take full account of this review in planning their maternity and neonatal services.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 January 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Kevin Stewart on 25 January 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to tackle fuel poverty, in light of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health's recent study.
Answer
The “GoWell” research confirms our argument that rising fuel prices, beyond the Scottish Government’s control, can outweigh any potential gains we make by improving energy efficiency.
Whilst we welcome the news that almost 100,000 fewer households were in fuel poverty in 2015 compared to the previous year, we know there is much more work to be done. The Scottish Fuel Poverty Strategic Working Group and Rural Fuel Poverty Task Force published final reports on 24 October 2016. The reports collectively made over 100 recommendations and we will publish a formal response shortly. Both reports are the first step in the development of our new fuel poverty strategy, including a new fuel poverty target, which we will consult on later this year.
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2017
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2017
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it is tackling youth unemployment.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2017
- Asked by: Annie Wells, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 10 January 2017
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to the reported increase in the number of planned operation cancellations by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde due to capacity or non-clinical reasons.
Answer
Published information by ISD Scotland shows that the number of patients
whose operations were cancelled by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde due to
capacity or non-clinical reasons was 113 for the month of November 2016. This
compares with 111 in October 2016 and 115 in November 2015.
The Scottish Government continues to work to support health boards to
manage their capacity planning to keep cancelled operations to a minimum.
Decisions to cancel a patient's operation is never taken lightly, any postponed
operations will be rescheduled at the earliest opportunity. The Scottish
Government has also already announced a £200 million investment to create six
new elective treatment centres which will carry out procedures like hip, knee
and cataracts operations. These centres will allow people to be treated more
quickly for planned surgery to help the NHS meet increasing demand from a
growing elderly population and reduce the number of operations cancelled.
