- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 23 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive which local authorities have vired monies from this year's budget for older people and home care in order to meet other demands, what the amounts involved were and where the money was re-allocated.
Answer
The vast majority of Scottish Executive grant support to local government for expenditure on services, including home care and other social work provision for older people, is not ring-fenced or hypothecated. It is for each local authority to establish its priorities and set its budget consistent with meeting its statutory requirements and Scottish Executive policy. Following from the 2000 Spending Review, substantial additional resources have been provided for the next three years to enhance and improve care services for older people. We are discussing with local authorities what we expect to be achieved from these extra funds and shall issue detailed guidance early this year.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 December 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 19 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what response it has made or will make to the conclusion of the 1997 report by the Scottish Ambulance Service Association Pensions and Retirement Age Working Group that "the proportion of front-line staff who are retiring on ill-health grounds is unacceptably high".
Answer
The report concerned was produced by the Ambulance Service Association and is based on statistical evidence from Ambulance Services in England and Wales between 1991-92 and 1994-95. In Scotland the occupational health and safety service strategy Towards a Safer Healthier Workplace, which was published in December 1999, makes clear that NHS in Scotland organisations must develop policies aimed at reducing costs associated with OHSS issues, including, sickness absence, injury benefits claims, and early retirement costs due to illness, accidents and injury.Our aim is to provide security of employment and to retain experienced officers in useful employment within the service.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 December 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Sam Galbraith on 16 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what the percentage increases were in (a) water and (b) sewerage charges in (i) 1996-97, (ii) 1997-98, (iii) 1998-99, (iv) 1999-2000 and (v) 2000-01, using 1995-96 as the base figure and broken down by water authority.
Answer
The percentage increases in water charges are shown in the following table, for each former regional council area. The results vary within water authority areas as the charges were progressively harmonised from the different levels charged by the former regional councils.
| Band D Water Charges, year on year percentage change |
| 1996-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 |
East of Scotland Water Area |
| Borders | -4% | 5% | 8% | 0% | 20% |
| Forth Valley | 4% | 13% | 40% | 21% | 37% |
| Fife | 5% | 12% | 25% | 2% | 30% |
| Lothian | -1% | 5% | 8% | 0% | 20% |
North of Scotland Water Area |
| Grampian | 4% | 7% | 11% | 8% | 39% |
| Highland | 2% | 7% | 11% | 8% | 39% |
| Tayside | 4% | 10% | 16% | 16% | 45% |
| Orkney | -5% | -4% | -1% | 8% | 39% |
| Shetland | -2% | -4% | -1% | 8% | 39% |
| Western Isles | -38% | -4% | -1% | 8% | 39% |
West of Scotland Water Area |
| Dumfries and Galloway | 8% | 6% | 8% | 4% | 12% |
| Strathclyde | 3% | 6% | 8% | 4% | 12% |
Sewerage charges were not separately levied by the former regional councils, but were included in the council tax. There is therefore no meaningful comparison with 1996-97. Domestic Sewerage Relief Grant offset most of the domestic sewerage charge in 1996-97, and a decreasing proportion thereafter until 1998-99. The figures shown in the table below show the change in the gross amount levied by the water authority, before the deduction of the grant.
| Band D Sewerage Charges, year on year percentage change |
| 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 |
| East of Scotland Water Area | 8% | 12% | 18% | 25% |
| North of Scotland Water Area | 7% | 14% | 13% | 48% |
| West of Scotland Water Area | 6% | 17% | 20% | 27% |
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 December 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 12 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of (a) people receiving Council Tax Benefit but not 100% benefit and (b) people not in receipt of Council Tax Benefit were in payment arrears in (i) 1996-97, (ii) 1997-98, (iii) 1998-99, (iv) 1999-2000 and to date in the current financial year.
Answer
This information is not held centrally. Social security benefits including Council Tax Benefit are reserved matters and are the responsibility of the Department of Social Security.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jackie Baillie on 10 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive how many households where the householder is a pensioner currently (a) have central heating and (b) do not have central heating and what criteria it uses to determine whether a household is a household where the householder is a pensioner.
