Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-14846

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what actions it plans to take to ensure that any national infrastructure company is equipped to be able to provide advice on how local authorities can plan for wellbeing and net zero in their infrastructure investments.

Question reference: S6W-14837

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what research and modelling it has carried out to ensure that any proposed national infrastructure company will support local authorities in finding the best solutions for designing, building, financing, operating and managing their own projects.

Question reference: S6W-14839

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to redirect resources from the Scottish Futures Trust to any national infrastructure company.

Question reference: S6W-14838

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to mandate any national infrastructure company with providing unbiased advice on investing in repairing and repurposing older buildings as part of Scotland's commitment to net zero.

To support delivery of the National Infrastructure Mission we established the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland to provide long term strategic advice on national infrastructure priorities. Our infrastructure plans build on these recommendations and work is ongoing to develop our infrastructure improvement programme, through developing a new method of appraisal and prioritisation to ensure our infrastructure commitments match long-term goals and in preparing a cross-sector infrastructure needs assessment. This will ensure we are making the best capital investment decisions possible across the public sector to deliver on our ambitious programme for Scotland.

The Infrastructure Investment Plan 2021-25 sets out a hierarchy for infrastructure investment which aids decision making and planning on investment choices by encouraging maintenance and enhancement of existing assets over new assets, where appropriate. This Infrastructure Investment Plan sets maintenance and enhancement as a Scottish Government infrastructure priority and all public bodies, including Local Authorities can draw on this when making investment decisions. The Scottish Futures Trust and Scottish Government have jointly developed an Asset Strategy Guidance note to support the application of the infrastructure hierarchy (link ) and have developed a Net Zero Public Sector Buildings Standard to support the whole public sector in making good investment decisions. More information on the Net Zero Public Sector Buildings Standard can be found here: and on the Infrastructure Investment Plan, here: .

Question reference: S6W-14836

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a list of the stakeholders that have been consulted in relation to any creation of a new national infrastructure company.

Question reference: S6O-02015

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has plans to reform the compulsory purchase order process to make it easier to convert empty buildings into council housing.

Question reference: S6W-15325

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the 2022 Scottish teacher census, which showed that there had been a reduction in teacher numbers in East Dunbartonshire, compared with 2021.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that numbers of teachers and support staff are protected. We will provide local government with £145.5 million in next year's budget, which is conditional on the successful delivery of the following objectives:

Maintaining teacher numbers at 2022 census levels, as published in the Summary School Statistics in December 2022.
Maintaining pupil support staff numbers at 2022 census levels, which we will publish on 21 March 2023 based on the data collected from local authorities in September 2022.
Ensuring that places remain available for probationer teachers who need them through the Teacher Induction Scheme.

In the event of these requirements not being met, the Scottish Government reserves the right to recover or withhold relevant monies allocated to individual authorities for these purposes.

Question reference: S6W-15323

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to establishing the post of an Older People’s Commissioner.

We do not have plans to introduce legislation to establish an Older People’s Commissioner. There are existing commissions that protect the rights of older people. The Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) already play a role in relation to the rights of older people in respect of age as a protected equality characteristic. In addition, we continue to work closely with the Older People’s Strategic Action Forum on a range of priorities for advancing age equality.

We are committed to promoting the rights of older people and ensuring that they benefit from all that we are doing to improve people’s lives. That is why we provide over £2.2million to support older people's organisations to tackle inequality and discrimination and support our aim to promote the rights of older people.

Question reference: S6W-14827

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support local authorities in efforts to repair older public buildings for continued use.

The Scottish Government has provided local government with an additional £147.1 million capital funding in 2023-24. The maintenance of buildings and assets is the responsibility of individual local authorities and it is up to councils to manage their own budgets and allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Local authorities also have a range of powers enabling them to take action on buildings that fall into disrepair, such as the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 and Building (Scotland) Act 2003 (the Act). Section 28 of the Act gives local authorities powers to take action on defective buildings, this includes serving a notice to bring the building back into a reasonable state of repair having regard to its age, type and location.

Further support is made through the Place Based Investment Programme which aims to align place based investment, working collaboratively with local communities to deliver shared aspirations for their place. The programme includes investment of £140 million over the course of the parliament to local authorities. This investment is expected to support delivery of our policy ambitions for place, 20-minute neighbourhoods, town centre action, community led regeneration, community wealth building and contribute to net zero. The funding can be used for example for the repurposing of buildings, maintenance and repairs, reallocating external space and community led land acquisition.

Question reference: S6W-15326

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 27 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the 2022 Scottish teacher census, which showed that there had been a reduction in teacher numbers in North Ayrshire, compared with 2021.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that numbers of teachers and support staff are protected. We will provide local government with £145.5 million in next year's budget, which is conditional on the successful delivery of the following objectives:

Maintaining teacher numbers at 2022 census levels, as published in the Summary School Statistics in December 2022.
Maintaining pupil support staff numbers at 2022 census levels, which we will publish on 21 March 2023 based on the data collected from local authorities in September 2022.
Ensuring that places remain available for probationer teachers who need them through the Teacher Induction Scheme.

Where these objectives are not being met, the Scottish Government reserves the right to withhold or recoup funding which has been provided for this purpose.

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Chamber and committees