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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: S6W-33033

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what data it has on what the cost of replacing stolen railway materials has been in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-32979

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it monitors the transparency and accountability of decisions made by the Energy Consents Unit, and what plans it has to enhance public reporting on how projects are evaluated.

Decisions on applications made under sections 36 and 37 of the Electricity Act 1989 are made by the Scottish Ministers. All information relating to applications to build, operate or modify onshore electricity generating stations with capacities exceeding 50 megawatts, as well as all applications to install overhead power lines, large oil and gas pipelines, and associated infrastructure, are published and searchable on our Energy Consents website , at https://www.energyconsents.scot/.

Question reference: S6W-33013

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what measures are being implemented to deter organised crime groups from targeting railway depots and infrastructure.

Organised crime groups look to identify any opportunity to increase their wealth and the railway network is not immune from this threat. While it is for rail networks and British Transport Police to ensure that measures are in place to safeguard depots and the wider infrastructure, partners on the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce continue to work together through the Multi Agency Tasking and Delivery Board, based at the Scottish Crime Campus, to take measures to disrupt this illegal activity.

Question reference: S6W-32856

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what legal implications there would be in the event that the 2016 memorandum of understanding with Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council, committing the Scottish Government to spend an initial £200 million of additional funding to help improve journey times and increase capacity on key rail links between Aberdeen and the Central Belt, is not met within the 10-year period.

Question reference: S6W-33187

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how funding for maintenance of the A90 has compared with those for other major roads in Scotland over the last five years.

Transport Scotland’s trunk road maintenance budget is not allocated on a route or part-route basis. It is distributed based upon need and prioritisation of schemes developed from regular inspections and condition surveys.

Please see below for maintenance spend for all trunk roads in the north east of Scotland over the last 5 full financial years.

Route	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
A9	20,113,845	30,851,626	28,231,767	28,080,478	30,957,836
A90	12,486,316	20,673,965	23,045,538	22,484,864	21,571,032
A92	6,087,965	6,793,875	7,187,375	7,424,957	8,649,723
A95	3,814,728	3,782,976	5,220,231	3,940,992	3,723,032
A96	5,244,010	7,711,004	13,408,285	11,635,776	14,631,896
A972	591,040	171,361	150,362	326,787	231,688
A977	162,019	297,687	590,530	1,164,008	521,511
M90	19,262,731	13,880,928	8,936,516	14,915,328	19,591,128

The above figures exclude expenditure on the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route / Balmeddie to Tipperty section of the A90. The contract with the DBFO Company, Aberdeen Roads Limited (ARL), requires it to fulfil the contractual obligations in respect of maintenance at ARL’s own cost. These associated costs are not shared with Transport Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-33173

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what measures are in place to ensure that the drainage systems along the A90 are functioning effectively.

Transport Scotland contracts for the management, maintenance and operation of the trunk road network contain highly prescriptive requirements to keep drainage assets working and trunk road traffic moving safely. For example, the contracts contain annual routine and cyclic maintenance requirements that are designed to ensure drainage assets are working and checked for deterioration. Transport Scotland contracts also contain requirements for Operating Companies to complete weekly driven inspections of all trunk roads to identify safety critical defects. If any are identified, they are required to address the issue or make it safe within set timescales. In addition to this, Transport Scotland's Operating Companies are required to maintain Disruption Risk Management Registers to identify vulnerable locations subject to frequent disruption. Where such sites are identified, the Operating Companies are required to investigate the issue and look to deliver solutions to improve journey time reliability.

Question reference: S6W-33158

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many junctions along the A90 conform to current road safety design standards.

The A90 is a trunk road with considerable history having been periodically improved over the last 60 years to its current alignment and arrangement. The various improvements will have been designed in accordance with design standards that were in force at that time. As standards evolve they are not retrospectively applied to existing sections of road, unless changes or improvements at a given location are considered necessary.

Question reference: S6W-33190

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the maintenance priorities for the A90 over the last five years have been aligned with future infrastructure development plans.

Current best practice for the management of large infrastructure networks is set out in the international standard for the management of assets ISO 55001, which requires organisations to adopt a formal asset management approach. Transport Scotland is the first UK trunk road authority to reach this standard demonstrating that public funds are being spent in the most efficient and effective manner.

We have developed and implemented a formal value management process for roads structural maintenance schemes for assessing the benefits of undertaking maintenance and the associated risks of not undertaking maintenance. Each scheme in the one-year maintenance programme is scored against a range of criteria:

a. Safety – to maintain a safe network and assess the level of risk to the road user. Those schemes that are safety critical or have a high level of risk will have the highest priority scoring.

b. Journey Time Reliability – to assess the level of risk to the service, e.g. route availability.

c. Environment and Sustainability – to assess the impact of a scheme on the environment, noise reduction, carbon factor, recycling and sustainability.

d. Value for Money – to consider the economic efficiency of the scheme and seek to minimise the whole life costs (i.e. invest now to deliver savings later).

The scores are used to determine which schemes should remain in the current year and which can be deferred until the following year. This ensures that those parts of the network with the greatest need are addressed and that the available funds are allocated in a fair, objective and transparent manner.

The prioritisation of bridges and structures maintenance follows as similar process with a Value Management Risk Approach using the following four criteria:

a. Safety – the overall effects on the end user, including fatalities and injuries that would be caused by a failure.

b. Functionality – the impact of a loss or reduction in service. This may be considered at route, structure or component level.

c. Environment – Environmental impacts, such as pollution caused through traffic delay, the sensitivity of the route/area, etc.

d. Sustainability – of both expenditure and workload, where the aim is to reach a state of steady expenditure and workload, avoiding the build-up of a backlog of unavoidable, essential work by doing effective, targeted preventative maintenance.

The tool includes work identified from inspections, structural capacity assessments, “At-Risk” supports, sub-standard parapets, flood risk, scour risk, environment and local factors for all structure types. It does not yet include other risk programmes, such as hidden defects or safety-critical fixings.

Question reference: S6W-33185

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many times sections of the A90 have been closed for maintenance in each of the last five years, and what the average duration of closure was.

The mainline of the A90 trunk road has been closed to facilitate road maintenance on 12 occasions over the following 5 full financial years:

2019-20 - 0

2020-21 - 2

2021-22 - 0

2022-23 - 5

2023-24 - 5

These closures took place overnight and averaged 13.5 hours per night in duration.

Additionally, there has been 53 slip road closures on the A90 trunk road over the same period. These overnight closures averaged 12.5 hours in duration. During these closures the mainline A90 remained open.

Question reference: S6W-33530

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 22 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients from rural areas have been referred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for treatment in each of the last five years.