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-12174

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 6 December 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what policies and measures it has in place to promote the local procurement of food by schools, hospitals and care homes.

It is Executive policy that purchasers should take account of healthy eatingobjectives when awarding contracts for food and catering services. By focussingon high quality, traditional and seasonal produce, we can help Scottish foodsuppliers compete for public contracts.

At the Scottish Public Procurement Conference in May the Finance Minister launched guidelines on incorporating sustainable development into public procurement of food and catering services. This guidance, which is available on the Scottish Procurement Directorate website:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/about/FCSD/PCSD-POL/00017839/susdevguide.aspx.gives guidance to public procurement officials, including those in local authorities and health boards, on how issues such as local food can be incorporated within their procurement procedures without falling foul of European procurement regulations.

The Executive itself does not buy food other than through its catering contractor. Decisions on the procurement of food by schools, hospitals and care homes are ultimately the responsibility of those bodies, and not the Executive.

Question reference: S2W-12283

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 30 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-11607 by Malcolm Chisholm on 10 November 2004 and to the statement to the Communities Committee by the Minister for Communities that “the rate of fuel poverty was halved between 1996 and 2002 but there has been further progress since then” (Official Report c 1384), what progress has been made in respect of levels of fuel poverty since 2002.

Question reference: S2W-12282

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 30 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive where documents for the period 1979 to 1987 pertaining to contaminated blood products used in transfusions that resulted in haemophiliacs becoming HIV-infected are located and whether these documents are subject to public interest immunity and, if so, what the reasons are and, if not, how these documents may be accessed.

The Scottish Executive holds some documents relevant to this issue and some documents will have been held by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and by NHS boards.

As such, any requests for documentation should be addressed to the relevant organisation. These will be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 on access to information held by Scottish Public Authorities which comes into effect from 1 January 2005.

Question reference: S2W-12284

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 30 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the announcement by the Minister for Communities on 4 November 2004 regarding his correspondence with the power companies on fuel charges for pensioners, which companies have responded and what the responses were.

Question reference: S2W-11606

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 25 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many properties were converted into sheltered housing complexes by local authorities in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S2W-12173

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 23 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what studies it is undertaking in order to reduce the rate of excess winter deaths to the levels achieved in Finland and Denmark, given that excess winter mortality in Scotland as a percentage increase over non-winter deaths is 16% in comparison with 10% in Finland and 12% in Denmark.

No study in these specific terms is currently being undertaken. However, the Executive has commissioned a number of research projects to monitor and evaluate the central heating programme, including its impact on health.

In the UK mortality increases in winter. International comparisons have shown that Scotland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, has relatively high levels of “excess winter mortality”, even when compared with countries with more extreme winters. Excess Winter Mortality Index (EWMI) figures given by Curwen (1997) showed that “excess winter mortality” in the United Kingdom was approximately double that of Scandinavian and other Northern European countries. However, the EWMIs for the Irish Republic, Spain, Portugal, and Italy were comparable to, or higher than those for the countries of the UK.

Question reference: S2W-11603

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 22 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many sheltered housing complexes were built by local authorities in each year since 1999.

The table gives the total numberof houses built by local authorities since 1999 for different categories of specialneeds housing.

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Sheltered housing for elderly	46	0	30	0	0
Sheltered wheelchair housing	0	0	18	27	53
Shared housing	1	2	0	0	0

Source: NB1 statistical returnsby councils to the Scottish Executive.

Question reference: S2W-11604

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 22 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many new sheltered housing complexes were built by (a) social landlords other than local authorities and (b) private developers, broken down by local authority area, in each year since 1999.

The following tables show respectively(a) the number of supported residential units built by housing associations in eachyear and (b) the number of private sector dwellings built for special needs in eachlocal authority area since 1999. The footnotes to the tables explain the sourcesof the information and the definitions used.

(a) Number of Supported Residential Units Built by Housing Associations

Unitary Authority	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Aberdeenshire	14	0	0	0	0
Angus	16	0	0	0	16
Argyll and Bute	0	0	0	0	1
City of Dundee	0	30	35	0	0
City of Edinburgh	33	0	11	11	0
City of Glasgow	14	61	51	30	0
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	3	0
Dumfries and Galloway	10	0	30	0	0
East Ayrshire	0	0	10	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	2	0	0	0	4
East Lothian	26	0	0	0	0
Falkirk	8	0	0	0	0
Fife	15	0	3	0	0
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	8
Moray	0	0	0	25	0
North Ayrshire	0	0	0	25	24
North Lanarkshire	30	5	5	3	1
Perth and Kinross	1	0	2	4	0
Renfrewshire	24	0	0	19	0
Shetland	2	0	0	0	0
South Ayrshire	3	0	0	0	0
South Lanarkshire	0	0	0	10	2
The Scottish Borders	0	2	0	0	0
West Dunbartonshire	12	1	0	8	0
West Lothian	0	7	0	0	0
Total	210	106	147	138	56

Source: Communities Scotland. Supported residential units include supported units designed specifically for older people, those designed for wheelchair use and other supported accommodation.

