- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 31 March 2025
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 3 April 2025
To ask the First Minister what engagement the Scottish Government has had with the UK Government regarding what assessment has been made of the potential impact of an extension of US tariffs on Scottish businesses that export to the US market.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 3 April 2025
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has had any discussions with (a) educational organisations, such as School Leaders Scotland, and (b) teachers' unions regarding restricting mobile phone use by pupils in school.
Answer
In August 2024, I published refreshed guidance to schools on the use of mobile phones, as part of the joint action plan to respond to the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research.
This guidance was developed in collaboration with the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS). All members of SAGRABIS were involved in discussions about the content of the guidance and agreed to its publication. Members of SAGRABIS include School Leaders Scotland (SLS), the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), NASUWT, Scottish Secondary Teachers Association (SSTA), the Association of Head Teachers and Deputes in Scotland (AHDS), and UNISON. Other members of SAGRABIS include COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education (ADES), the Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE), the Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists (ASPEP), parents’ representatives and respectme.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many local authorities have (a) reduced or (b) eliminated modern language teaching in (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools in the last five years.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not publish local authority level data for the items requested.
Scottish Government does, however, publish related data on language learning and teaching at a national level. The table below provides a summary of data from the biennial 1+2 languages survey, summarising provision of language teaching for the first additional language (known as “L2”) and the second additional language (known as “L3”) in 2019, 2021 and 2023.
| | Primary schools | Secondary schools |
| | L2 | L3 | L2 | L3 |
2019 | 88% full* | 48% | 70% full | 83% |
2021 | 98% (69% full, 29% partial) | 64% | 100% (70% full, 30% partial) | 87.5% |
2023 | 99% (68% full, 31% partial) | 76% | 100% (61% full, 39% partial) | 88% |
*Note: Full implementation of L2 indicates it is taught continuously from P1-P7 in primary and S1-S3 in secondary. Partial implementation indicates the L2 is offered, but not taught continuously. The 2019 Survey only gathered data on full L2 implementation. The L3 entitlement does not require it to be taught continuously so full/partial figures are not provided.
The full Survey reports are available on the Scottish Government website:
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish all communications, meeting notes and correspondence between ministers and (a) SSE and (b) Equinor regarding the Peterhead gas-fired power station project.
Answer
To avoid accusations of bias or undue influence in planning and consenting decisions, Minsters cannot undertake any discussions with developers or objectors about the merits or otherwise of forthcoming, or live applications.
Ministers may of course undertake meetings with companies, as part of everyday Scottish Government business. However, these meetings do not contain conversations about specific planning applications and are properly recorded to ensure full transparency.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 31 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the cost to date has been for the development of the NHS Scotland app, including the cost of any contracts awarded, and whether there has been any budgetary overspend compared with initial projections.
Answer
Delivery of the health and social care app for Scotland is being taken forward by NHS Education Scotland (NES) as part of the wider Digital Front Door programme. The majority of costs to date have been on mobilising the team required and developing the Outline Business Case. NHS NES staff have participated in the Civtech Challenge, which has allowed NES to understand what is required to develop the app in a way that integrates into Scottish Government plans to digitise postal communications. More information about this can be found at: https://www.civtech.scot/civtech-9-challenge-8-secure-individualised-and-effective-communications-channel.
The bulk of development costs on the app specifically will be incurred from 2025-26 onwards, as part of the indicative programme budget for 2025-26 set at £12 million.
The Scottish Government has provided NES with the following funding for the Digital Front Door Programme:
Scottish Government has also awarded no contracts associated with this work, although NES, as the delivery partner, did spend £210,000 from their allocated budget on a contract to develop the Outline Business Case and further contracts will be awarded by NES as they move into this delivery phase. There has been no budgetary overspend compared with projections to date.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much each NHS board has spent on repairing and maintaining imaging equipment in the last five years, also broken down by how many pieces of equipment have been repaired and/or maintained.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not collect information on maintenance costs for imaging equipment held by NHS Boards. As holding bodies, NHS Boards are responsible for the management of their infrastructure assets and for identifying maintenance requirements. Maintenance costs are usually met from Boards’ delegated budgets.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what the deadline is for the NHS Scotland app to be fully operational across all NHS boards, and what contingencies are in place should there be delays.
Answer
The online app for health and social care, which is part of our ‘digital front door’ programme, will initially be available to a small cohort of people in Lanarkshire from December 2025. Whilst work continues on preparing for that initial release, we are simultaneously engaging with Health Boards and COSLA to develop the rollout approach beyond Lanarkshire. It is our intention to set this out in more detail from Summer 2025.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much NHS Scotland has spent on (a) legal fees, (b) settlements and (c) tribunals related to disputes in the last five years.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. This would need to be requested from the NHS Boards directly. It is for NHS Boards to ensure best use of available resources to support service delivery whilst prioritising patient safety and care.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that NHS board executive pay reflects performance outcomes, such as waiting times and patient care quality.
Answer
NHS Board Executive staff are required to set objectives annually which are aligned to the Board strategy and priorities. Executives must have objectives which demonstrate the contributions made to national and regional working, the delivery of the Health and Care strategy and the delivery of specific Board and local objectives. The performance of individual Executive staff is measured against these agreed objectives, with annual pay progression dependant on performance against these objectives.
There is a national governance and accountability process each year overseen by the National Performance Management Committee (NPMC) which provides scrutiny of performance management arrangements for NHS Scotland’s Executive staff. The NPMC requests and reviews evidence from NHS Boards to ensure that performance markings above fully acceptable are robust. Only after this process is complete can Executive staff then receive pay progression.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 28 March 2025
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it chose to develop a bespoke NHS Scotland app and did not adopt the NHS England model, which has been operating for several years.
Answer
Unlike the NHS App in England, which is currently just for the NHS, our planned service is for both health and social care. The development is also linked into wider digital developments for Scottish public services overall, particularly in relation to a common approach to how the people of Scotland receive official communication digitally. Officials have, however, engaged extensively with NHS England to explore both whether we could use the NHS App and to take learning from the approach to the development of the NHS App.
This engagement confirmed that the NHS App in England was developed specifically in support of NHS Trusts in England and configured specifically for England’s existing IT infrastructure that isn't used in Scotland. We are therefore unable to adopt that product or easily adapt it given our differing structures and requirements. Wales have a hybrid – they are able to use elements of the technology used to create the NHS App, as Wales share a lot of common infrastructure with England, but were also unable to fully use the NHS App in Wales so have also had to create their own app (the ‘NHS Wales App’).
We are, however, keen to learn from that experience, and continue to work closely with NHS England and the other UK nations to share our experiences and encourage common approaches, especially interfacing digital systems that are shared or used commonly across the UK.
