Tom Mason

15 Jun 2020 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the demand for affordable housing, broken down by each local authority area, and how this work will inform the geographical focus of delivery of these houses.

Answer · Kevin Stewart: The Scottish Government’s approach to the planning and delivery of affordable housing is focussed on providing the “right homes in the right places”, achieved by working closely with local authorities in their role as strategic housing and planning authoritie…

15 Jun 2020 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to remedy any skills shortages in the construction industry for the delivery of affordable housing in the North East Scotland region, where workers might be attracted by better-paid offshore jobs.

Answer · Kevin Stewart: Construction remains a priority for the Scottish Government, with 23% of all Modern Apprenticeship starts in 2019-2020 being in the Construction and related occupational grouping. The Scottish Government continues to recognise the importance of an agile, flex…

2 Jun 2020 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much is being paid to the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland to set up and conduct a 15-month work programme with chronic pain patients, which will have a lived experience reference panel.

Answer · Joe FitzPatrick: The Scottish Government provided £6,000 in 2019-20 to the Health and Social Care Alliance. The funding for 2020-21 has not been finalised and is under discussion.  

26 May 2020 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has delayed the deadline for the creation of a nitrogen balance sheet.

19 May 2020 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of care homes in the NHS Grampian area have reported cases of COVID-19.

31 Mar 2020 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what arrangements it has made to ensure that rheumatology patients, particularly those diagnosed with Lupus, have sufficient access to the drug, hydroxychloroquine, while it is being used in COVID-19 clinical trials.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: Access to medicines should not be affected by the current COVID-19 global pandemic. There are no known current supply issues with hydroxychloroquine and it remains available from manufacturers for community pharmacies to order through wholesalers as usual. T…

11 Mar 2020 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to its recently published domestic abuse statistics for 2018-19.

4 Mar 2020 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce speeding on the AWPR.

Answer · Michael Matheson: Road safety is of paramount importance to the Scottish Government. With Police Scotland, we embrace a partnership approach to issues surrounding driver behaviour and we engage regularly with our partners to identify what additional mitigation measures may be …

26 Feb 2020 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made to deliver the 28 outstanding payments under the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme, the oldest of which dates back to 2015.

Answer · Fergus Ewing: We have been steadily reducing the outstanding claims and over the last 3 months we have paid 58. There are currently 25 outstanding claims awaiting payment out of an eligible population of 44,872 for years 2015 - 2018, this equates to 0.05%. We continue to…

19 Feb 2020 · General Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress of the Agriculture (Retained EU Law and Data) (Scotland) Bill.

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that NHS Grampian is not achieving its Waiting Times Improvement Plan target.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: We recognise that too many people are waiting too long for an appointment and treatment. This is why I published the Waiting Times Improvement Plan on 23 October 2018. This Plan is backed by £850 million and sets out the actions needed to ensure future delive…

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will allocate to the Waiting Times Improvement Plan in 2020-21.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: Discussions on additional funding for 2020-21 will be taken in line with consideration of Boards’ Annual Operational Plans for 2020-21 once these have been received. Final Plans are due to be submitted to the Scottish Government by the end of February 2020.

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23380 by Derek MacKay on 4 June 2019, whether it will provide a breakdown of the methodology reported as "experimental statistics on the expenditure approach to GDP in real terms" in the publication, GDP Quarterly National Accounts, Scotland, 2018 Q…

Answer · Derek Mackay: Methodology information for these statistics is published in the header section of Summary Table X3: GDP Expenditure Components, chained volume measures. The latest release can be found at https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy/QNAS .

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23380 by Derek Mackay on 4 June 2019, whether any analysis has been done on how targeting enabling sectors such as tourism, creative industries and education and skills will influence Scotland's savings ratio.

Answer · Derek Mackay: Scotland's Economic Strategy, launched in 2015, identifies those sectors where Scotland has a distinct comparative advantage. The latest available statistics on the Growth Sectors are available at https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Business/Publi…

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23404 by Jeane Freeman on 5 June 2019, which NHS health boards operate GP-mentoring programmes, and how much time GPs in the north east allocate to these.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The Scottish Government currently funds a GP mentoring Scheme in NHS Highland to support First 5 GPs in the Highland and Islands. Ten GP mentors were trained in late 2018- early 2019 and each provide 8 hours of support per month. The scheme can be accessed by…

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-22955 by Jeane Freeman on 7 June 2019, which NHS boards have (a) agreed and (b) published online their Annual Operational Plans.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: (a) The DG Health and Social Care has issued sign-off letters relating to the 2019-20 Annual Operational Plans (AOPs) received from all territorial and national NHS Health Boards, apart from NHS Health Scotland. The sign-off letters confirm that the Scottish …

