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: S6W-23979

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 8 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made towards establishing the Centre of Teaching Excellence (CTE), and whether it will provide an update on (a) in what fundamental respects the CTE will be different from Education Scotland, (b) what the core purpose of the CTE will be, and how its success will be measured, (c) against what outputs its performance will be measured, (d) what weekly interactions it anticipates the CTE will have with individual teachers and schools, (e) what it anticipates the cost will be of (i) consulting on, (ii) establishing, (iii) launching and (iv) the ongoing running of the CTE, (f) what role it anticipates the CTE will have regarding the development of the school curriculum and (g) whether the CTE will report to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.

In line with The Scottish Government’s commitment to co-design the Centre for Teaching Excellence, The Scottish Government has undertaken useful engagement with a number of important stakeholders including COSLA, the Scottish Council of Deans of Education, the General Teaching Council for Scotland, professional associations and trade unions and the Strategic Board for Teacher Education to discuss the overall approach to co-designing the Centre.

The Centre will focus on quality learning and teaching, helping Scotland to remain at the cutting edge of teaching practice by, for example, distilling research and evidence into practical and digestible support for every teacher and practitioner in Scotland, meeting a widely recognised need in the system.

The role and remit of the Centre, how it operates, its interaction with teachers and practitioners, performance measures, and associated costs and timescales will be considered as part of the design process.

In light of COSLA and local authorities’ responsibilities and key leadership role as the employers of teachers, The Scottish Government believes that the Centre would be strengthened if it were to have joint oversight by COSLA and is keen to work with COSLA in this regard.

Question reference: S6W-23633

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-22746 by Jenny Gilruth on 17 November 2023, whether it can provide details of the work that is going on "with local authorities and key stakeholders to better understand and map existing provision"; which agencies or who within the Scottish Government is conducting this mapping; when this mapping will be published, and how long it will take thereafter to develop a plan for breakfast provision.

As noted in the response to question S6W-21440 on 3 October 2023, the Scottish Government is currently working with the local authority facilities management organisation, AssistFM, to develop a clear picture of the scale and uptake of breakfast provision across Scotland. This work is expected to be completed in Spring 2024. There are no plans to publish it separately, as this work is just one of the elements which will inform policy on school breakfasts, including timescales for developing a plan for breakfast provision, designed around the needs of children and families.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-23635

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-22987 by Jenny Gilruth on 5 December 2023, in light of the information that "has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre under Bib. Number 64646" containing redacted figures, whether it will reconsider its decision to redact these figures to allow for meaningful scrutiny of the data.

This data has been redacted according to data protection legislation. As the redacted figures are below five, there is increased risk of identification of data subjects, and as such these figures must be treated as personal data.

The data protection legislation; UKGDPR and DPA 2018 are derivatives of the Human Rights Act. Their purpose is to uphold the rights of individuals in relation to their data and privacy.

Question reference: S6W-23586

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 19 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5O-03945 by Humza Yousaf on 19 December 2019, what the staff (a) recruitment, (b) retention and (c) absence rate has been at each prison and young offenders institution in the last 12 months.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following tables set out the position in relation to recruitment (Table1), retention (table 2), and absence (table 3) across the SPS estate.

The data provided only covers operational prison officer grades, who have responsibility for delivering essential frontline services within Scotland’s prisons.

Data has been provided for the year 1 November 2022 to 31 October 2023 as data covering the period to 30 November 2023 has not yet been finalised and is therefore not available.

