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: S4W-28621

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 7 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many cleaning staff have been employed in NHS Scotland in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board.

While information on how many cleaning staff have been directly employed in each NHS board in each year since 1999 is not centrally held, information on the pre- Agenda for Change ancillary staff group from 30 September 1999 to 30 September 2006 is published by Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland and can be found in the following link:

Information on the number of whole time equivalent staff working in hotel services from 30 September 2007 to 30 September 2015 is published by ISD Scotland and can be found in the following link:

Question reference: S4W-28681

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Frank Mulholland QC on 7 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been (a) reported to the procurator fiscal and (b) fined by their local authority for illegal dumping in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

Illegal dumping or fly-tipping is covered by section 33(1)(a) and (6) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which makes it an offence to deposit “controlled waste” unless the deposit is authorised by a waste management licence. The following table contains information requested in relation charges reported to the procurator fiscal for that offence for years 2013-14 and 2014-15. Information has previously been published for years 2002 to 2012 in answer to question S4W-19583 on 4 March 2014 and can be found at:

Information is not held centrally on the number of people fined by their local authority, however Zero Waste Scotland has published some information on local authority fly-tipping fixed penalties in 2010-11 in its report Environmental Protection Act 1990, Part II and Part IV – Local Authority Monitoring Survey 2010/2011, available at:

Year

Charges reported

to procurator fiscal

2013-14

370

2014-15

367

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: .

Notes:

1. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) does not hold complete statistical data prior to the year 2002-03 and therefore cannot provide data for the years 1999-00 and 2000-01. COPFS records the number of individual charges reported to it, not the numbers of people containing a particular type of crime. A reported case can contain multiple charges of the same type against one or more offenders.

2. Instances of fly-tipping can also be prosecuted under sections 33(1)(b) and 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. However, other types of criminal act are also prosecuted under these sections. Accordingly, statistics in relation to these offences do not exclusively relate to fly-tipping and cannot be provided as part of this written answer.

Question reference: S4W-28558

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 2 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the pilot scheme in England to move some statutory advertising online will have on its advertising policy.

Question reference: S4W-28487

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 2 December 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) total and (b) average debt of students from the 20% poorest backgrounds has been in each year since 2011-12, and what information it has regarding how this compares with students from (i) Wales and (ii) Northern Ireland.

The data requested are not held centrally. The Student Loans Company is responsible for publishing data on student loans, debt and repayment for Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The latest Student Loans Company figures show that, for students entering repayment in 2015, average student loan debt in Scotland is the lowest in the UK (Scotland £9,440; England £21,180; Wales £19,010; Northern Ireland £18,160).

Question reference: S4W-28620

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 30 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the projected cost is of the delayed implementation of the new IT system for the NHS24 Future Programme.

Question reference: S4W-28565

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 26 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in establishing new regional development officer posts as part of the £10 million investment to develop club sport.

Question reference: S4W-28564

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 26 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how the £10 million investment to develop club sport has been spent.

Question reference: S4W-28329

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 06 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 20 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many people are waiting for a hearing aid, broken down by NHS board.

The number of patients on the waiting list for the fitting of hearing aids on 30 June 2015 by NHS board is provided in the following table:

NHS Board	Number of Patients Waiting
Ayrshire and Arran	945
Borders	246
Dumfries and Galloway	165
Fife	*
Forth Valley	95
Grampian	623
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	958
Highland	226
Lanarkshire	410
Lothian	749
Orkney	3
Shetland	15
Tayside	665
Western Isles	3
NHSScotland	5,103

Source: Information Services Division Scotland

*Hearing aid fitting is provided within one-stop clinics in NHS Fife – a one-stop clinic is where the patient see a consultant, undergoes a diagnostic test and the fitting of the hearing aid in one visit. It is therefore not possible to identify patients only waiting for the fitting of the hearing.

Question reference: S4W-28330

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 06 November 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 November 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting time is to see a hearing specialist, broken down by NHS board.

The average waiting time to see a hearing specialist is not available centrally as audiology data is collected from an aggregate return and not based on individual patient records. Information is available against the 18 weeks referral to treatment standard – delivery of which is 90%. The following table provides performance by board for the month of June 2015.

The three boards with performance below the level of which the Scottish Government would expect have been experiencing some short-term staffing issues during the last year. To reduce these waits the boards are providing additional clinics as well as employing additional staff and where appropriate locum consultants to improve waits for their audiology service.

NHS Board	Performance (%)
Ayrshire and Arran	58.8
Borders	86.0
Dumfries and Galloway	90.2
Fife	100
Forth Valley	99.4
Grampian	78.6
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	99.9
Highland	95.4
Lanarkshire	97.3
Lothian	99.7
Orkney	100
Shetland	97.8
Tayside	96.4
Western Isles	*
NHSScotland	93.5

Source Information Services Division 18 weeks Referral to Treatment

* Data unavailable due to local changes in reporting methodology.

Question reference: S4F-03064

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 November 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 November 2015

To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with NHS24 regarding the provision of winter resilience measures.