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-06613

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 7 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish correspondence between ministers and the Scottish Funding Council between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2016, which related to the purpose of the £50 million in additional funding that the Scottish Government clawed back in 2015-16.

Question reference: S5W-06550

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 7 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what financial resources will be made available to the Commissioner for Fair Access in order to commission the research data that needs to be compiled to inform his work.

Question reference: S5W-06611

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 3 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason some of the additional £50 million funds allocated to the Scottish Funding Council in 2011 was not passed on to higher education institutions as originally intended.

Question reference: S5W-06612

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 3 February 2017

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) was engaged in discussions with higher education institutions about how to spend £50 million on campus development projects after the SFC had been notified in the Financial Report to its board in February 2014 that the Scottish Government would claw back this money.

Question reference: S5W-06335

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 30 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the board of the Scottish Funding Council regarding the Scottish Government's plan to abolish the board, and what response it received.

Question reference: S5W-06107

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Scottish Funding Council returned to it the £50 million underspend that it reported for 2015-16.

Question reference: S5W-06106

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Scottish Funding Council reported a £50 million underspend for 2015-16.

The £50m reported by the SFC in its reserves for 2015-16 came about because the allocation of funding to the body by the Scottish Government is made on a financial year basis, whereas the body’s spending is on an academic year basis. For this reason the SFC needs the flexibility to manage its cash flow between financial years to ensure all of its academic year funding obligations are met.

Following the award of additional funding to the SFC in the 2011 Spending Review, it rolled forward larger than normal financial year reserves. Being assured that every financial commitment to every institution had been met in full it was decided by the Scottish Government that the £50 million should come back to the government’s consolidated budget and be available to be deployed against agreed priorities.

This process was concluded as part of the Scottish Government’s Consolidated Accounts for 2015-16 as lodged with the Parliament in September.

Question reference: S5W-06249

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 January 2017
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 26 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason its report, SCOTLAND CAN DO - Boosting Scotland’s Innovation Performance, makes no reference to UK Research and Innovation, Innovate UK or Research Councils UK.

Scotland CAN DO - Boosting Scotland's Innovation Performance is a high level Action Plan that has been developed through the Scotland CAN DO Innovation Forum. A wide range of industry and academic partners, including Innovate UK and other UK organisations such as Nesta and the Big Innovation Centre, are members of the Forum.

We will work with partners and stakeholders over the coming months to deliver the actions necessary to boost Scotland's innovation performance.

Question reference: S5W-05697

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 12 January 2017

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases of people with shingles between the ages of (a) 50 and 69, (b) 70 and 79 and (b) 80 and 100 have been reported in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S5O-00518

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 December 2016
Current Status: Answered by Annabelle Ewing on 22 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to prevent deaths from drowning.

The Scottish Government takes this issue very seriously, and has provided £104,000 this year to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to continue to deliver its annual Home and Water Safety programme.

RoSPA’s Water Safety Scotland group engages with partners to develop a consistent approach to the prevention of drowning, water related deaths and unintentional injuries in and around water.

The Scottish Government supports the aims of this group and has arrangements in place to share its messages on water safety via our social media channels.

Water Safety Scotland is currently developing a Scotland-specific response to the National Water Safety Forum's "UK National Drowning Prevention Strategy", which aims to reduce accidental drowning rates in the UK by 50%.

I understand that Water Safety Scotland plans to consult on its “Scottish Response” in March 2017. The Scottish Government will consider this document carefully when it has been finalised after the consultation period.