Mark Griffin

30 Jan 2019 · General Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports of the proposed closure of the Cumbernauld Village Surgery.

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statements by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People to the Social Security Committee on 17 January 2019 (Official Report, c. 23), whether it will provide details of the scope of the work that it is undertaking with HMRC; whether it has shared an outli…

Answer · Aileen Campbell: As part of the income supplement options appraisal we are engaging with relevant UK Government departments, including HMRC and DWP, to determine the feasibility of delivering the income supplement through a reserved benefit. Initial discussions have taken pla…

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People to the Social Security Committee on 17 January 2019 (Official Report, c. 23) that "it does not make sense to have an interim solution [for the income supplement] that would also take a long time to de…

Answer · Aileen Campbell: The Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan sets out 57 actions we are taking over the period 2018 – 2022, to increase family incomes and reduce living costs, and help meet our ambitious child poverty targets. As part of that work, we will work towards the intro…

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statements by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People to the Social Security Committee on 17 January 2019 (Official Report, c. 23) that it is "looking at...timeframes and the cost of the different delivery mechanisms" and that this information will "be …

Answer · Aileen Campbell: An options appraisal is being taken forward over the coming months, to examine potential policy and delivery options for the income supplement and the feasibility of these. I have committed to publishing the options appraisal alongside my first progress repo…

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statements by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People to the Social Security Committee on 17 January 2019 (Official Report, c. 23), how many commercial, public and private sector partners are assisting with the feasibility studies for the delivery optio…

Answer · Aileen Campbell: An options appraisal is being taken forward over the coming months, to examine potential policy and delivery options for the income supplement, which will include consideration of the feasibility of each option. This options appraisal will be undertaken by Sc…

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government on what date it plans to provide its first update on the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan.

Answer · Aileen Campbell: In line with the requirements of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, the Scottish Government will publish the first progress report on the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan by the end of June 2019.

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statements by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People to the Social Security Committee on 17 January 2019 (Official Report, c. 23), what (a) staff, (b) financial resources and (c) staffing hours it has committed to the feasibility studies for the delive…

Answer · Aileen Campbell: Information on the number of staff hours per week being used to develop policy on the income supplement and take forward the options appraisal is not available. This differs in teams across the organisation who contribute to the policy and is dependent on ind…

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statements by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People to the Social Security Committee on 17 January 2019 (Official Report, c. 23), where it received the advice that "It is simply not the case that a top-up to child benefit, which would require intricat…

Answer · Aileen Campbell: It is clear that making any alterations to a reserved benefit is a significant and complex task. It would require the agreement of UK Ministers and the cooperation of the relevant UK Government department to include any change to their work programme and ensu…

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the statements by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People to the Social Security Committee on 17 January 2019 (Official Report, c. 23), whether it will publish the feasibility studies for the delivery options for an income supplement once it has provided it…

Answer · Aileen Campbell: I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-21293 on 18 February 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusine…

29 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20910 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 January 2019, whether it will provide further details regarding for what reason it considers that this information cannot be made public, and what information it can provide regarding how many items listed in a…

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-20910 on 23 January 2019. The Programme Board Dashboards are part of routine reporting, and as such any RAG statuses are provided for internal discussion and not made public, on the grounds that doing so would …

25 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what mechanism it will use to verify that a young carer is 18 and still at school in order to check their eligibility for a young carer grant, and how this mechanism will differ for young carers who attend independent schools.

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: Verification mechanisms for the Young Carer Grant are under development. Decisions on verification, as with all aspects of the Grant, will take into account input from carers and other stakeholders through the Young Carer Grant consultation which ended on 10 …

22 Jan 2019 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to encourage young people to consider careers in the film sector.

Answer · Fiona Hyslop: We recognise the importance of young talent in growing the screen sector and a range of our agencies contribute to promoting careers in film. In addition to the qualifications relating to media offered by SQA, Skills Development Scotland has launched a Founda…

18 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated to each local authority in its draft Budget for the second year of funding for implementation of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016.

Answer · Joe FitzPatrick: £40 million has been included directly in the 2019-20 Local Government budget settlement to support the continued implementation of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 and extending free personal care to under 65s, as set out in the Programme for Government. This …

18 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated to each local authority in its draft Budget for implementation of the real living wage for social care.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The 2019-20 Scottish Government Budget includes £120 million to be transferred from the health portfolio to Local Authorities in-year for investment in integration, including delivery of the living wage and uprating free personal care, and school counselling …

18 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how it monitored the use of funding for preparations for the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 in 2017-18; how it is monitoring the use of funding for implementation of the Act in 2018-19, and what outcomes it is measuring.

