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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-12722

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 12 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in each of the last three financial years, how many remand prisoners have been assessed for (a) substance use and (b) mental health issues; what proportion of those on remand this represents, and, of those assessed, how many have accessed (i) drug treatment services and (ii) mental health services.

Question reference: S6W-12695

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 12 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many buildings it (a) has assessed and (b) is due to assess for unsafe cladding through the Single Building Assessment pilot.

Question reference: S6W-12585

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 12 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent staff have been employed in (a) 999 and (b) 101 call centres in each year since 2013.

The Scottish Government remains committed to working closely with Police Scotland to support delivery of the Joint Policing Strategy. The findings of the HMICS review of Strategic Workforce Planning, published this year showed that the focus needs to rightly be on capacity and capability.

The data requested are not held centrally by the Scottish Government as the recruitment and deployment of police officers and staff in Scotland is a matter for the Chief Constable under the oversight of the SPA. It is important that he has the flexibility to develop his workforce in a way that responds to the challenges he faces by ensuring the right workforce mix.

Question reference: S6W-13040

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-12610

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much student accommodation, in terms of the number students accommodated, has been built in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Government has no direct role in placement of students in accommodation or in the provision of student accommodation, whether that is university halls of residence, private purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) or private rented tenancies .

As such we do not hold information in respect of student accommodation buildings. The statistical information held in respect of new build starts and completions does not capture anything specifically on student accommodation.

Question reference: S6W-12527

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS patients have been treated in private hospitals in each of the past five years, broken down by NHS board.

The total number of NHS patients that have been treated in private (independent) hospitals in each of the last five financial years and reported to PHS is presented in the following table.

Number of NHS patients treated in Private (independent) hospitals 1 by NHS board of residence; 2017-18 – 2021-22

	Inpatients or Daycases (SMR01)					Outpatients (SMR00) 2
Health Board of Residence	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22
Ayrshire and Arran	247	44	145	499	705	-	-	-	-	434
Borders	59	55	62	52	86	68	136	109	93	121
Dumfries and Galloway	5	6	6	19	29	38	29	27	16	34
Fife	63	582	157	502	91	26	7	7	10	7
Forth Valley	429	808	689	558	319	1	220	-	135	1
Grampian	742	510	290	1081	446	774	293	507	381	124
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	818	752	841	643	539	306	393	408	197	203
Highland	171	201	161	16	3	18	23	17	14	12
Lanarkshire	1951	1703	2919	1389	1389	271	151	480	176	208
Lothian	828	374	839	713	361	2348	1916	1672	146	366
Orkney	2	2	4	22	2	-	-	2	-	1
Shetland	2	-	-	13	2	-	1	-	1	1
Tayside	55	155	203	108	54	60	18	77	263	294
Western Isles	42	39	39	36	19	-	1	-	-	1
Not Known	2	2	1	5	2	20	9	10	9	1
Outwith Scotland	2	3	-	1	1	2	1	1	2	-
Grand Total	5418	5236	6356	5657	4048	3932	3198	3317	1443	1808

- denotes zero
1. relates to patients treated in non-NHS locations such as private hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, care homes, etc. The data recording/completeness of Non-NHS Provider data varies from year to year.
2. Outpatient data only include patients that attended their outpatient appointment and were seen.

Question reference: S6W-12439

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £108.729 million allocated to Digital Health Care in its 2022-23 budget, which was announced on 9 December 2021, has been (a) allocated and (b) spent to date, broken down by expenditure.

The original published budget for Digital Health and Care was £112.9 million, not £108.729 million. See https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2022-23/pages/5/ . Since the budget was published in December 2021 there has been a Scottish Government wide Emergency Budget Review and the agreed corporate savings from this exercise have resulted in a budget of £99.6 million being allocated to Digital Health and Care in 2022-23.

This budget provides funding for the delivery of ‘ Care in the Digital Age’ , with individual activities as set out in the accompanying Delivery Plan . Funds that are allocated are based on need, and final confirmation of spend will be included as part of the Scottish Government provisional outturn.

Question reference: S6W-12541

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether there is any duty on those operating in Scotland or its waters to report gas escapes, and if this is the case, what the threshold escape volume of CO2-equivalent gas for reporting is, in light of The Guardian article from 8 November 2022, World’s ‘most potent greenhouse gas’ escaped during work on UK windfarm.

Question reference: S6W-12447

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £14.865 million allocated to board resilience under health and social care expenditure in its 2022-23 budget has been (a) allocated and (b) spent to date, broken down by expenditure.

Question reference: S6W-12644

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to remedy the current situation in NHS Forth Valley, which led to it being escalated to Stage 4 of NHS Scotland’s National Performance Framework for Governance, Leadership and Culture, as announced on 23 November 2022.

The leadership of NHS Forth Valley has been unable to demonstrate the necessary governance, leadership and culture required to drive sustainable improvements in poor performance.

The Scottish Government has established an Assurance Board, chaired by Christine McLaughlin, co-Director of Population Health. The Assurance Board is supporting NHS Forth Valley in determining what steps are necessary to ensure the delivery of high quality governance, leadership and culture in, and in doing so is intended to support improvements in performance in out of hours, unscheduled care, mental health, and integration.

I have asked Professor Hazel Borland, former Nurse Director and interim Chief Executive of NHS Ayrshire & Arran, and Dr John Harden, Deputy National Clinical Director, to lead the senior level external support to the board. Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) will also provide tailored support to deliver on the actions they set out following recent inspections.