Answer
The 1996 Scottish House Condition Survey estimated that 477,000 pensioner households had central heating and 88,000 did not. We estimate that in the four years since the survey was carried out the number without central heating will have fallen to around 70,000. For the purpose of the survey a pensioner household is one which contains one or more adults of pensionable age and no children.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 23 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 10 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to Clive Fairweather's evidence to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee on 11 September 1999 that the reported average (net present value) #11,000 cost per prisoner place (CPPP) at Kilmarnock Prison was not directly comparable with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) average CPPP of #28,000 (Official Report, col. 1666), whether, if the average CPPP at Kilmarnock was calculated on the same basis as the SPS figure, it would be #26,000 and, if not, what it would be.
Answer
I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:
The total cost of HMP Kilmarnock over the 25-year period of the contract is approximately £130 million in Net Present Value terms. This equates to an annual cost per prisoner place of around £11,000 in Net Present Value terms.Using the same methodology, the annual cost per prisoner place for the Scottish Prison Service designing, constructing, financing and operating HMP Kilmarnock over 25 years would be around £21,000 in Net Present Value terms.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 9 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-2183 by Iain Gray on 16 November 1999, how many elderly people have attended day care centres, broken down by local authority, in the years 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-date.
Answer
The following table details the number of people attending day centres primarily intended for older people in 1997 and 1998. 1998 is the latest year for which data are available as this census is now conducted on a triennial basis. The methodology used in 1998 was different from that used in 1997 and therefore figures for the two years are not comparable.
People Attending1 Day Centres for Older People2 1997 and 1998
| Number Attending 1997 | Number Attending 1998 |
Aberdeen City | 684 | 594 |
Aberdeenshire | 865 | 700 |
Angus | 265 | 263 |
Argyll & Bute | 306 | 141 |
Clackmannanshire | 52 | 60 |
Dumfries & Galloway | 931 | 629 |
Dundee City | 217 | 178 |
East Ayrshire | 130 | 147 |
East Dunbartonshire | 20 | 20 |
East Lothian | 0 | 0 |
East Renfrewshire | 103 | 122 |
Edinburgh City | 1,663 | 962 |
Eilean Siar | 66 | 59 |
Falkirk | 108 | 300 |
Fife | 627 | 603 |
Glasgow City | 2,256 | 1,370 |
Highland | 1,302 | 1,261 |
Inverclyde | 58 | 188 |
Midlothian | 42 | 17 |
Moray | 120 | 116 |
North Ayrshire | 180 | 184 |
North Lanarkshire | 477 | 565 |
Orkney | 111 | 105 |
Perth & Kinross | 430 | 344 |
Renfrewshire | 705 | 727 |
Scottish Borders | 433 | 351 |
Shetland | 133 | 148 |
South Ayrshire | 714 | 694 |
South Lanarkshire | 914 | 721 |
Stirling | 38 | 48 |
West Dunbartonshire | 436 | 457 |
West Lothian | 473 | 288 |
Scotland | 14,859 | 12,362 |
Source: SEHD, Community Care Statistics, D1-B Return.
Notes:
1. Number attending is the number of people on the register of a centre during the census week in March, regardless of whether they actually attend the centre during that week.
2. Figures are for day centres primarily intended for older people, some people attending these centres may belong to other client groups; it is also possible that some older people may attend centres primarily intended for other client groups.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 9 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-10377 by Susan Deacon on 1 November 2000, whether local authorities had to specify how any balance of resources which was not required to tackle delayed discharge problems would be spent and whether the details of any proposed redeployments of funding had to be authorised by the Executive.
Answer
Where local authorities have judged that they can resolve problems of delayed discharge without using all of the resources allocated, they have been asked to redeploy the balance to improve the level and extent of other services, for example those provided to older people.The department will consider changes made to proposals or revised proposals and will make adjustment to allocations if these are not found to be satisfactory.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 9 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-10377 by Susan Deacon on 1 November 2000, whether it will undertake any independent monitoring of whether local authorities' proposals to address problems of delayed discharge are being implemented successfully.
Answer
Each local authority is required to provide confirmation in mid-January 2001 that its proposal (or revised proposal) is being acted upon successfully.In conjunction, the department will continue to monitor delayed discharge through a national census. These will supply an ongoing flow of information on numbers, reasons and causes of delayed discharge. Among other things, this information will show whether or not local plans are delivering on outcomes.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 9 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-10377 by Susan Deacon on 1 November 2000, whether any balance of the resources allocated to each local authority to resolve problems of delayed discharge which is not required for this purpose is ring-fenced for the care of the elderly.
Answer
Where local authorities have judged that they can resolve problems of delayed discharge without using all the resources allocated, they have been asked to deploy the balance to improve the level and extent of other services, for example those provided to older people.
