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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 3488 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S3W-10276

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Adam Ingram on 29 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many incidents of bullying in schools were recorded by education authorities in each year since 1999, also broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S3W-09508

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 29 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-8918 by Kenny MacAskill on 4 February 2008, what discussions it has had with the Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police regarding initiating investigations of criminality related to breaches of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, under section 17(1)(b).

on 4 February 2008, what discussions it has had with the Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police regarding initiating investigations of criminality related to breaches of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, under section 17(1)(b).

(S3W-09508)

Kenny MacAskill Investigations of alleged criminality are operational matters for the police to undertake in accordance with appropriate guidance from the Lord Advocate.

Question reference: S3W-09507

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 29 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-8918 by Kenny MacAskill on 4 February 2008, what sanctions are in place for police forces that fail to meet their obligations to investigate criminality related to breaches of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, under section 17(1)(b).

on 4 February 2008, what sanctions are in place for police forces that fail to meet their obligations to investigate criminality related to breaches of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, under section 17(1)(b).

(S3W-09507)

Kenny MacAskill Failure by an officer to fulfil their duties will be dealt with through the conduct and discipline procedures already in place within the Scottish police service.
There are also service complaints which are complaints about the service/policies of the force rather than about the conduct of individual (or group of) staff.

If these procedures reveal any evidence of criminality in investigations, this will be referred to the Procurator Fiscal.

Question reference: S3W-09088

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many prison officers were assaulted in Scottish prisons in each year since 1999, broken down by gender and category of assault.

I have asked Mike Ewart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

The following table illustrates the number of incidents recorded as Assault by Prisoner or Visitor on Staff in each year from 2001.

Year	Assault Prisoner On Staff	Assault Visitor On Staff	Grand Total
2001	113		113
2002	184		184
2003	203		203
2004	156	1	157
2005	166	3	169
2006	139	5	144
2007	122	3	125
2008	10		10
Grand Total	1,093	12	1,105

Question reference: S3W-09708

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-30197 by Mr Andy Kerr on 6 December 2006, how many (a) patients with a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy and (b) deaths from cardiomyopathy there were in each year from 1999, broken down by NHS board area.

The information requested is presented in tables 1 and 2.

(a) Table 1: Number of patients discharged from hospital where a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy was involved, by NHS board of residence 1999-2007.

NHS Board Residence	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007^P
Total	904	969	953	899	983	979	1019	1029	1076
Ayrshire and Arran	59	60	81	74	85	100	97	96	79
Borders	27	38	30	26	23	19	21	27	28
Dumfries and Galloway	18	28	19	27	36	24	18	29	26
Fife	61	66	76	66	59	47	51	55	56
Forth Valley	43	50	54	43	59	46	57	53	35
Grampian	122	119	99	86	96	131	142	141	165
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	225	259	236	201	245	213	219	232	228
Highland	58	67	57	60	69	78	83	67	95
Lanarkshire	89	67	90	78	82	81	80	79	92
Lothian	128	115	127	156	123	142	150	140	164
Orkney	*	*	*	*	7	*	**	*	*
Shetland	*	*	7	*	5	*	*	*	*
Tayside	47	66	57	52	70	63	62	79	75
Western Isles	14	16	15	13	12	14	10	8	10
Outside Scotland/ Not Known/ Other	10	16	*	10	12	14	17	17	16

Source: ISD SMR01.

^pProvisional.

Notes:

*Cell values of less than five have been suppressed to protect patient identity.

**Cell values have been suppressed where column totals would reveal the value of cell values of less than five.

(b) Table 2: Numbers of deaths registered where cardiomyopathy was the underlying cause of death, by NHS board of residence 1999-2006.

NHS Board Residence	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Total	99	118	91	120	101	102	96	89
Ayrshire and Arran	7	7	9	6	9	4	8	7
Borders	1	0	1	3	3	5	1	2
Dumfries and Galloway	3	1	4	2	1	2	2	2
Fife	9	8	9	3	6	4	5	8
Forth Valley	7	3	1	3	5	6	8	0
Grampian	6	13	4	8	8	13	15	10
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	24	38	31	33	19	20	24	19
Highland	9	12	5	16	8	7	7	7
Lanarkshire	9	9	5	6	11	10	11	10
Lothian	12	17	10	27	13	16	9	12
Orkney	0	0	0	0	1	2	0	0
Shetland	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
Tayside	10	7	10	9	14	8	3	10
Western Isles	1	0	0	1	2	2	2	0
Outside Scotland/ Not Known/ Other	1	2	2	3	1	3	1	1

Source: General Register Office for Scotland mortality data.

Question reference: S3W-09753

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 28 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many redundancies have been recorded in the (a) textiles, (b) agricultural, (c) electronics, (d) service and (e) tourism industries in (i) the Scottish Borders and (ii) Scotland, expressed both in real terms and as a percentage of the populations of (A) the Borders and (B) Scotland, in each year since 1999.

Statistics on the number of redundancies in Scotland are not held centrally. However, table 1 provides information on the number of employee jobs in the textiles, agriculture, electronics, service and tourism industries in the Scottish Borders in each year since 1999. Table 2 provides the same information for Scotland as a whole.

Please note that there are two discontinuities in the in the time series which mean that data for 2006 should not be compared with any data prior to 2006 and that data for 2003 should not be compared with data prior to 2003. The discontinuity caused by the change in 2006 is particularly large due to a change in the survey date.

