- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the publication of the 2020 decision paper, Prospects for Prices, by the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, whether it would support charges raised for the purpose of providing for the cost of emissions in appraisals being spent on investments not directly related to that purpose.
Answer
Scottish Water is funded through revenue raised from customer charges and borrowing from the Scottish Government. This finances, amongst other spend, Scottish Water’s investment programme and therefore charge revenue, or any parts thereof, is not hypothecated to particular investments.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the publication of the 2019 decision paper, Asset Replacement, by the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, whether it will confirm what the aggregate annual cost is of the “prudent”, “reasonable” and achieving “high confidence” assumptions outlined in the paper.
Answer
This is a matter for the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, and I have asked them to respond directly in writing to your question.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the publication of the 2020 decision paper, Prospects for Prices, by the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, whether it is aware of the documentary source of the references made to the work of JASPERS and UKWIR, and whether it will publish any such documentary sources.
Answer
This is a matter for the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, and I have asked them to respond directly in writing to your question.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the publication of the 2019 decision paper, Asset Replacement, by the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, what cost allowance the Commission has used for additional cost pressures arising from (a) replacing assets while not interrupting service, (b) replacing assets in more developed areas and (c) new regulations, and whether it will publish details of the calculations and analysis the Commission used to form its view.
Answer
This is a matter for the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, and I have asked them to respond directly in writing to your question.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 16 April 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 July 2020
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-27952 by Jeane Freeman on 15 April 2020, how many samples have been taken each week; what this confirms about prevalence, and when it will publish prevalence data.
Answer
The COVID-19 data and trend charts for Scotland are published daily and provide a range of information, including the cumulative number of people tested for COVID-19 in Scotland and how many of the tests had a positive result. The link to the daily data update is: .
In addition, Test and Protect was rolled out across Scotland on 28 May 2020 and the Test and Protect data is published on Public Health Scotland's website at:
Health Protection Scotland are conducting surveillance swab testing in the community for individuals with mild to moderate symptoms. Testing commenced on 27 April and results are available a week later by HPS report for internal planning and surveillance purposes. Details of this can be found at:
Antibody testing will help us understand if a person has had the infection and will enable us to learn more about the virus and gain an understanding of how it is spreading through the population in Scotland. Health Protection Scotland commenced antibody testing on 6 May. This will inform wider published information on the Government's response to the virus. Evidence is evolving on whether the presence of antibodies indicates that someone is immune, and if so, for how long that immunity would persist.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the different phases of the route map out of the COVID-19 lockdown and the impact each might have on the R rate.
Answer
The roadmap document published on 21 May sets out the criteria for easing restrictions: as we move beyond the first phase, future phases will be based on meeting particular criteria, including those set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
There have been two approaches to assessment of the impact of easing restrictions on the R value. Firstly, the Scottish Government uses the publicly available Imperial College COVID-19 model adapted to fit the situation in Scotland. This uses data for other nations to estimate the impact on R of different interventions (or groups of interventions) introduced by other nations. The second approach estimates the change in the risk of COVID-19 transmission from options for easing restrictions. This is based on how many people are involved in a particular option and the change in risk of any individual transmitting the virus based on the science available at time of assessment.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason all care home staff have not yet been tested for COVID-19.
Answer
A further expansion of testing for care home residents and workers was announced on 1 May, which again focused on social care workers and care home residents. This includes undertaking enhanced outbreak investigation in all care homes where there are cases; comprehensive surveillance testing in care homes where there are no cases; and, testing across linked or group care homes, where staff may still be moving between homes following an outbreak in one. That same day, the NHS Scotland Chief Performance Officer wrote to all health boards, requesting that they start to implement these policies from 4 May.
In a further measure to protect residents and staff, it was announced on 18 May, that all staff in care homes will be routinely offered testing regardless of whether they are symptomatic. Based on the advice from the Chief Medical Officer, this testing will be routinely carried out every 7 days, regardless of whether there has been a confirmed Covid-19 case in the care home or not. This is in addition to the current measures operating across care homes in Scotland.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government what modelling it has undertaken of what impact schools reopening in August 2020 might have on the R rate.
Answer
SG is informed by the outputs of SAGE. The relative increase in R value using different models and assumptions for school openings is published in the behavioural science on relaxing school closures. As these model outputs demonstrate relative increases as a result of school opening scenarios, the lower the R value at the time of opening, the less likely that R rises above 1.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government whether the R rate has increased during phase 1 of the route map out of the COVID-19 lockdown.
Answer
Any effects on the R number from moving to phase 1 would be apparent after 2 to 3 weeks. We now publish the R range on a weekly basis. Up to the 22 May, R in Scotland was estimated to have remained between 0.7 & 1.0, though this has fallen to the range 0.6-0.8 for the week of 04 June.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 June 2020
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 26 June 2020
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish the COVID-19 R rate on a regional basis.
Answer
The R number is calculated for Scotland as well as for the other three countries of the United Kingdom, and we publish it on a weekly basis. The R number is not calculated for Scottish regions, because the ranges around the estimates would be very large and that would not help us to understand the differences between areas of Scotland. Instead of doing that, we are looking at other ways of monitoring and forecasting the level of COVID-19 in regions; we use data such as the number of cases and hospitalisations to track the epidemic. The most recent daily statistics for COVID-19 in Scotland are available by health board and can be found in the . We will also use the information that starts to come through the test and protect programme. More information about the modelling is available from a series of Scottish Government .