General Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 2 May 2024.
Jeremy Balfour
Conservative
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has followed the advice issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office regarding appropriate governance and controls for the use of children’s Scottish candidate numbers for research in the education system. (S6O-03387)
Jeremy Balfour
Conservative
As the Cabinet secretary will be aware, when the health and wellbeing census was run in 2022, no governance was put in place around the use of children’s Scottish candidate numbers. For example, candidate numbers are used as pupil email addresses in some schools. The ICO has advised the Scottish Government that it needs to address serious risks of harm to children, due to the intimate nature of the data that is gathered about pupils and their families.
Will the Scottish Government commit to review and—if found to be infringing the general data protection regulation and ethical standards for health research—to delete the data that was gathered from 134,000 children who participated in the survey without being informed of those risks?
Jenny Gilruth
Scottish National Party
As the member will be aware, in the past year or so, my officials have had a series of meetings with the Information Commissioner’s Office on that very issue. I understand that the ICO has also met local authorities to discuss the same issues with them. As a result, the Government is reviewing and enhancing our internal processes and procedures to further reduce the risks of using the Scottish candidate number for our own statistical and research purposes.
Those enhancements are also about ensuring that we have the improved technical and organisational measures that are designed to more effectively implement data protection principles. It will also ensure that improved safeguards will deliver on better meeting the requirements that are set out under United Kingdom general data protection regulation requirements.
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
