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: S3W-00792

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider banning the practice of recruitment visits to hospitals by the armed forces targeting NHS staff, in light of pressure on NHS boards to deliver high-quality health provision to patients.

The Scottish Governmenthas no plans to ban recruitment visits to hospitals by the British Armed Forces.Recruitment visits are in the main held for recruitment to the reserves or TerritorialArmy (TA) and are carried out with the permission of the hospital. NHS staff areentitled under employment law legislation to take special leave with pay to performessential civic and public duties, such as serving as a reserve or in the TA.

Question reference: S3W-00791

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many NHS employees have been recruited into the British armed forces following recruitment activities in hospitals and what the resulting impact has been on the delivery of health services to patients in each year since 2003.

Question reference: S3W-00793

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider issuing guidance to all bodies for which it has responsibility to ensure that recruitment shortages in the British armed forces do not lead to diminished public services through significantly increased recruitment activity by the armed forces in devolved areas.

Question reference: S3W-00479

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Adam Ingram on 15 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether, under the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007, those who have enhanced disclosure certificates for working with children will require a separate certificate for working with vulnerable adults and, if so, whether it will review this requirement.

Under the Protectionof Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007, individuals working with childrenor protected adults will be expected to become members of the new vetting and barringscheme and this will replace the need for enhanced disclosure certificates. Peoplewill apply for scheme membership to work in the regulated adults’ or children’sworkforce or both, depending on the post or roles they undertake.

For example, a personcould apply to become a scheme member to work in the adults’ workforce, such asa care home for older people. If they subsequently wished to volunteer with theScouts, they would apply to be a scheme member in respect of regulated work withchildren. There may be vetting information which is relevant to working with childrenand which is not relevant to working with adults. This information will need tobe gathered and processed. This approach will ensure that information, which isrelevant to each workforce is assessed to confirm that the person is not unsuitable.All aspects of the new vetting and barring scheme, once implemented, will be keptunder review.

Question reference: S3W-00411

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Maxwell on 15 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there has been a reduction in the number of equipment suppliers with an employment base in Scotland since Scottish Gas took over the management of the central heating programme in October 2006.

Question reference: S3W-00830

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 14 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether particular procedures are in place in respect of foreign workers who require enhanced disclosure certificates and, if so, what these procedures are.

Disclosure Scotland, whocarry out criminal record checks on behalf of Scottish ministers, do not have accessto information about the criminal records of foreign workers before they enter theUnited Kingdom. It is the responsibility of the person concerned toprovide information from her or his home country if that is sought by an employer.

We are working with colleagueselsewhere in the UK to give effect to a number of EU initiatives that shouldimprove the sharing of information for employment purposes.

Question reference: S3W-00481

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 14 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will review the self-funding of the Care Commission.

The work of the Care Commissionis being considered as part of the independent review of scrutiny of public servicesbeing undertaken by Professor Lorne Crerar on behalf of the Scottish Government.It will be important to consider the findings of the review, which is expected toreport in late summer, before taking any decisions on the basis of funding of theCare Commission. Any decisions on the future funding of the commission will be consideredin the context of the forthcoming spending review.

Question reference: S3W-00571

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 14 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost to each NHS board has been of employing agency nurses, in each year since 1999.

Information on staff employedin NHS Scotland is published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under WorkforceStatistics, at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.The full dataset on the use of agency staff within health boards can be found withintable E13 of section E of that website. The following table provides extracted datafrom 2001 onwards. Data from previous years is not held centrally.

Cost ofEmploying Agency Nurses by Health Board and by Year, from 2001

£	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Total spend across Scotland	1,9028,372*	24,530,733*	28,138,989	29,709,181	26,408,949
Registered	9,225,188	16,425,652	21,396,157	24,144,464	23,033,644
NHS Argyll and Clyde	299,959	1,401,182	1,809,202	2,118,474	1,717,162
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	358,453	384,133	1,068,629	826,106	564,537
NHS Borders	83,368	155,613	365,784	505,998	436,080
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	-	371		19,252	85,784
NHS Fife	1,053,229	1,190,232	1,093,224	1,287,788	1,686,501
NHS Forth Valley	319,151	485,935	533,888	504,446	1,215,548
NHS Grampian	572,040	730,894	1,328,097	1,342,694	959,507
NHS Greater Glasgow	1,772,325	4,742,365	5,991,625	6,233,189	4,725,231
NHS Highland	153,224	45,663	48,752	20,767	169,019
NHS Lanarkshire	84,103	1,200,591	1,006,278	1,079,900	227,000
NHS Lothian	4,504,393	3,611,340	6,452,879	9,363,855	10,204,173
NHS Orkney	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Shetland	8,927	36,159	2,214	0	29,277
NHS Tayside	16,015	2,401,805	1,350,881	643,360	755,589
NHS Western Isles	-		-	-	105,965
National Services Scotland		39,369	1,620	13,074	62,594
Golden Jubilee National Hospital			343,084	185,562	89,679
Non registered ⁴	4,807,132	6,607,618	6,742,833	5,564,717	3,375,305
NHS Argyll and Clyde	873,218	1,163,356	1,193,259	719,515	682,658
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	29,666	1,484	14,627	1,516	4,109
NHS Borders	13,550	23,361	42,014	10,709	238,913
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	127	-	-	-	-
NHS Fife	336,123	448,660	542,752	343,337	457,916
NHS Forth Valley	253,931	390,088	224,335	225,105	309,031
NHS Grampian	468,125	628,802	726,567	368,547	57,848
NHS Greater Glasgow	857,558	1,860,740	1,355,210	1,700,887	1,444,945
NHS Highland	147,956	192,971	323,767	281,955	166,244
NHS Lanarkshire	233,634	406,553	153,054	251,223	-
NHS Lothian	1,585,379	1,491,603	2,144,732	1,619,110	-
NHS Orkney	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Shetland	-	-	-	-	-
NHS Tayside	7,865	-	-	33,993	7,320
NHS Western Isles	-	-	-	-	-
National Services Scotland		-	-	-	-
Golden Jubilee National Hospital	-	-	22,516	8,820	6,321

Note: *The overall spend figureis higher than the sum of the total because some nurses were not categorised asbeing either registered or non-registered.

Question reference: S3W-00480

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 June 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 13 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many enhanced disclosure certificates included non-conviction information in each year since 1999, also broken down by local authority area.

Figures are only availablefrom 29 April 2002, the date on which Disclosure Scotland beganprocessing enhanced disclosure certificates. It is not possible to break thefigures down by local authority area.

Year	Total Number of Enhanced Disclosures	Number of Enhanced Disclosures Containing Non-Conviction Information	% of Enhanced Disclosures Containing Non-Conviction Information
2002-03	111,969	843	0.75%
2003-04	172,734	1,418	0.82%
2004-05	252,061	1,802	0.71%
2005-06	309,917	1,616	0.52%
2006-07	329,718	1,610	0.49%
Totals	1,176,399	7,289	0.62%

Question reference: S3W-00409

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Maxwell on 13 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many boiler manufacturers are providing equipment to its central heating programme managed by Scottish Gas.