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-12471

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 5 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to improve positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) waiting times in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are currently achieving their 14 day wait to scan, with their current wait to scan being 11 days.

The published in August 2021, sets out the plans for health and social care over the next 5 years. Backed by over £1 billion of funding, the plan will support an increase in planned care and diagnostic capacity, including through seven mobile MRI scanners and five CT scanners across NHS Scotland. This additional capacity will support PET-CT waiting times across NHS Scotland.

The Scottish Government have also significantly increased the number of available Clinical Radiology training places, following the recommendations of the Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group (SSoTTG). Since 2014, Scottish Ministers have created 573 additional training places for trainee doctors. Of these, 78 have been in Radiology (68 in Clinical Radiology and 10 in Interventional Radiology). This followed a Ministerial commitment in 2018 to create 10 additional Clinical Radiology places per year over a 5-year period. The final 10 places are being recruited to by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in 2022.

The most recent NES statistics from end-November 2021 show that the 182 established training places in Clinical Radiology were 100% full with no vacant posts.

Question reference: S6W-12243

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-11619 by Keith Brown on 4 November 2022, whether it can provide a further breakdown of the information contained in the table for each NHS board, in each year since 2019.

The requested breakdown of missing person investigations by NHS Health Board area is provided below. This is based on the same snapshot of data as used by Police Scotland to answer PQ S6W-11619. The information covers investigations of a person going missing from the NHS (for those cases that were reported to the police). The data is drawn from the Missing Person’s Database and is available on a consistent basis from April 2019 onwards. The figures relate to a count of investigations rather than a count of people going missing. As such, the same person may appear multiple times within any year if they have been reported missing on more than one occasion during that period.

It should also be noted that the data covers all NHS grounds and not just hospitals.

Missing Person Investigations by NHS Board, “Missing From The NHS”, Police Scotland

Health Board	2019-20		2020-21		2021-22			2022-23*
Health Board	UNDER 18	18 AND OVER	UNDER 18	18 AND OVER		UNDER 18	18 AND OVER		UNDER 18	18 AND OVER
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	1	41	4	51		2	39		2	28
NHS Borders	2	43	2	51		5	51		1	23
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	0	11	1	7		3	28		1	15
NHS Fife	0	118	1	76		13	125		4	70
NHS Forth Valley	1	60	5	49		5	81		1	57
NHS Grampian	0	141	3	66		1	135		5	103
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	7	395	9	358		14	510		10	328
NHS Highland	7	82	2	23		9	49		3	27
NHS Lanarkshire	10	184	7	159		14	154		4	146
NHS Lothian	8	255	18	258		16	329		14	208
NHS Orkney	0	1	0	1		0	0		0	2
NHS Shetland	2	1	0	0		0	1		0	3
NHS Tayside	1	90	4	113		4	98		0	50
NHS Western Isles	0	0	0	0		0	3		0	0
Scotland	39	1422	56	1212		86	1603		45	1060

Source: Police Scotland: Missing Person’s Database, extracted from internal systems and correct as at 1 st November 2022.

Police Scotland provided the information split by local authority area and as requested these have been aggregated into NHS Health Board Areas by Scottish Government Statisticians.

* Figures for 2022-23 only cover part of the year (to 31 st Oct 2022).

Notes:

Data are provisional and should be treated as management information, it was extracted using the ‘Date Reported Missing’ variable and includes records where the ‘Missing From’ variable has been populated with ‘NHS’. All Divisions across Police Scotland started using the Missing Persons Database for recording Missing Person Investigations from April 2019.

The age of the missing person is based on when the person first went missing, and not the date they were reported missing. Records without a Division have been excluded.

Question reference: S6W-12225

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has had any discussions with the Scottish Prison Service regarding any possibility of HMP Barlinnie becoming uninhabitable prior to HMP Glasgow’s 2026 planned completion date, and what contingency plans are in place for any such scenario, in light of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland's evidence to the Criminal Justice Committee on 9 November 2022.

The Scottish Government is in regular communication with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) about the effective maintenance and operation of the prison estate, including at HMP Barlinnie.

SPS have contingency plans in place to respond to issues arising in parts of the Scottish prison estate, including, if necessary, the placement of prisoners in other Scottish prison sites.

The exact locations and the extent of the impact for each individual prison would be reflected in the outcome of a detailed and dynamic risk assessment and resource consideration completed at that time.

Question reference: S6W-12350

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) regarding apprenticeships in the SPS.

