Questions and answers

Question reference: S5O-00472

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 December 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 14 December 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made with the Aberdeen City Region Deal.

Question reference: S5O-00340

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 November 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its discussions with the UK Government regarding Brexit.

Question reference: S5O-00317

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made implementing its Circular Economy Strategy.

Question reference: S5W-03224

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 3 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the potential impact on tourism, what discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding any requirement to pay for travel visas following the UK’s vote to leave the EU.

Question reference: S5O-00181

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how its reforms of school governance will contribute to closing the attainment gap between pupils from the poorest and wealthiest backgrounds.

Question reference: S5W-01882

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 August 2016
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 14 September 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had with the renewables industry regarding a coordinated regional approach to improve efficiency and maximise the benefits of offshore wind development on the east coast.

Since May's election, both my officials and I have undertaken an intense programme of engagement to meet with all the Scottish offshore developers and many of the companies within the related Scottish supply chain. Through my co-chairmanship of the Offshore Wind Industry Group, and as part of my keynote address and bilateral meetings with industry stakeholders and developers at Global Offshore Wind in Manchester, I have emphasised the importance of utilising our indigenous supply chain. Whilst visiting Bifab, Global Energy Group, Babcock International and CS Wind I have also offered support to ensure that these key Scottish supply-chain companies are as competitive as possible when bidding for contracts both in Scotland and further afield.

Question reference: S5W-01885

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 August 2016
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 29 August 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to encourage active travel in the Angus North and Mearns constituency.

The Scottish Government provides direct funding to local authorities for active travel through the Cycling, Walking, Safer Streets (CWSS) ring fenced budget within the local authority settlement. The CWSS has allocated £475,000 to Angus and over £1million to Aberdeenshire over the last three financial years.In addition, the Scottish Government provides grant funding to organisations to encourage sustainable and active travel. These include Sustrans Scotland, Cycling Scotland and Paths for All. Since 2014-15, the following projects have been taken forward in this area.Cycling Scotland has distributed £30,000 for projects including a Cycle Friendly Development Grant in 2016 to the Angus Bike Hub and for a Cycle Friendly campus for Dundee and Angus college, as well as supporting Bikeability on-road training at primary schools in the area.Angus and Aberdeenshire have been allocated £214,000 and £526,000 respectively in 2015-16 and 2016-17 through the Smarter Choices, Smarter Places Programme, which is administered by Paths for All. Projects funded in Angus and Aberdeenshire have included support for the development of school travel plans, workplace travel plans, walking and cycling signage, information and publicity, path promotion, bike recycling, WOW (walk once a week with schools) and a cycle hire scheme.

Question reference: S5W-01883

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 August 2016
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 26 August 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress is being made in rolling out superfast broadband in the Angus North and Mearns constituency.

The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme has delivered fibre broadband to more than 7,000 homes and businesses in Angus. At present 59% of premises in Angus are connected to fibre broadband. By the end of March 2018 at least 93% will have fibre access. Community Broadband Scotland is also supporting the development of a small number of community-led projects in Angus. In total, these projects could deliver a broadband solution to over 2,000 premises.

Question reference: S5W-01884

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 August 2016
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 19 August 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to give communities the opportunity to have a say in the future design of their areas.

The Scottish Government is committed to empowering communities and involving them in the planning process.

On 3 August 2016, I announced funding of £300,000 across two grant schemes – the Design Charrettes Programme and the Activating Ideas Fund. These funds provide a way of enabling people across Scotland to have their say on the long-term future of their community.

We continue to support communities in the use of The Place Standard, an innovative new tool to support the delivery of high quality places.

The Scottish Government is also currently considering the report of the independent planning review which contains recommendations designed to support community inclusion and empowerment. We intend to consult on a white paper in winter 2016.

Question reference: S5W-01638

Asked by: Mairi Gougeon, MSP for Angus North and Mearns, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2016
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 16 August 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has provided to registered social landlords in each year since 2007 to carry out home adaptions for (a) older and (b) disabled people, also broken down by the number of homes that have received this support.

The Scottish Government provides an annual funding allocation to help registered social landlords (RSLs) meet the needs of their tenants who require housing adaptations. Funding is not ring-fenced for specific client groups and no target number of adaptations is set for individual RSLs. Instead, each RSL, with the assistance of suitably qualified experts such as occupational therapists, will determine the relative priority of each individual application for an adaptation.

The following table sets out the total funding provided to RSLs in Scotland for adaptations from 2007-08 to 2015-16.

Year	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
Spend (£m)	13.172	11.154	12.144	10.318	12.124	10.916	12.961	13.065	13.221

Monitoring of the RSL adaptations programme was introduced in 2012-13. Whilst it is not possible to provide details on the number of homes that have received adaptations supported by Scottish Government funding, the following table sets out the number of separate adaptations for each client group from 2012-13 to 2014-15 as reported by RSLs.

Client Group	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
Disabled person	2359	2716	3099
Older person	2980	2865	3027
Not reported	200	221	94
Total number of adaptations	5539	5802	6220

We will provide SPICe with the number of adaptations for 2015-16 by client group before the end of the calendar year.

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