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: S5W-14944

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 8 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many people work in the gig economy.

There are no official estimates for the number of people working in the gig economy in Scotland. However, on 7 February 2018, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy published a research paper on the characteristics of those in the gig economy. This research includes estimates for the share of those involved in the GB gig economy by country/region. The research paper can be found on-line at:

Question reference: S5W-14940

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 8 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many businesses are co-operatives, broken down by year since 2011.

The main source for official statistics on the number of businesses in Scotland is the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). The IDBR, maintained by the Office for National Statistics, is a database of all businesses registered for Value-Added-Tax (VAT) and/or Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE). Co-operatives cannot be specifically identified on the IDBR. However, Co-operatives UK monitor the number of co-operatives across the UK - their co-operative economy report for 2017, which states that there are 560 co-operatives in Scotland, is available on-line at: .

Question reference: S5W-14889

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 February 2018
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 8 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what support it offers to help young people with learning disabilities into employment, and what plans it has to extend this.

The Scottish Government provides a range of employability support to help young people, including those with learning disabilities, into further education, training or employment, such as: careers advice and employability programmes. Disabled people are also a priority group for our devolved employment services, “Work First Scotland” and from April this year, “Fair Start Scotland”.

Careers Advice Skills

Development Scotland (SDS) has, in collaboration with the Scottish Consortium of Learning Disability (SCLD) and Values into Action Scotland (VIAS), produced material called “My Career Plan” to meet the careers advice needs of young people with learning difficulties and individuals on the autistic spectrum. My Career Plan is intended to be part of an integrated curricular approach with schools and other partners to prepare young people for transitions beyond school. My Career Plan is now being used by career coaches working with pupils in special needs schools to build their career management skills.

Careers Advisers are trained to support young people with a diverse range of additional support needs through SDS’s Learning and Development Framework which includes an ASN CPD Module available to all.

Employability Programmes

Employability programmes such as: Activity Agreements, Inspiring Scotland’s 14:19 Fund, and the Community Jobs Scotland programme are all open to young people with learning disabilities.

As well as the 12-month, full-time opportunities available on Community Jobs Scotland, there are also part-time opportunities available, specifically created for young people with disabilities, including learning disabilities. Around 45% of the young people taking part in phase 7 of Community Jobs Scotland have identified as either having a disability or with a long-term health condition.

Most of the Ventures supported by Inspiring Scotland’s 14:19 Fund, provide support for young people with learning disabilities. In particular, one of the Ventures is Enable Scotland and its “Stepping Up” programme. Since 2009 this programme has helped nearly 900 young disabled people move into positive destinations of employment (27%), education (52%) and training (21%), whilst also achieving soft outcomes and progression milestones.

In addition to the above employability programmes, the Scottish Government has also committed to developing a Learning Disability Employment Programme.

Modern Apprenticeships

We have provided young disabled people with the highest level of Modern Apprenticeship funding, and will remove the barriers that have previously prevented young disabled people entering Modern Apprenticeships (MA), through the implementation of: .

Integration and Alignment

We are building a programme of service integration and alignment that will seek to join up public employability services whilst maximising value for money, and which will support those with disabilities and long term health conditions. Since the publication of “A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People” in December 2016, we have taken action to support more people with learning disabilities into work, including: promoting the employment of disabled people to SMEs in Scotland and delivering a disability internship programme with Inclusion Scotland.

However, we know that more needs to be done and since last Autumn we have been engaging with key stakeholders, including disabled people, to hear their views on any further action needed. On 30 April, the Scottish Government will hold a major congress on disability, employment and the workplace where we will set out our initial findings and future plans.

The Scottish Commission for Learning Disability is a key partner in this work. Scottish Government officials are working with them as part of a short life task group on employment and are supporting the development of the programme for Congress.

Question reference: S5O-01894

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2018
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce ambulance waiting times.

Question reference: S5W-14987

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government which businesses have received funding from the Scottish Growth Scheme in each month since its establishment, broken down by amount.

Details on number of businesses and level of investment by each month is as follows:

Month	Total number of businesses	Total level of investment
October 2017	8	£ 7, 392,069
November 2017	4	£ 5, 571,471
December 2017	13	£ 10, 200,309
January 2018	2	£ 774,760
February 2018	3	£ 4, 198,970
March (up to 6 ^th)	1	£ 2, 034,278
Total	31	£ 30, 171,857

Information on investments in individual companies is not available due to commercial confidential agreements with investors, but these companies are in a variety of sectors such as software development, textiles, energy, multimedia, fintech and healthcare.

Question reference: S5W-14981

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, since SME Holding Fund Strategic Interventions was introduced (a) how many and (b) what value of applications for support have been made to Scottish Enterprise in each year; of these, how many were (i) successful and (ii) unsuccessful; what the total value was of both, and whether it will provide details of each business and their location.

Question reference: S5W-14978

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what total funding has been made available to the SME Holding Fund Strategic Interventions in each year since its introduction.

Question reference: S5W-14984

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government whether the overall leverage target of £4 per £1 grant from the SME Holding Fund has been achieved.

Question reference: S5W-14985

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs the SME Holding Fund has created.

Question reference: S5W-14979

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2018
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 March 2018

To ask the Scottish Government, since SME Holding Fund Strategic Interventions was introduced, (a) how many and (b) what value of applications for support have been made to DSL Business Finance Limited in each year, and, of these, how many were (i) successful and (ii) unsuccessful and what the total value was of both, and whether it will provide details of each business and their location.

We are planning to publish a performance report on the SME Holding Fund next month. I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-14261 on 21 February 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at

Some of the information requested will be contained within that report, it will not however include information on unsuccessful applications (this information is not collected by Scottish Government) or provide information on businesses and their location (due to the commercially sensitive nature).