- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-09822 by Jenny Gilruth on 5 August 2022, what the ScotRail budget has been in each year from 1 April 2016 to 1 April 2023, and, for each year, what proportion of the budget, expressed as a percentage, was allocated to (a) staff costs, (b) rolling stock improvements and changes, (c) station facilities, (d) rail replacement services, (e) maintenance, operations and upgrades and (f) any other headline category of spend used by ScotRail.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold the details of ScotRail expenditure broken down by the categories you have requested.
The Scottish Government budget for Rail Passenger Services, which covers both ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper, has been published as :
2016 £266m
2017 £311m
2018 £183m
2019 £150m
2020 £239m
2021 £370m
2022 £407m
- Asked by: Oliver Mundell, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken to ensure that bus services are accessible to disabled people.
Answer
The legislation governing disabled access and vehicle construction is reserved to the UK Government. Since 1 January 2020 all coaches, single and double decker buses have had to be fully accessible.
However, the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that transport is accessible for all. Scottish Ministers' have made clear their expectations that Scotland's transport providers and public services will continually improve their performance to help disabled people make better journeys. That is why the Scottish Government launched in 2016 Scotland's Accessible Travel Framework, which is shaped by disabled people to improve the overall journey experience and remove the barriers which prevent them travelling. The Framework sets out a 10 year plan in which 48 actions are to be delivered over the 10 year period. These include:
- Scottish Government provided £35,000 to Neatebox who have developed and trialled an app focusing on bus travel for disabled users with the primary focus on wheelchair users who require use of particular designated space when using the bus, and
- In March 2021, the Scottish Parliament passed legislation that extends the National Concessionary Travel Card to eligible disabled children under the age of five, allowing free bus travel to accompanying companion using the National Entitlement Card. This will give around 4,000 eligible disabled children across Scotland access to the same benefits as those aged five and over, helping to reduce household costs for their families.
- Asked by: Mark Ruskell, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Patrick Harvie on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is, regarding any potential impact on Scotland, to the reported UK Government policy proposal to require cyclists to be licensed and to display a number plate.
Answer
Vehicle registration is generally a reserved matter operated by the DVLA. We have not been involved in discussions to date and would have to establish whether bicycles are classes as vehicles to understand what its impact on Scotland, if any, would be.
We are committed to supporting many more people to walk, wheel or cycle for everyday journeys and are allocating record funding for that purpose. Cycle licences or registration plates have played no part in our proposals and would run counter to our aims by making it harder for people to make the choice to choose cycling for everyday short journeys. There are many more effective steps that can be taken to ensure that roads are safer for all users – for examples, increasing accessible cycle infrastructure, improving street design and making sure that all road users are aware of good safe ways of using the roads.
- Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many civil servants were directed to work on the (a) development of the Islands Bond and (b) Islands Bond consultation process.
Answer
Both the work on developing the Islands Bond, and undertaking the Islands Bond consultation process were led by the Scottish Government’s Islands Team as part of their overall work to support our islands.
Additional input was sought from other policy areas as needed.
- Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to publish the evidence review of muirburn being carried out by SAC Consulting.
Answer
The evidence review of muirburn being carried out by SAC is currently going through NatureScot’s Quality Assurance Process and they will publish the final review shortly once this process has been completed.
- Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how much it paid Griesbach & Associates for its work in analysing the Islands Bond consultation responses.
Answer
The cost of the analysis was £18,240.
- Asked by: Oliver Mundell, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what support is in place to cover any financial costs and loss of earnings of community representatives who take part in planning enquiries.
Answer
In planning proceedings the parties are normally expected to meet their own expenses and expenses are only awarded on grounds of unreasonable behaviour.
Unreasonable behaviour would be deemed if another party to the appeal has acted unreasonably and this caused the party making the claim to incur unnecessary expense, either because it should not have been necessary for the case to come before Scottish Ministers or because of the manner in which the party against whom the claim is made, has conducted their part of the proceedings.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
-
Submitting member has a registered interest.
-
Date lodged: Monday, 29 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether Housing to 2040 remains its housing strategy.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to S6W-10636 on 20 September 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers
- Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it is aware of any reports of bus operators that are in receipt of public subsidy
being unable to deliver services in Scotland due to resources being diverted to
the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and, if this is the case, what plans it
has to recoup any funding.
Answer
I am aware of reports about a bus operator deploying drivers to the Commonwealth Games, and my officials have raised this directly with the relevant operator, reminding them of the expectations in our Network Support Grant Plus funding about the service levels they will provide. The operator confirmed that a small number of drivers from Scotland were involved in delivering the services needed for the Commonwealth Games, and mitigations were put in place to ensure the impact on local services was minimised. I can confirm that no buses funded through the Scottish Ultra Low Emission Bus grant were deployed to support the Commonwealth Games. In addition Network Support Grant Plus funding is only provided for services actually run, and payment recovery will take place when the scheme ends for any service kilometres that did not operate.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 12 August 2022
-
Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 20 September 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what the average spend per patient in alcohol and drug services has been in each year since 1999, broken down by local partnership.
Answer
It is not possible to provide this information due to the complexity of monitoring the number of individual incidents of people accessing drug and alcohol services and relevant spend per individual, across the time period requested.
Data on numbers accessing drug treatment are published in the Scottish Drugs Misuse Database (SDMD) and dates back to 2006-07.
In April 2021 a new Drug and Alcohol Information System (DAISy) went live. This database will provide more detailed information on the numbers accessing treatment. The first report from DAISy will be published in January 2023. This will provide latest data on numbers receiving treatment through drug and alcohol services.
Details on specific funding on treatment is also not available at the national level. Funding provided for Alcohol and Drug Partnerships supports a wide range of activity alongside treatment services including prevention, outreach and harm reduction services. We intend to provide detail of the funding provided to ADPs in the first National Mission annual report which is due later this year.