- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 4 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many marketing campaigns it has commissioned and subsequently cancelled since 2019, and what the cost of these was.
Answer
Please see FOI response below detailing the paid-for media marketing campaigns that were approved to be developed and had incurred costs before the decision was taken not to proceed to launch - between 2019 and the present.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 4 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of how much it has spent on business (a) analysts and (b) consultants in each year since 2017-18.
Answer
Business Analysts operate across both our directly employed and contingent workforce. Within our directly employed workforce, they operate across two of our Professional groups (Professions); the Digital Profession and the Operational Delivery Profession. A definition of a Business Analyst role can be found here
A breakdown of the expenditure on the directly employed staff in Business Analyst roles can be found here
There may also be some Business Analysts working in a temporary capacity in our contingent workforce, however our data on contingent workers is not captured at a job title level and this may not adhere fully to the definition provided above.
Scottish Government expenditure on consultants is publicly available and can be found here. Business Consultant is not a commonly applied definition in the Scottish Government.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 4 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has conducted on whether the consolidation or merger of local authorities would lead to improved public service delivery and efficiency.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to public service reform to enhance the sustainability of public services and improve their effectiveness. The Scottish Government has invited bids from local government as part of the Invest to Save Fund, and an announcement of successful bids will be issued in due course.
Local authorities are responsible for considering their own options for reform and transformation. The Improvement Service supports councils to develop capability and capacity for improvement to enhance the delivery of high quality, efficient local services.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 3 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many ministerial interventions have been made in the management and operations of Ferguson Marine since its nationalisation.
Answer
The Framework Agreement that exists between the Scottish Government and Ferguson Marine sets out the relationship between the business and Scottish ministers, including matters requiring Scottish Government approval such as the appointment of the Chair, the Board of Directors and approval of the remuneration of the chief executive officer.
Since the nationalisation of Ferguson Marine ministers have not intervened directly in the management and operations of Ferguson Marine.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 3 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it had with businesses, including in the renewable heating sector, before making the decision to not proceed with the proposed Heat in Buildings Bill.
Answer
As I have set out in my statement to Parliament earlier today, we intend to introduce a Heat in Buildings Bill in Year 5 of this Parliamentary session. In this statement I set out government’s rationale for the format of the Bill. We will continue to engage with stakeholders from all sectors as we do so, building on the discussions that began with our consultation and have been continuing since then.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government to what extent universities rely on international students to help their financial stability, and what impact this has on admissions policies.
Answer
The Scottish Government welcomes the valuable contribution that international students make to our society, culture, and economy. Our commitment to Scotland's universities is demonstrated through our long-term commitment to Scotland’s universities, investing over £1 billion every year in the sector since 2012/13. This is continued in the 2025-26 budget which provides over £1.1bn of investment in teaching and research in Scotland’s universities.
Universities are autonomous institutions, and the share of international student fee income compared to other income sources will differ between each institution. However, universities are responsible for their own admissions policies but should consider their long-term stability by actively diversifying their international student intake and seeking alternative funding sources. Neither international nor rUK students are able to access funded places which have been set aside for Scottish students.
We need an immigration system that supports our higher education sector to deliver the best learning, research and student experience. That is why the Scottish Government announced proposals for a Scottish Graduate Visa - to support a clear pathway for international students to build their careers in Scotland and contribute to our economy and wider society.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 3 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many women have been waiting longer than two years for gynaecological procedures, broken down by NHS board.
Answer
Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes quarterly data on the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case. The latest statistics represent all patients covered by the national standards for these stages of treatment to 31 December 2024. Individual patients are counted more than once if they are waiting to attend more than one scheduled hospital appointment or admission, so the official statistics shown here do not reflect the actual number of individuals involved but the number of waits.
Table 1. sets out the number of ongoing waits over 2 years for a Gynaecology inpatient or day-case admission as of 31 December 2024:
Table 1.
NHS Board of Treatment | Over 104 week waits |
NHS Borders | 12 |
NHS Dumfries & Galloway | 0 |
NHS Fife | 1 |
NHS Forth Valley | 0 |
NHS Grampian | 314 |
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde | 673 |
NHS Highland | 42 |
NHS Lanarkshire | 124 |
NHS Lothian | 10 |
NHS Orkney | 0 |
NHS Shetland | 0 |
NHS Tayside | 186 |
NHS Western Isles | 0 |
NHS Ayrshire & Arran | 11 |
TOTAL | 1,373 |
Table 2. sets out the number of ongoing waits over 2 years for a Gynaecology new outpatient appointment as of 31 December 2024:
Table 2.
NHS Board of Treatment | Over 104 week waits |
NHS Golden Jubilee | 0 |
NHS Ayrshire & Arran | 0 |
NHS Borders | 0 |
NHS Dumfries & Galloway | 0 |
NHS Fife | 0 |
NHS Forth Valley | 0 |
NHS Grampian | 195 |
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde | 0 |
NHS Highland | 5 |
NHS Lanarkshire | 0 |
NHS Lothian | 31 |
NHS Orkney | 0 |
NHS Shetland | 0 |
NHS Tayside | 32 |
NHS Western Isles | 0 |
TOTAL | 263 |
We know many people are still waiting too long and this is not good enough. We are determined do more. In 2024-25, we allocated over £450,000 to gynaecology from our £30 million targeted investment in planned care, delivering around 3,500 additional new outpatient appointments.
The 2025-26 Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for Health & Social Care, including a commitment to provide £200 million to help reduce waiting times and improve capacity, and gynaecology is being targeted as a key priority area for additional funding.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 3 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on consultancy and external reviews regarding the viability of Ferguson Marine as a state-owned shipbuilder.
Answer
The Scottish Government has created a webpage on www.gov.scot dedicated to documents relating to Ferguson Marine (). This webpage contains links to consultancy documents produced when Ferguson Marine became a state-owned shipyard in 2019 and the ‘Ferguson Marine: Commercial advice information pack’ which was published in February 2025.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the reported financial difficulties facing the higher education sector, what assessment it has made of any increases in the salaries of university principals.
Answer
Universities are autonomous institutions with responsibility for their own pay and remuneration decisions.
However, the Scottish Government expects universities to exercise restraint in setting senior pay, and senior pay packages should be in step with the salary, terms and conditions offered to other university staff.
Universities are also required to comply with the terms of the Scottish Funding Council’s Financial Memorandum as a condition of grant funding. This includes compliance with the principles of The Scottish Code of Good HE Governance, such as the expectation that universities’ remuneration committees seek the views of student and staff representatives in relation to the remuneration packages of Principals and senior executive teams, represent the public interest and avoid any inappropriate use of funds.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish a breakdown of total university funding per student, including teaching grants and other financial support, in each of the last 10 years.
Answer
As part of the annual budget process the funding for the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), is announced. The 2025-26 Budget includes over £1.1bn of investment in teaching and research in Scotland’s universities.
It is the role of the SFC to allocate these funds to individual institutions. The SFC publish details as part of their annual Final Allocation publication. This provides details of the funding for controlled and non-controlled subjects and funded places to each university, as well as the subject price groups.