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-10093

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 17 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of water was lost due to leakages before it reached the consumer in each of the last five years.

Figures for leakage from the public network by the three previous water authorities are available in Parliament’s Information Centre in the publications, Public Water Supplies in Scotland, Water Resources Survey, available in Parliament’s Reference Centre. The Bib. number for the 1999-2000 report is 133372, for the 2000-2001 report is 33865 and for the 2001-2002 report is 33866. Scottish Water are due to publish the figures for 2002-03 and 2003-04 in forthcoming Water Resource reports.

Question reference: S2W-10280

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 15 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive which New Futures projects have been recommended to secure mainstream funding by the New Futures Advisory Management Group and which such projects (a) have and (b) have not secured mainstream funding.

The enterprise networks are working with individual projects to raise awareness of new funding sources. To date, 20 projects advise they have secured some level of funding beyond 2005. Many others are currently involved in discussions with potential funders. This activity is led by the projects themselves - it is not the role of the Advisory Management Group to recommend individual projects for continued funding. More detailed information on funding at project level is an operational matter for the enterprise networks.

Question reference: S2W-10236

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 13 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-9753 by Ross Finnie on 17 August 2004, which rivers or waters in the Borders area were monitored; where the monitoring sites are located, and when there were last reports from these sites.

Question reference: S2W-09973

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 9 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many police stations were closed in each of the last five years, broken down by police force area.

Information on the number of police stations closed in each of the last five years is not held centrally. The total number of stations closed in seven out of the eight police force areas over the past five years are shown in the following table. The figure for Strathclyde is the total over the past seven years.

Force	No. of Stations Closed
Central Scotland Police	0
Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary	1
Fife Constabulary	1
Grampian Police	11
Lothian and Borders Police	0
Northern Constabulary	7
Strathclyde Police	38
Tayside Police	4

Source: Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-09975

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide a breakdown of the ages of people appointed to public bodies in each of the last five years.

The information requested is as follows:

Age Range	Number
	April 1999 – March 2000	April 2000 – March 2001	April 2001 – March 2002	April 2002 – March 2003	April 2003 – March 2004
66+	11	26	20	16	16
56-65	72	102	92	87	87
46-55	105	95	110	93	80
36-45	24	29	60	44	31
35 and under	4	1	8	10	6

Question reference: S2W-09976

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many staff work for ministers in their private offices and what the annual cost is of employing these staff.

Sixty-four staff currently work in ministerial private offices at an estimated annual staff cost of £1,990,000. This figure includes ERNIC and overtime.

There are a further three Scottish Executive staff who are assigned to the Crown Office and one Crown Office employee who provide support to the Law Officers at an approximate annual cost of £98,638. This figure also includes ERNIC and overtime and is based on average staff costs.

Question reference: S2W-09941

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 7 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what national guidelines have been issued regarding the restraint of children when a party is acting in loco parentis; what duty there is on local authorities or other agencies to issue such guidelines; which local authorities and agencies have done so, and what monitoring is done in relation to the implementation of such guidelines.

The Executive has commissioned guidance on restraint from the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care, which is due to be published before the end of the year. Currently all residential care services children are required to have a written restraint policy according to the National Care Standards, and the Care Commission inspect twice yearly inspection against those standards. Monitoring is through that regular inspection process.

Question reference: S2W-09961

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 7 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients have to travel outwith their own NHS board area for renal dialysis, broken down by NHS board.

The information is set out in the following table.

NHS Board Area	Total no. of Patients on Hospital Haemodialysis	Patients Treated Outwith own NHS Board Area
Argyll and Clyde	105	42
Ayrshire and Arran	95	12
Borders	18	8
Dumfries and Galloway	47	*
Fife	87	11
Forth Valley	69	13
Glasgow	280	*
Grampian	141	*
Highland	70	*
Lanarkshire	166	28
Lothian	202	*
Tayside	108	*
No NHS Board reported **	37	-
Scotland	1,425	114

Source: Scottish Renal Registry.

Notes:

*Indicates figure of five or fewer. Also on grounds of patient confidentiality, the Island NHS Boards have not been included because of the very small patient numbers.

**NHS board of residence is derived from the patient’s postcode. The postcodes of 37 patients were missing. It is not possible to determine if these patients are receiving haemodialysis in their own NHS board area.

