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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 3980 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-06830

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 14 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants' Rights and the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity have had with other ministers regarding the single person’s council tax discount.

Question reference: S6W-06826

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 11 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review the legislation that governs the appointment of Lord Provosts and Bailies.

Question reference: S6W-06838

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many care and repair schemes are in operation in each local authority.

Care and Repair services operate throughout Scotland to offer independent advice and assistance to help homeowners repair, improve or adapt their homes so that they can live in comfort and safety in their own community. As of 1 March there were 27 care and repair offices in Scotland covering all local authority areas except West Lothian, with all providing help to vulnerable older and disabled people to install fire alarms under the government financed scheme.

Question reference: S6W-06839

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has provided to care and repair schemes.

Question reference: S6W-06842

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many new-build houses have been built by each local authority in each year since 1992, broken down by council tax band.

Question reference: S6W-06834

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to reform the children’s hearing system, in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government is committed to keeping The Promise. As outlined in the 2021-22 Programme for Government, we are working with The Promise and other partners to redesign the Children’s Hearings System. Sheriff David Mackie has been appointed as Chair of the Hearings System Working Group which has been established to develop more detailed recommendations in the coming year. There will also be reforms to the Children’s Hearings System through children’s care and justice legislation to be introduced in this Parliament.

Question reference: S6W-06821

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding (a) local authorities and (b) integration joint boards have received to tackle homelessness in each year since 1999.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of homelessness funding provided to local authorities in the annual local government finance settlements since 1999 has been included in the block grant and is therefore not separately identifiable. It is therefore not possible to determine how much of the local government finance settlement each year supports work to tackle homelessness in any year.

However, the unquantified amounts within the block grant have been supplemented in recent years through identifiable sums added to the block grant, which are enhanced or reduced by the overall annual changes in the local government finance settlement. The additional resource, set out in the table below, was allocated to local authorities for the development and implementation of rapid rehousing transition plans and for preventing and responding to homelessness.

Financial year	Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans	Homelessness Support
2017-18	£0m	£22.5m
2018-19	£2m	£23.5m
2019-20	£8m	£23.5m
2020-21	£8m	£23.5m
2021-22	£8m	£23.5m
2022-23	£8m	£23.5m
Total	£34m	£140.0m

In addition, a £50 million Ending Homelessness Together Fund for 2018-23 was announced in September 2017 to transform homelessness services. In 2021, we agreed to invest a further £50 million in the Ending Homelessness Together Fund over the current parliamentary term, bringing total investment in the Ending Homelessness Together Fund to £100 million to 2025-26. As local authorities are our key partner for delivering our homelessness strategy, to date, a large majority of the Ending Homelessness Together Fund has been allocated to councils.

Decisions as to whether the responsibility for homelessness services are delegated to the local authority or the integration joint boards are made locally, and the Scottish Government does not influence this.

Question reference: S6W-06833

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many children’s hearing meetings have been held in each year since 1999.

In 2002, the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) adopted a new system for the management of Children’s Hearings data. Prior to 2002, information on Children’s Hearings was not recorded in the same way – only substantive decisions were recorded, and the data would therefore not be comparable. SCRA can be contacted for further detail on this if required. The number of children’s hearings held in each year since 2002-2003 are:

Year	Number of Children’s Hearings held
2002-03	32,758
2003-04	35,493
2004-05	36,472
2005-06	38,734
2006-07	41,891
2007-08	42,302
2008-09	42,866
2009-10	43,614
2010-11	41,825
2011-12	40,708
2012-13	38,316
2013-14	36,200
2014-15	36,904
2015-16	34,896
2016-17	34,106
2017-18	32,553
2018-19	31,653
2019-20	30,363
2020-21	16,248

Question reference: S6W-06814

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting time has been for repair services following requests from tenants to each (a) local authority and (b) housing association in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-06813

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 10 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many requests from tenants for repair services have been made to each (a) local authority and (b) housing association in each year since 1999.