Questions and answers

Chamber and committees

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 ��˿�� 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.

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Question reference: S6O-00342

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 November 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 November 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on community sentencing.

Question reference: S6W-03561

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-03252 by Kevin Stewart on 5 October 2021, what the estimated spend on dementia by each Integration Joint Board has been in each year since 2016.

Estimated spend on dementia by each Integration Joint Board in each year since 2016 is as follows:-

	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21
	Estimated Expenditure	Estimated Expenditure	Estimated Expenditure	Estimated Expenditure	Estimated Expenditure
	£m	£m	£m	£m	£m
Aberdeen City	81.4	82.4	82.6	84.4	83.6
Aberdeenshire	94.6	96.8	99.3	102.2	104.7
Angus	52.3	53.4	54.3	55.4	56.7
Argyll and Bute	45.7	46.4	46.8	47.8	48.7
City of Edinburgh	182.1	185.0	186.8	189.9	192.6
Clacks & Stirling	50.6	52.2	53.1	54.6	55.8
Dumfries and Galloway	75.4	76.9	77.6	79.5	80.4
Dundee City	60.2	60.4	60.3	61.2	60.8
East Ayrshire	51.0	51.8	52.5	53.9	54.1
East Dunbartonshire	49.1	50.4	51.5	53.0	54.8
East Lothian	41.6	42.6	43.2	44.9	44.9
East Renfrewshire	39.7	40.8	41.1	42.1	43.2
Falkirk	60.1	61.1	62.2	64.0	65.0
Fife	149.6	152.3	154.7	159.0	161.6
Glasgow City	200.0	200.7	201.2	203.5	201.3
Highland	109.5	112.0	114.6	117.9	121.0
Inverclyde	36.9	37.3	37.6	38.3	38.0
Midlothian	27.7	28.3	28.9	29.7	30.4
Moray	35.7	36.6	37.9	38.6	40.1
Na H-Eileanan Siar	6.5	6.7	6.8	7.0	7.2
North Ayrshire	63.2	64.7	65.7	67.2	68.4
North Lanarkshire	90.1	91.9	93.2	96.1	96.2
Orkney Islands	2.8	2.8	2.9	3,0	3.2
Perth and Kinross	70.2	72.3	73.5	75.6	77.5
Renfrewshire	76.9	78.2	79.4	82.0	82.0
Scottish Borders	47.6	48.6	49.2	50.4	51.2
Shetland Islands	7.1	7.2	7.4	7.7	7.7
South Ayrshire	66.8	68.6	69.9	71.8	72.8
South Lanarkshire	110.1	112.2	114.5	117.1	118.2
West Dunbartonshire	34.1	34.2	34.2	34.9	34.6
West Lothian	46.7	48.5	49.9	51.9	53.4
Scotland (b)	2,065.4	2,103.4	2,132.9	2,184.7	2,209.9

Question reference: S6W-03562

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how the NHS and Care Winter Package will support the care of people with severe mental ill health, including those experiencing a delayed discharge from hospital.

The winter funding will be used by Health and Social Care Partnerships to fund a range of options to support the timely discharge of patients from hospital. This includes £62 million for enhancing care at home capacity, £20 million to develop multi-disciplinary teams, £40 million for the development of alternative, interim care options and up to £48 million to increase the hourly rate of pay for social care staff.

In addition to this funding, in March 2021 we issued a £20 million Community Living Change Fund to be used during 2021–2024. Funding will be used to redesign services for people with complex needs including intellectual disabilities and autism, and for people who have enduring mental health problems, avoiding the need for out of area placements and reducing delayed discharges from hospital.

Question reference: S6W-03563

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-03274 by Kevin Stewart on 4 October 2021, whether it will provide a breakdown of the £50 million that has been distributed through the Recovery and Renewal Fund to date, and what the timescale is for the remaining £70 million to be distributed.

Since my answer to question S6W-03274, a further £24.5 million has been provided from the £120 million Recovery and Renewal Fund, bringing total allocations to date to over £74.5 million, including:

£40 million for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to address waiting times this year, increase access to and enhance services, including for those with complex needs;
£15 million to grass roots community groups via a Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund to help tackle the impact of social isolation, loneliness and mental health inequalities;
£5 million to address Psychological Therapies waiting times this year;
£5 million to implement the recommendations of the Eating Disorders Review;
Almost £2 million to roll out digital innovations, including online access to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

The following table provides a breakdown of allocations by the key themes in the Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan, as well as funding provided for key dementia, learning disability and autism priorities.

