Question to the Scotland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what estimate he has made of the savings to his Department from the Q&A system in the (a) 12 months and (b) five years since 4 June 2014; what additional ICT systems or improvements to existing systems his Department has introduced or plans to introduce that would not have been feasible without the Q&A system; and what assessment he has made of the extent to which the system has made it easier to answer questions from hon. Members on time.

The electronic Q&A system has removed the requirement to subscribe to The Stationery Office (TSO) feed for Parliamentary Questions (PQs) resulting in a saving to the Department of £6,504.40 per year.

The Scotland Office has not had to introduce, plan to introduce or improve any existing ICT systems.

The Q&A system has allowed the department to answer PQs later in the day than the previous paper-based system, mitigating against the small number of cases where answering close to the deadline was unavoidable. It also allows hon and Rt hon Members to receive their answers instantly once uploaded, and on the electronic platform of their choosing.