(b) Private Sector Dwellings Built for Special Needs

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Aberdeenshire	0	0	8	0	0
Argyll and Bute	0	0	0	1	0
East Ayrshire	0	5	8	0	0
Edinburgh (City of)	0	0	0	6	20
Inverclyde	0	0	5	64	195
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	1
West Lothian	0	0	30	0	0
Total	0	5	51	71	216

Source: NB2 statistical returns by councils to the Scottish Executive. Housing for special needs in this analysis includes sheltered housing, wheelchair housing and sheltered wheelchair housing.

Question reference: S2W-11605

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 22 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many properties were converted into sheltered housing complexes by (a) social landlords other than local authorities and (b) private developers, broken down by local authority area, in each year since 1999.

No information is held centrally on properties converted by private developers into sheltered housing. The table shows the number of supported residential units completed by housing associations through the rehabilitation of existing properties. The footnotes to the table explain the source and coverage of the information.

Unitary Authority	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
City of Edinburgh	1	3	0	0	5
City of Glasgow	8	8	5	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	4	0	0	0	0
Moray	4	0	0	0	0
North Lanarkshire	0	4	0	0	0
Renfrewshire	0	0	4	0	0
The Scottish Borders	16	0	0	0	0
Total	33	15	9	0	5

Source: Communities Scotland. Supported residential units include supported units designed specifically for older people, those designed for wheelchair use and other supported accommodation.

Question reference: S2W-11602

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 22 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many very sheltered housing dwellings there were in (a) 1998-99, (b) 1999-2000, (c) 2000-01, (d) 2001-02, (e) 2002-03 and (f) 2003-04 and how many it estimates that there will be by the end of 2004-05, broken down by local authority.

The table gives the number of very sheltered local authority, Scottish Homes and housing association dwellings at 31 March each year from 1999 to 2003, the latest date for which full information is available, and on the number of local authority very sheltered dwellings at 31 March 2004. Information is not held centrally on sheltered accommodation provided by the private sector.

The Scottish Executive does not compile estimates of future provision of very sheltered housing. Communities Scotland investment programme for 2004-05 includes a planned output of some 1,100 dwellings to meet particular needs of which on average around 5-10% will be sheltered/very sheltered supported units.

Very Sheltered Housing Provided by Local Authorities, Scottish Homes and Housing Associations

	Provided by Local Authorities, Scottish Homes and Housing Associations					Provided by Local Authorities
	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Scotland	1,389	1,689	1,822	2,023	2,787	230
Aberdeen City	94	95	86	86	126	76
Aberdeenshire	50	50	74	95	97	20
Angus	0	27	27	44	48	0
Argyll and Bute	29	29	29	29	194	0
Clackmannanshire	88	88	9	22	27	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	87	18	30	36	10
Dundee City	128	162	129	156	196	60
East Ayrshire	0	21	15	31	56	0
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	16	16	16	0
East Lothian	28	28	41	30	30	0
East Renfrewshire	41	41	42	49	54	0
Edinburgh, City of	109	109	250	253	193	0
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	10	32	0
Falkirk	47	47	98	104	101	27
Fife	83	88	89	90	183	0
Glasgow City	194	203	216	266	497	n/a
Highland	6	10	105	11	24	0
Inverclyde	39	39	36	39	39	0
Midlothian	35	35	26	27	39	0
Moray	32	56	28	31	56	0
North Ayrshire	25	25	25	25	32	0
North Lanarkshire	39	44	41	68	70	0
Orkney Islands	0	0	8	8	3	4
Perth and Kinross	79	115	68	65	95	0
Renfrewshire	30	46	40	46	46	0
Scottish Borders, The	69	67	44	60	88	n/a
Shetland Islands	25	25	25	25	28	25
South Ayrshire	8	8	20	18	9	0
South Lanarkshire	19	60	68	101	106	0
Stirling	20	20	21	21	21	0
West Dunbartonshire	25	34	34	36	90	0
West Lothian	47	30	94	131	155	8

Source: S1B returns from councilsto the Scottish Executive, and housing association data supplied by CommunitiesScotland.