Table 1

Establishment	Number of new prison officers recruited between 1 November 2022 and 31 October 2023
Barlinnie	59
Bella Centre	6
Dumfries	15
Edinburgh	50
Glenochil	30
Grampian	24
Greenock	21
Inverness	13
Lilias Centre	3
Low Moss	18
Open Estate	8
Perth	28
Polmont	39
Shotts	27
Stirling	31
Total	372

Table 2

Establishment	Number of leavers between 1 November 2022 and 31 October 2023 across prison officer grades	Turnover % in the period vs establishment complement across prison officer grades
Barlinnie	54	10.19%
Bella Centre	2	5.75%
Dumfries	14	10.40%
Edinburgh	47	11.01%
Glenochil	19	7.90%
Grampian	22	5.27%
Greenock	21	9.89%
Inverness	5	5.41%
Lilias Centre	2	5.75%
Low Moss	31	10.54%
Open Estate	8	9.80%
Perth	17	5.65%
Polmont	30	7.25%
Shotts	19	5.80%
Stirling	6	3.07%
Totals	297	7.89%

Table 3

Establishment	Average Working Days Lost (AWDL) figure across prison officer grades (1 Nov 2022 - 31 Oct 2023)
Barlinnie	22.1
Bella Centre	14.2
Dumfries	14.6
Edinburgh	19.8
Glenochil	17.6
Grampian	9.5
Greenock	20.5
Inverness	10.3
Lilias Centre	8.4
Low Moss	18.7
Open Estate	10.2
Perth	18.8
Polmont	17.1
Shotts	19.1
Stirling	25.5
Establishment Average	18.1

Question reference: S6T-01702

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 December 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that Police Scotland is considering closing more than 40 police buildings.

Question reference: S6W-23585

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 12 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the monthly average sales income for fishermen has been in each of the last three years.

Over the past three years, 2020 to 2022, the monthly average sales income per Scottish fishing vessel ranged from £3,000 during 2020 in the under 10 metre fleet, and £295,000 during 2022 in the over 24 metre fleet.

Table 1: Average fishing income per vessel (£’000), Scotland, 2020-2022

		2020	2021	2022
Annual	Under 10m	36	42	48
10-24m	263	324	370
Over 24m	2,777	3,051	3,538
Monthly	Under 10m	3	4	4
10-24m	22	27	31
Over 24m	231	254	295

Source: and .

Question reference: S6W-23239

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 8 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the Scottish National Party manifesto commitment to invest £50 million to create a Women's Business Centre, how much has been invested to date; what that investment has been spent on; what the defined (a) objectives were and (b) measurables are; how many women have been assisted "to develop their pioneering business idea"; where any such women and their businesses are located; whether it has achieved the aim of having more women in business, and, if so, how that has been measured.

The idea for a Women’s Business Centre was among a suite of options considered in the review led by Ana Stewart culminating in the publication of Pathways for a New Approach to Women in Entrepreneurship. The Pathways report was published in February 2023 following extensive consultation and contained a wide range of recommendations on provision of advice and support, access to finance and investment as well as entrepreneurial education and use of disaggregated data. As that report did not recommend the establishment of a Women’s Business Centre we will now work to progress the recommendations from Pathways instead. In June 2023 the Scottish Government accepted the Pathways report in full and began work to implement its key recommendations. The first phase of that work established the Pathways Pre-Start Fund to support more women, and other under-represented groups, into business ownership and to realise their entrepreneurial potential. The 20 projects receiving funding have been published at

Question reference: S6W-22987

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 5 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-22541 by Jenny Gilruth on 14 November 2023, when it anticipates that the information will be available.

Question reference: S6W-23073

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 4 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has received a request under rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006 for evidence regarding any WhatsApp messages and informal communications with cabinet secretaries, ministers, senior civil servants or advisers, on Scottish Government-issued or personal devices, in relation to matters for which she had responsibility in her former role as Minister for Europe and International Development between February 2020 and May 2021.

Question reference: S6W-23071

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 November 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 4 December 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether the Minister for Higher and Further Education and Minister for Veterans has received a request under rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006 for evidence regarding any WhatsApp messages and informal communications with cabinet secretaries, ministers, senior civil servants or advisers, on Scottish Government-issued or personal devices, in relation to matters for which he had responsibility in his former role as Minister for Transport between May 2021 and January 2022.