- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jim Mather on 19 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will increase support to Co-operative Development Scotland.
Answer
The Co-operative DevelopmentAgency has already been allocated £3 million over three years to fund it’s activities.There are no current plans to increase this level of funding. Decisions on futurefunding will be informed by a planned evaluation in 2008.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Jim Mather on 19 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it proposes any changes to the statistics available for monitoring the success of the economy.
Answer
The Scottish EconomicStatistics Plan for 2007-08 will shortly be made available on the Scottish Government’swebsite.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 16 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-5251 by John Swinney on 30 October 2007, whether Dumfries and Galloway Council has advised Scottish ministers of its estimates of the funding it will require to enable it to freeze council tax in 2008-09 and 2009-10 and, if so, what these estimates are.
Answer
Dumfries and Galloway Council did share with me theiremerging budget calculations when we met on 2 October. Following my Spending Reviewannouncement on 14 November, I will be announcing individual local authority fundingallocations for the next three years in mid‑December. In advance of that announcement,it would be premature to speculate on the budgetary decisions of individual councils.But I firmly believe the funding package we provide will be sufficient to enableall councils to freeze their council tax rates.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Maureen Watt on 16 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive whether Dumfries and Galloway Council has advised Scottish ministers of its estimates of the funding it will require to reduce class sizes in primary 1 to primary 3 to a maximum of 18 and, if so, what these estimates are.
Answer
No, we are unawareof any representations made by Dumfries and Galloway Council in this regard. However,On 20 June 2007 we announced the provision of £9 million additional funding to allowlocal authorities to employ 300 additional teachers in pre-school and primary 1to 3 in deprived areas. Dumfries and Galloway Council’s share of this funding is£263,700. In addition, on 10 July we announced the allocation of an additional £40million of capital grant funding through the Schools Fund linked to the buildingsimplications of reducing class sizes. Dumfries and Galloway Council’s share was£3.607 million, the largest share of all Scottish authorities.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 15 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive when the decision was taken not to award Young’s Seafood a grant of £426,000, intended for the development of deshelling machines for its site in Annan and applied for under the Fish Processing and Marketing Scheme.
Answer
The decision to awarda grant of £426,000 was made in January 2006. However, Young’s withdrew their applicationfor grant support following the fire at the Annan facility in March 2007.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 12 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what communications it received from HM Treasury regarding the consequences for the Scottish budget in 2008-09 of UK programmes and projects that would no longer be funded in that financial year and when these were received.
Answer
I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-6001 on 12 November 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questionsare available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 12 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what communications it has received from HM Treasury regarding changes to the capital departmental expenditure limit for the UK health budget for 2008-09 and when these were received.
Answer
The Scottish Governmentreceived a letter from HM Treasury on 4 September 2007 in respect of the proposed DELbaseline which included reference to changes to the UK Health Department resourceand capital budgets, changes to the budgets for UKlocal government and courts and time limited expenditure adjustments. A furtherletter was received on 18 September 2007 in response to concerns expressed by the Scottish Government on the lateness of any communication on baseline adjustments,in which the Chief Secretary recognised that the timing had caused difficultiesfor the devolved administrations.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 12 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what communications it has received from HM Treasury regarding changes to the UK Government’s budgets for (a) local government and (b) courts and when these were received.
Answer
I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-6001 on 12 November 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questionsare available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 12 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what its targets are for the growth of the economy over the next four years.
Answer
The Scottish Government’sgrowth target for this Parliament is to raise Scotland’s GDP growth rate to the UK level by 2011.
- Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Friday, 02 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 9 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what Executive grants have been applied for by Young’s Seafood since 1999; which applications have been successful, and in which sites such grants been invested.
Answer
The following grants,which have been fully completed or are in the process of being completed, have beenawarded to the Young’s group of companies since 1999:
| Young’s Seafood | Annan | 1 award totalling £141,878 |
| Macrae Edinburgh Ltd | Edinburgh/Livingston | 6 awards totalling £2,025,552 |
| Macrae Foods Ltd | Fraserburgh/Peterhead | 7 awards totalling £1,752,707 |
| Strathaird Salmon Ltd | Inverness | 2 awards totalling £615,353 |
The following grantswere applied for but were either cancelled or rejected:
| Young’s Seafood | Annan | 1 award totalling £426,665 |
| Young’s Seafood | Stornoway | 1 award totalling £24,472 |
| Strathaird Salmon Ltd | Inverness | 1 award totalling £561,568 |
