Chamber and committees

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: S2W-22576

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 10 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-21090 by Tavish Scott on 20 December 2005 and noting that Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd has no statutory duty to record or publish passenger or crew details of chartered or private flights, whether, in its capacity as sole shareholder or otherwise, it has concerns regarding two alleged CIA-operated flights which landed at Wick and five at Inverness since September 2001.

Question reference: S2W-22577

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 10 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-21090 by Tavish Scott on 20 December 2005, what approaches Scottish Ministers or officials have made to the management of Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd asking it to check whether it holds any information or related documents suggesting that US Government officials or their proxies have operated flights through Wick and Inverness airports since September 2001.

Question reference: S2W-22588

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 7 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, if it is successful in its bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games, whether Scotland, as the host nation, can nominate sports for inclusion in the Games and, if so, whether it will nominate rugby union for inclusion and locate the competition in the Scottish Borders.

The information requested on the Commonwealth Games Sports Programme can be found at the following URL as at 26 January 2006 http://www.thecgf.com/faq/faq12.asp

Men’s rugby 7’s is one of the compulsory sports in the Commonwealth Games Sports Programme.

The Scottish Executive and Glasgow City Council have received advice from the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland indicating that the prospects for Scotland’s bid to be successful are maximised if the events venues are as close together as possible and if the use of these facilities is maximised where possible.

Therefore it is likely that, should Scotland be successful in its bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the majority of sporting events would be based within or close to Glasgow and this includes the rugby 7’s event. All of the bid partners are committed to ensuring the games, if awarded to Glasgow, involve and benefit the whole of Scotland. Benefits will accrue not just from the particular location of an event but also from the siting of training camps and holding camps.

Question reference: S2W-22621

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Colin Boyd on 7 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what duty the Lord Advocate has, in his capacity as a member of the Executive, to investigate allegations that rendition flights may have landed at Wick and Inverness airports, given the Executive’s position as owner and sole shareholder of Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd.

Question reference: S2W-22622

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Colin Boyd on 7 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there is a conflict of interest between the Lord Advocate’s role as a member of the Executive and his legal capacity as Scotland’s senior law officer with responsibility for legal advice to the Executive, in view of the Executive’s position as owner and sole shareholder of Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd and the allegations that rendition flights may have landed at Wick and Inverness airports.

Question reference: S2W-21993

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 6 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is aware of any breaches of its obligations under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and, if so, what these were.

The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 is primarily enforced by the Scottish Information Commissioner. The commissioner’s decisions detail where, in the opinion of the commissioner, an authority has failed to comply, and the respect in which the authority has failed to comply, with the general entitlement of access to information, and the steps which the authority must take to comply. Decisions, including those concerning the Executive, are published on the commissioner’s website http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/appealsdecisions/decisions/index.php.

Records indicate that the Executive has not met the statutory 20-day response time in about 20% of cases.

Question reference: S2W-22142

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 6 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many exemptions under section 18 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 it has applied to freedom of information requests in each of the last 12 months.

Question reference: S2W-22782

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 3 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with the Scottish Borders Council in respect of the council’s plans to remove the flexibility staffing allowance for secondary schools which is expected to result in the loss of 11 full-time teaching posts.

None. The staffing of individual schools is a matter for local education authorities as employers and consequently the Scottish Executive has not engaged in discussions with Scottish Borders Council about this issue. However, officials wrote to all local authorities on 19 December 2005 notifying them of the funding that will be available for additional teachers in 2006-07 and 2007-08, as well as clarifying that expenditure on teachers’ salaries was exempt from the efficiency savings identified in the 2004 Spending Review.

Question reference: S2W-22584

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 3 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what duties it has in respect of flights through airports operated by Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd.

Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd (HIAL), as the licensed operator of its 10 airports, is responsible for meeting UK Civil Aviation Authority and Department for Transport regulatory, and all statutory, requirements relating to its duties as the licensee of these airports. HIAL is also accountable via its Board of Directors to the Scottish ministers for the operation and management of its business.

Question reference: S2W-22450

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 2 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of individuals convicted of a child sex offence since 1999 have reoffended within one year of their release.

The following table provides information on the percentage of offenders convicted of a crime of indecency who were reconvicted for any crime within one year.

Offenders Released from a Custodial Sentence or Given A Non-Custodial Sentence, 1999-2002, Whose Index Conviction¹ was for a Crime of Indecency: Percentage Reconvicted² Within One Year.

	Percentage Reconvicted² within 1 year:
	1999	2000	2001	2002
All crimes of indecency³	11	10	12	12
Crimes of indecency with a child victim⁴	12	11	13	12
Other crimes of indecency^3,5	8	9	11	12

Notes:

1. For each offender in the cohort, this is the conviction which resulted in a non-custodial sentence being served or the one which had originally led to a custodial sentence being served.

2. Reconvictions for any crime or offence in the Scottish Offenders Index.

3. Excluding prostitution offences.

4. Only those crimes of indecency which by definition had child victim(s): defilement of a girl under 13, defilement of a girl under 16, person with custody and care of girl and causing her seduction; lewd and libidinous practices.

5. The Scottish Offenders Index does not otherwise hold information on victim characteristics so no data are available on how many persons were convicted of other types of crime, e.g. rape or indecent assault, which involved child victims.