Patients may dialyse in a unit outwith their board of residence either for reasons of capacity or because they have chosen, for work or personal reasons, to attend such a unit.

Question reference: S2W-09966

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 7 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the latest response figures are for ambulances responding to emergencies (a) in total and (b) broken down by NHS board area.

The figures requested, which represent the performance of the Scottish Ambulance Service in July 2004, are listed in the following tables:

Boards where Priority Based Dispatch is in operation (the Ambulance Service is working towards reaching the Category A target by March 2008):

NHS Boards	Category A	Category B	Doctor’s Urgent
Achievement against 75% in 8 mins	Achievement against 95% in either 14/19/21 mins (dependant on population density)	Achievement against 95% within 15 mins of agreed time
Argyll and Clyde	49.1%	93.9%	92.0%
Ayrshire and Arran	55.0%	95.6%	88.5%
Borders	60.5%	93.7%	94.8%
Dumfries and Galloway	48.5%	89.5%	89.1%
Fife	62.4%	95.6%	97.9%
Forth Valley	54.0%	95.2%	98.7%
Grampian	70.5%	96.6%	99.7%
Greater Glasgow	51.7%	87.3%	79.8%
Highland	61.7%	91.8%	99.9%
Lanarkshire	41.8%	95.7%	90.3%
Lothian	60.6%	98.0%	95.9%
Tayside	65.6%	95.3%	95.4%
Scotland (PBD)	56.3%	93.8%	92.5%

Non-Priority Based Dispatch Boards:

Health Board	Emergency	Emergency	Doctor’s Urgent
Achievement against 50% in 8 mins	Achievement against 95% in 21 mins	Achievement against 95% within 15 mins of agreed time
Orkney	40.9%	86.4%	100.0%
Shetland	50.0%	81.8%	100.0%
Western Isles	54.8%	91.7%	100.0%
Scotland (non PBD)	51.7%	89.1%	100.0%

Question reference: S2W-10098

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of dangerous driving had a charge proved in each sheriff court district in each of the last five years.

The available information is given in the table.

Persons with a Charge Proved for Dangerous Driving¹ in Scottish Courts, by Court, 1998-2002

	Year of Sentence
	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002⁴
Sheriff Courts:
Aberdeen	47	47	25	38	51
Airdrie	5	10	11	13	32
Alloa	1	2	3	2	4
Arbroath	17	4	5	3	12
Ayr	20	24	23	24	17
Banff	4	4	5	1	4
Campbeltown	-	-	1	3	3
Cupar	14	9	7	10	13
Dingwall	14	9	2	14	6
Dornoch	3	1	1	-	-
Dumbarton	13	12	13	14	7
Dumfries	33	41	34	25	51
Dundee	21	23	9	18	20
Dunfermline	17	19	16	14	19
Dunoon	-	3	7	4	4
Duns	-	1	2	3	3
Edinburgh	68	60	44	61	65
Elgin	13	15	9	15	16
Falkirk	6	6	7	12	13
Forfar	14	16	8	11	27
Fort William	1	6	1	5	4
Glasgow	82	87	96	104	109
Greenock	8	12	12	9	5
Haddington	7	5	3	6	9
Hamilton	46	27	27	43	58
Inverness	14	18	11	14	21
Jedburgh	3	1	2	5	4
Kilmarnock	50	49	39	41	40
Kirkcaldy	25	24	19	42	32
Kirkcudbright	2	4	3	2	2
Kirkwall	5	3	1	3	2
Lanark	34	31	47	33	26
Lerwick	2	-	1	2	1
Linlithgow	14	21	21	22	39
Lochmaddy	-	-	-	-	1
Oban	4	1	3	1	1
Paisley	47	42	26	29	31
Peebles	2	2	-	1	2
Perth	17	12	10	20	18
Peterhead	12	7	1	4	8
Rothesay	1	-	2	-	-
Selkirk	7	2	2	3	6
Stirling	11	7	4	7	8
Stonehaven	6	14	6	12	10
Stornoway	2	3	-	3	2
Stranraer	4	6	4	7	11
Tain	2	8	1	4	9
Wick	3	6	2	9	7
Sub-total	721	704	620³	716	833
All courts²	740	711	624	718	837

Notes:

1. Where mainoffence.

2. Includesa small number of cases in High Court and district courts.

3. Includes44 cases where sheriff court unknown.

4. Figures may be underestimates due totime taken to record details of some court proceedings in SCRO system.