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23401 by Jeane Freeman on 4 June 2019, how much of the money allocated to the Waiting Times Improvement Plan has been spent, broken down by NHS board, and what plans it has to review the Plan.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: Since the launch of the Waiting Times Improvement Plan additional funding has been made available to all territorial Health Boards and the Golden Jubilee in 2018-19 and 2019-20. The following tables sets out the additional funding allocated to each Health Boa…

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23401 by Jeane Freeman on 4 June 2019, what the new models of care to support the reduction in the number of patient cancellations for non-clinical reasons will be.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The Waiting Times Improvement Plan, which I launched in October 2018, set out a range of actions aimed at ensuring the delivery of waiting times standards and guarantees for all patients across Scotland by Spring 2021. Implementation of the Plan will increase…

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-25182 by Jeane Freeman on 17 September 2019, in light of the changes to the 2014 legislation, what plans it has to review Reshaping Care for Older People: A Programme for Change 2011-2021.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) 2014 Act requires Integration Authorities, which are responsible for planning and commissioning local health and social care services for all adults, including older people, as a minimum. To support this work, Inte…

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23403 by Jeane Freeman on 5 June 2019, which NHS boards have access to the Attend Anywhere online service; by what date this will be available to all boards, and how much this will cost.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: All territorial health boards have now signed up to using the Attend Anywhere Video Consultation service. Work is underway to scale up the use of this service now across Scotland and to embed this into routine practice. The greatest uptake has so far been see…

5 Dec 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23395 by Jeane Freeman on 4 June 2019, how much it has received in Barnett consequentials from increased NHS spending in each year since 2017-18, also broken down by how much of this has been allocated to its Health and Social Care Directorate.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The Scottish Government continues to pass on all health resource consequentials from UK related health spending to support the measures set out in the Health and Social Care Medium Term Financial Framework. Recent decisions taken by the UK Government have re…

3 Dec 2019 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to support hospitality businesses negatively impacted by the introduction of transient visitor levies.

27 Nov 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-23390 by Roseanna Cunningham on 6 June 2019, what method it uses to provide assistance to Aberdeen City Council in undertaking air quality assessment, and how much funding (a) has been allocated for this purpose in each of the last three and (b) is …

Answer · Roseanna Cunningham: The Scottish Government provides annual funding of ? £1 million to support local authorities in undertaking air quality assessment. Authorities are required to apply for the funding each year. Those authorities where air quality objectives are being exceeded …

6 Nov 2019 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government what advice it has received from the Permanent Secretary regarding its legislative priorities for the remainder of the parliamentary session.

29 Oct 2019 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the proposed Agri-Food and Nutrition Hub for Innovation for Aberdeen.

22 Oct 2019 · Portfolio Question

To ask the Scottish Government what correspondence it has had with Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire councils regarding the Non-Domestic Rates (Scotland) Bill.

10 Oct 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in recruiting a psychologist for NHS Grampian to resume its pain psychology service.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: There is currently a Senior Psychology vacancy equating to 0.4 WTE due to the previous post holder moving on to another role. This post will be advertised in the coming weeks as a 0.5 WTE position. In addition, NHS Grampian has allocated significant new reso…

10 Oct 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the effectiveness of the facilities available in the North East Scotland region to meet the future care demands of an aging population.

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The Scottish Government expects each regional area to work collaboratively to develop a Regional Asset Management Plan and the North Regional Asset Management Plan, which involves NHS Grampian, NHS Highland, NHS Tayside, NHS Orkney, NHS Western Isles and NHS …

2 Oct 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government how significant it considers the independent care sector is to overall health and care in Scotland, and what its response is to reports that the owner of 12 care homes has said that the independent care sector is "teetering towards the edge of a cliff".

Answer · Jeane Freeman: The independent care sector plays a vital contribution to achieving the Scottish Government’s vision of enabling people to live independently at home, or in a homely setting. We recognise that a sustainable residential care sector, plays a key role in achievi…

2 Oct 2019 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the Ecosystem Service Accounts 2019 published in March, which reported that "despite more Scottish vessels fishing in Scottish waters their proportional contribution to total fish capture in Scottish waters has decreased from 50.9% in 2008 to 35.9% in 2016", what the proport…

Answer · Fergus Ewing: Between the 2008 and 2016, the trends in the proportion of fish landed from Scottish waters excluding third countries activity are:by Scottish vessels: from 46% in 2008 to 36% in 2016;by Rest of UK vessels: from 9% in 2008 to 6% in 2016; and,by Rest of EU ves…