Key area	2021-22 funding allocated (£)
Whole population mental health )	16,136,345
Ensuring Equity and Equality	250,000
Relationships	439,000
Children, Young People and Families	42,891,904
Women and Girls’ Mental Health	18,112
Bereavement and Loss	16,780
Distress interventions	328,000
Suicide prevention	178,125
Clinical rehabilitation and recovery from COVID-19 infection	1,533,395
A long-term trauma informed approach to recovery	127,468
Digital innovations	1,917,600
Mental Health Services	10,164,500
Autism and Learning Disability innovation and adult neurodevelopmental support	394,912
Dementia	108,299
Total	74,504,440

The remaining funding will be allocated in due course.

Question reference: S6W-02501

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 August 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 25 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided to dementia research in each year since 2007, broken down by NHS board area.

Scottish Government funding for dementia research is not allocated to NHS Boards.

The following table shows Chief Scientist Office (CSO) funding for dementia research from 2007/8 through academic project/fellowship funding and the annual funding provided to the Dementia and Neuroprogressive Disease research network. CSO’s research project funding panels were paused during 2020 due to COVID-19 related pressures but have since reopened.

Breakdown:

Year	Project / fellowship funding	NRS Network	Total
2020-21	£62,461	£506,000	£568,461
2019-20	£123,394	£506,000	£629,394
2018-19	£543,351	£506,000	£1,049,351
2017-18	£595,219	£496,000	£1,091,219
2016-17	£25,876	£491,000	£516,876
2015-16	£59,834	£486,000	£545,834
2014-15	£136,950	£486,000	£622,950
2013-14	£443,424	£481,000	£924,424
2012-13	£224,536	£481,000	£705,536
2011-12	£183,011	£475,754	£658,765
2010-11	£48,085	£395,661	£443,746
2009-10	£44,134	£340,330	£384,464
2008-9	0	£170,455	£170,455
2007-8	£156,248	N-A	£156,248

Question reference: S6O-00289

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 October 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration the rural affairs secretary has given to ensure that fish farms have the support they need to meet environment standards, in light of reports that SEPA has rated one in ten as "unsatisfactory".

Question reference: S6W-03190

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its news release of 1 December 2017, 800 more GPs for Scotland, whether it will confirm how many additional GPs (a) have subsequently been recruited each year and (b) it expects to recruit in each of the next six years.

We remain on track to increase the number of GPs working in Scotland by at least 800 by 2027. We have taken a number of actions, including increasing the number of medical places at universities, and taking steps to encourage medical graduates to choose general practice. To that end, between 2015-16 and 2021-22 the Scottish Government will have increased the annual intake of medical places in Scottish universities from 848 to 1117 (269 places, a 32% increase). The majority of these new places are focused on general practice.

By increasing the amount of undergraduate curriculum that is delivered in general practice to 25%. We are confident increased exposure to general practice will encourage more students to train as GPs. With an increase of 89 GPs in 2019/20 we are now confident we are starting to see the positive impact of these actions.

Number of GPs working in Scotland since 2017

	2017	2018	2019	2020
All GPs	4,918	4,987	5,045	5,134

Question reference: S6W-03208

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many nursing training course places have been available in each year since 2007, broken down by institution, and how many were taken up.

Question reference: S6W-03310

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 7 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-02504 by Kevin Stewart on 23 September 2021, for what reason the data on specialist dementia beds is not held centrally, and what effect this has on its ability to (a) workforce plan and (b) target resources.

We commissioned and published in 2018 a first national independent expert report on specialist NHS dementia beds provision Transforming Specialist Dementia Hospital Care with recommendations for sector modernisation as part of wider whole-system reform in localities.

The report noted the most recent official figures at that time on numbers of NHS Old Age Psychiatry beds and Geriatric Medicine beds. These figures include people with an organic illness (dementia) and those with a functional illness (mental ill health conditions such as depression, bi-polar and schizophrenia) and the report noted that it was difficult to provide a precise number of patients with dementia in these settings, given the frequency of co-morbid conditions and under-diagnosis of dementia.

We continue to work with the author of the report as part of wider work since 2018 to support implementation of the report and to support local service modernisation, workforce planning and resourcing.

Question reference: S6W-03251

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 5 October 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-02502 by Kevin Stewart on 21 September 2021, for what reason this data on dementia diagnosis is not held centrally, and what effect this has on its ability to workforce plan and target resources effectively.

Strategic national action on dementia to support local service design and delivery is informed by extensive national data, both actual and estimated. We commissioned and published in 2016 the first national report on estimated annual diagnosed dementia incidence, designed to show the estimated annual flow of new diagnoses into the health and social care system, specifically to help local workforce planning and resourcing around dementia post-diagnostic support, and to enable local and national measurement against the national dementia post-diagnostic commitment. This report will be re-commissioned this year.

Local systems collect and hold diagnosis data when individuals with a dementia diagnosis are referred for post-diagnostic support.