Answer · Joe FitzPatrick: We have funded a range of public and third sector bodies to deliver support and resources to build capacity for implementing the Carers Act during this period, including thirteen pilots across local authorities and health boards in 2017-18 to test implementat…

18 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how it is communicating to local authorities the level of funding in the draft Budget for implementation of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016; whether this will be provided to local authorities as a package of funding with other initiatives, and how the use of these allocations will be moni…

Answer · Joe FitzPatrick: The level of provision for the Carers Act for 2019-20 was confirmed by the Scottish Government as part of a package of overall support to local government of £11.1 billion in the Scottish Budget: 2019-20 published on 12 December 2018 and in the corresponding …

17 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20835 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 January 2019, whether any of the reviews have been made available by their respective senior responsible officer (a) internally and (b) to the Social Security Programme Board and, if so, which reviews.

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: The reviews are confidential to the Senior Responsible Owner and have been shared with select internal colleagues. The November 2017 review was shared with the Social Security Programme Board.

17 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20835 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 January 2019, whether a copy of each review has been lodged with its Programme and Project Management Centre of Expertise (PPM-CoE) so that it can identify and share the generic lessons learned and, if so, whet…

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: Each review has been lodged with the Programme and Project Management Centre of Expertise (PPM-CoE) and copied to the relevant Accountable Officer.

17 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20835 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 January 2019, whether any of the senior responsible officers have stated that they would wish to be consulted before recipients of the review share all or parts of its contents with others, and, if so, for whic…

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: The reviews are confidential to the Senior Responsible Owner. Any request for copies of the review are directed to the Senior Responsible Owner.

17 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20835 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 January 2019, whether any of the senior responsible officers have considered requests from other sources to release their respective reviews and, if so, what their response was.

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: A Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 request is currently being considered by the Senior Responsible Owner.

17 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20835 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 January 2019, whether it approached each of the senior responsible officers to ask if they would consider releasing their respective reviews prior to the cabinet secretary publishing the response.

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: The current Social Security Programme Senior Responsible Owner, who was also Senior Responsible Owner for each review, was approached prior to the Cabinet Secretary publishing the response.

17 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20835 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 January 2019, in the interest of openness, transparency and public accountability and, in light of it publishing details of similar reviews following FoI requests, whether it will ask each senior responsible of…

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: There is no current intention to publish the reviews.

16 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many requests for re-determinations for Best Start Grant pregnancy and baby payments have been (a) made and (b) processed, and how many have resulted in a determination that (i) was the same and (ii) differed from the initial determination.

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: Official statistics, covering the first months of applications for the Best Start Grant, will be published in April 2019. More detailed analysis will be published in a quarterly publication series starting from August 2019. In line with the Code of Practice …

15 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20752 by Aileen Campbell on 15 January 2019, how it will calculate the verified financial gain per (a) individual, (b) household and (c) benefit, and over what period of time it will assume the gain is for.

Answer · Aileen Campbell: Citizens Advice Scotland will calculate the financial gain as the amount of any lump sum or the sum of any payments into the household, or reductions in payments out of the household, up to a maximum of 12 months.  

15 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government further to the answer to question S5W-20745, by Aileen Campbell on 15 January 2019, how it defines (a) a successful and (b) an unsuccessful evaluation.

Answer · Aileen Campbell: The target set for the service is to deliver a Financial Health Check to 15,000 households in Scotland per annum. We will monitor the quarterly update reports provided by Citizens Advice Scotland to gauge whether the service is successful. Our decision will b…

15 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, whether the information in the article, “Make Friends With Benefits”, which was published in The Scottish Sun on 7 January 2019, which stated that “in the last two months nearly 200 people have already had a combined £103,230 boost after calling the [Financial Health Check service] help…

Answer · Aileen Campbell: This information was provided by Citizens Advice Scotland. Performance information on the Financial Health Check Service will be submitted to the Scottish Government on a quarterly basis. We have not yet received the first performance report.  

15 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20751, by Aileen Campbell on 15 January 2019, for what reason it does not plan to publish the service level agreement.

Answer · Aileen Campbell: It is not standard Scottish Government policy practice to publish grant funding applications and grant offer letters given that information contained in these documents may be commercially sensitive.  

15 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-20757, by Aileen Campbell on 15 January 2019, whether it will provide the information that was requested regarding what procurement process was conducted for the provision of its Financial Health Check service.

Answer · Aileen Campbell: The service was not procured. It is grant funded.  

15 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that the Northern Ireland scheme, Make the Call, has generated £37 million in extra benefits for 7,765 people, and how this compares with the performance of the Financial Health Check Service.

Answer · Aileen Campbell: Make the Call is an established service aimed at benefit take-up. It is not comparable to the Financial Health Check Service which goes further by offering free personalised advice for people to help them reduce household outgoings by tackling the poverty pre…

10 Jan 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how many items listed in the Social Security Programme Board Dashboard, which forms the basis of the Social Security Programme Board Programme Director Progress Report, released under FoI/18/02096, were given a red RAG status, and what these red RAG status items were.

Answer · Shirley-Anne Somerville: Programme Board Dashboards are part of routine reporting, and as such any RAG statuses are provided for internal discussion and not made public, on the grounds that doing so would inhibit substantially the free and frank exchange of views for the purposes of …