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 MSPs 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-29770

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 08 February 2016
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 24 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-27393 by Jamie Hepburn on 14 September 2015, whether it will provide an update on what further discussions the working group on charging for residential accommodation has had regarding addressing variations in the use of contractual care routes.

Question reference: S4F-03249

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 22 February 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 February 2016

To ask the First Minister what assessment the Scottish Government has made of the impact of the local authority budget settlement on nursery education.

Question reference: S4W-29740

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 February 2016
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 22 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what Barnett consequentials will arise from the English language tuition fund that was recently announced by the UK Government.

Question reference: S4O-05564

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made an assessment of the environmental impact of cutting business rates relief for the renewables industry.

Question reference: S4W-29771

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 08 February 2016
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 17 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to implement the recommendation of the Residential Care Task Force that “the Scottish Government, COSLA, Scottish Care and CCPS should undertake work to ensure that charging arrangements are transparent and stratified.”

Question reference: S4W-29515

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 8 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-25576 by Alasdair Allan on 29 May 2015, what extra resources it has allocated to match the increase in the number of children diagnosed with a speech and language disorder.

While the government provides the policies, frameworks and resources for high quality health care in Scotland, it is for each NHS board to decide how best to deliver these services to meet the needs of the population. This includes how best to utilise funding and staff, taking account of national and local priorities, to meet local needs.

From 2006-07 to 2016-17, the annual health resource budget has increased by over £3.3 billion, or 36.8% (£1.23 billion in real terms, 11.3%).

Question reference: S4W-29511

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 8 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many children under five have been referred for speech and language therapy in each of the last five years.

This information is not currently collected centrally, however we are working closely with Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland to develop a consistent approach to data collection relating to all allied health professional (AHP) services, including speech and language therapy. This will ensure that in the future AHPs will be better placed to report nationally on the quality of their service delivery, including user experience, by implementing a national data set and using quality measures agreed for national and local reporting, particularly in relation to the nationally agreed outcomes for integration of health and social care services.

Speech and language is included as part of the assessment of child development as part of the 27-30 month review to identify early and respond to emerging speech and language needs. The Child Health 27-30 Month Review Statistics, published by ISD in December 2015, show that in 2014-15 50,956 children had a review by 30 months with 11% of these having newly identified speech and language concerns and 3% noted as having existing speech and language concerns at the time of the review.

Question reference: S4W-29512

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 8 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what support it is giving to health and social care partnerships to ensure that provision of speech and language therapy meets demand.

We are working with speech and language therapy leads across Scotland to identify how best to map local demographics and referral data to support services in understanding the real demand and appropriate deployment of resources. This mapping will enable speech and language therapy leads to understand and profile the demand and need in relation to their available workforce and to consider, for each partnership area, new and innovative ways of using their available capacity to best meet the wellbeing needs of children and young people in Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-29513

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 8 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how it monitors whether provision of speech and language therapy meets demand.

We have appointed an allied health professional (AHP) National Lead for Children and Young People who is working with NHS boards across Scotland and we have recently published Ready to Act, the first children and young people’s services plan in Scotland to focus on the support provided by AHPs. The plan sets the direction of travel for the design and delivery of AHP services to meet the well-being needs of children and young people, including speech and language therapy services.

Question reference: S4W-29386

Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 28 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that English language tuition is offered in a positive manner to support migrants from all communities.

The Scottish Government have two strategies that cover this area of work, the vision behind both the New Scots 2014-2017 Strategy and Scotland’s ESOL Strategy 2015-2020 is for a Scotland where refugees and migrants are able to build a new life from the day they arrive in Scotland and to realise their full potential with the support of mainstream services and where they become active members of our communities with strong social relationships: “That all Scottish residents for whom English is not a first language have the opportunity to access high quality English language provision so that they can acquire the language skills to enable them to participate in Scottish life: in the workplace, through further study, within the family, the local community, Scottish society and the economy. These language skills are central to giving people a democratic voice and supporting them to contribute to the society in which they live.” The English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) strategy and the Scottish approach to ESOL is exemplary to the rest of the UK.