Table 1 Employee jobs in selected industries, Scottish Borders, 1999-2006

Year	Textiles¹	Agriculture²	Electronics³	Service⁴	Tourism⁵
1999	3,800	2,300	**	27,200	3,400
2000	3,300	2,400	**	29,000	2,100
2001	3,100	2,400	**	28,000	2,800
2002	3,400	2,400	**	29,400	3,400
2003	2,800	2,300	**	30,800	5,300
2004	3,100	2,300	**	29,100	2,400
2005	2,600	2,200	**	31,900	4,000
2006	2,200	2,300	**	30,700	3,500

Table 2 Employee jobs in selected industries, Scotland, 1999-2006

Year	Textiles¹	Agriculture²	Electronics³	Service⁴	Tourism⁵
1999	16,100	28,200	62,300	1,639,900	153,600
2000	14,200	29,700	61,500	1,725,200	168,700
2001	11,900	29,300	53,500	1,811,400	170,000
2002	11,900	28,900	44,600	1,813,800	173,300
2003	10,600	28,700	37,300	1,870,200	171,700
2004	9,900	28,400	35,800	1,905,000	177,100
2005	8,800	28,200	33,400	1,964,700	180,600
2006	7,500	28,000	32,300	1,934,100	188,800

Source: Annual Business Inquiry (ABI), Office for National Statistics.

Notes:

**Data are confidential, 1947 statistics of trade act.

1. Textiles is defined as Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Codes 17.1-17.7.

2. Agriculture is defined SIC Codes 01.0-01.4.

3. Electronics is defined SIC Codes 30-33.

4. Service is defined as SIC codes 50-99.

5. Tourism is defined as SIC codes 55.1-55.4, 63.3, 92.5-92.7. Note that these industries are also included in the service industry.

6. Data are rounded to the nearest hundred.

7. ABI data are workplace based.

8. Data from 2003 onwards are aggregated from 2003 Census Area Statistics wards which differs from previous years data which were built from 1991 census wards.

9. Data from 1999-2002 are based on the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 1992 codes. Data from 2003 onwards are based on 2003 SIC codes.

10. The reference period for data in 1999-2005 was December. The reference period in 2006 was September.

Question reference: S3W-10030

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Maxwell on 27 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many houses in the public sector were suitable for families with more than one family member with a disability in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The number of public authority dwellings classified as suitable for people with disabilities can be accessed through the on-line Housing Statistics for Scotland information resource at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/SpecialNeeds.

Changes in building regulations over the past few years have lead to increased accessibility of the more recent mainstream new build, particularly in the social sector, resulting in higher levels of barrier-free housing which can more readily be adapted to meet the particular needs of people with disabilities.

Providers of social housing have a duty to accommodate a tenant''s needs where possible, including adapting existing mainstream housing as tenants'' needs change. Therefore in practice, people with disabilities may be housed in suitably adapted mainstream accommodation but this will not necessarily be identified through current data sources.

The information held centrally on housing for people with disabilities does not include detailed information on the individual property type or what type of household it would be suitable for.

Question reference: S3W-09969

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 25 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost to the public purse has been of the police investigation leading to charges of perjury against Tommy Sheridan, Rosemary Byrne and Graeme McIver.

Question reference: S3W-09143

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 21 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what scientific advice it has sought regarding the proposed major development of a large poultry farm in the Scottish Borders which will be situated below the flight path of a number of species of migratory birds.

Question reference: S3W-09142

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people are employed in the poultry industry, broken down by local authority area.

Information on the total number of people employed throughout all parts of the poultry industry is not available in the Scottish Government.

Information is available from the June Agricultural Census on the number of people working on specialist poultry holdings¹. The following table shows the number of people working full-time and part-time on 1 June 2007 by local authority area, and includes occupiers, spouses, family members, employees as well as casual and seasonal workers.

Local Authority	Holdings	Workers
Aberdeen City	*	*
Aberdeenshire	231	254
Angus	28	49
Argyll and Bute	64	76
Clackmannanshire	9	30
Dumfries and Galloway	129	212
Dundee City	0	0
East Ayrshire	29	48
East Dunbartonshire	7	17
East Lothian	14	50
East Renfrewshire	*	*
Edinburgh (City of)	*	*
Eilean Siar	73	52
Falkirk	18	33
Fife	69	228
Glasgow City	0	0
Highland	227	194
Inverclyde	*	*
Midlothian	8	23
Moray	40	48
North Ayrshire	27	43
North Lanarkshire	12	15
Orkney Islands	60	43
Perth and Kinross	71	148
Renfrewshire	*	*
Scottish Borders	79	317
Shetland Islands	23	23
South Ayrshire	28	29
South Lanarkshire	44	46
Stirling	34	45
West Dunbartonshire	9	12
West Lothian	27	59
Scotland	1,374	2,124

Source: June 2007 Agricultural Census.

Notes:

* - Indicates cell suppressed to prevent disclosure of information about individual holdings

1. A specialist poultry holding is classified as one where poultry accounts for more than two-thirds of that holding''s economic activities. Consequently, there will be some workers involved in poultry production on other holdings which are not included in these results. Data from the June Agricultural Census show that 89% of poultry in Scotland on 1 June 2007 were kept on specialist poultry holdings.

People working on more than one holding are only recorded once, which explains why for some local authorities the number of holdings is greater than the number of workers.