Question reference: S6W-12349

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 December 2022

Question reference: S6W-12224

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 December 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to its decision to transition HMP Kilmarnock from the private sector into management by the Scottish Prison Service, and in light of the comments of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland at the meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee on 9 November 2022 that HMP Kilmarnock is the "cheapest" prison to run in Scotland, what (a) financial assessment it undertook as part of its decision making process, (b) the cost implications of its decision are and (c) consultation was undertaken prior to the decision being taken, and what the current average cost per prisoner is at HMP Kilmarnock compared with the cost that is forecast for when the prison has transitioned into management by the Scottish Prison Service.

(a) It has been Scottish Government Policy that prisons should be owned and managed by the public sector since 2007. The cost of private sector prison contracts depend on the market conditions at that particular point in time and in order to establish the cost of a new private sector contract for HMP Kilmarnock from 2024 this would have to be put out to tender. In line with Government’s long-running policy on private prisons the decision was made not to put it out to tender.

(b) The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations (TUPE) apply when a service is transferred from one employer to another, in this case ‘insourcing’. It provides those who are carrying out work which will be provided by a new employer with protection by transferring them to the employment of the new provider. Staff transferring to SPS employment will be consulted on the changes that will be made when SPS are managing the prison. Exact costs will become clear at the conclusion of the consultation exercise and the running costs are likely to be aligned to an existing public prison of a similar size.

(c) The Scottish Government consults on issues that interest and impact on members of the public, experts and civil society. It does not consult on every decision implementing long running policies on service delivery.

The average cost per available prisoner place at HMP Kilmarnock in the current contractual year is £31,879, excluding the public sector costs to monitor the operation and manage the contract. The average cost per prisoner once HMP Kilmarnock is brought into SPS management is likely to align with an existing prison of a similar size.

Question reference: S6W-12337

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 30 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its estimate is of the number of prison cells that have been taken permanently out of use in each year since 2016.

Question reference: S6W-12338

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 30 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how many and (b) what proportion of prison cells were not in use due to disrepair or poor estate conditions as of 15 November 2022, broken down by prison.

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

The Prisoner Records system (PR2) does not allow data to be gathered retrospectively. On Wednesday 23 November the number of cells out of use were:

Establishment	Number of Cells Out of Use*
Barlinnie	15
Dumfries	2
Greenock	38
Inverness	9
Kilmarnock	2
Perth	1
TOTAL	67

*PR2 records cells currently in the system that have ‘out of use’ recorded against them. It does not record the reason for cells out of use which could be for either operational or maintenance reasons.

Question reference: S6W-12298

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 29 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many prosecutions were not continued with as a result of witness citations not being served in time ahead of trials in each year since 2013.

This information is not recorded by COPFS.

Cases that are discontinued are marked with an appropriate No Further Action reason.

None of the No Further Action Marking categories used within COPFS allow us to identify any cases which were discontinued due to witness citations not being served on time.

For your information, figures for the total cases marked No Further Action for the last 5 years are published on the Crown Office website ( ).

In addition, the following table provides cases marked for No Further Action since 1 April 2013 broken down by the appropriate category as used by COPFS: -

Criminal cases receiving a No Further Action marking - grouped by financial year and by applied marking

No Further Action reason	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22
Acceptable Explanation Offered	2,245	1,984	1,589	1,548	1,188	1,003	805	685	803
Accused Dead	560	711	675	765	710	714	760	1,218	1,306
Accused in Prison	775	687	659	698	597	439	326	283	441
Accused Incapacity	186	204	253	336	232	182	148	148	195
Attitude of Victim	991	672	911	1,170	819	710	542	447	748
Crown Counsel's Instructions	401	367	284	295	212	214	213	154	127
Delay in reaching a Conclusion	577	618	859	850	605	217	128	302	342
Failed Alternative	7,027	3,154	2,693	2,089	1,556	1,912	2,324	3,438	4,704
Failed Service	7,627	9,804	4,246	3,530	3,624	2,794	2,777	2,048	3,316
Now Insufficient Evidence	5,417	5,504	6,582	6,899	5,980	4,920	4,188	2,500	3,996
Other Specified Reasons	7,690	7,260	6,576	5,893	5,132	4,728	4,710	4,096	6,826
Petition Timebar - PF Error	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Reporting Deficiency	278	282	273	408	212	224	193	172	209
Warrant Withdrawn	1,664	1,195	1,692	1,469	1,297	773	590	926	546
Witness Unavailable	42	53	41	75	45	31	30	20	22
Total	35,480	32,495	27,333	26,025	22,209	18,861	17,734	16,437	23,581

Note: - Not all cases closed as No Further Action in an individual year will necessarily have been reported in the same year. Some cases will relate to cases reported in previous years.

Question reference: S6T-01012

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to tackle the illegal trade in puppies, in light of the Scottish Multi-Agency Strategic Threat Assessment report that the trade is funding serious organised crime.