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-17672

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 November 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 17 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether all hospitals use biocidal rinses to clean clothing and bedding associated with healthcare-acquired infections.

All hospital laundry should be laundered in accordance with the guidelines set out in the Department of Health Circular HSG (95)18: Hospital Laundry Arrangements for Used and Infected Linen. This circular, which is currently under review, includes instructions for the thermal disinfection of linen. During infection outbreaks, each NHS board would also follow the NHSScotland Code of Practice for the Local Management of Hygiene and Healthcare Associated Infection. The code is available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/05/19315/36624.

Paragraph 5.3, Chapter 5 of the code (Prevention and Control of Infection Guidance) describes how laundry should be handled during outbreaks and how incidents should be documented by staff.

Question reference: S3W-17670

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 November 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 17 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has considered the use of vinyl gloves by healthcare staff and hospital visitors to reduce healthcare-acquired infections.

Question reference: S3W-17682

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 November 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 17 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what tests were used to diagnose the cases of Clostridium difficile at the Vale of Leven Hospital and how this compares with other hospitals.

Question reference: S3W-17139

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 20 October 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Maxwell on 17 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made since May 2007 in providing accessible housing, broken down by the number of units built in each local authority area.

Question reference: S3W-17620

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 November 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 14 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will develop a monitoring framework for the delivery of the outcomes set out in single outcome agreements.

The Scottish Government will monitor the progress that councils and their community planning partners make in delivery of outcomes set out in single outcome agreements.

As the bodies which plan, manage and deliver local services, it is for local authorities and their community planning partners to monitor the effectiveness of these services and how well placed they are to support outcomes highlighted in the single outcome agreement on an ongoing basis.

Question reference: S3W-17621

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 November 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 14 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there are baseline statistics against which progress on the outcomes set out in single outcome agreements can be measured.

Each local authority is individually responsible for measuring progress on the outcomes set out in their single outcome agreements (SOAs). The SOAs for 2008-09 provided baseline statistics for the majority of the indicators being used to monitor progress towards outcomes. The full set of 2008-09 SOAs are available on the Improvement Service website at:

http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/core-programmes/single-outcome-agreements-/

Central and local government are committed to working together further to improve the availability and timeliness of statistics for use in SOAs.

Question reference: S3W-17623

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 November 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 14 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how and when it will report to the Parliament on progress on outcomes set out in single outcome agreements.

Question reference: S3W-17677

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 November 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 14 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will announce the status of the new scrutiny bodies announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth on 6 November 2008 (Official Report c. 12077).

Question reference: S3W-17678

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 07 November 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 14 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how it will ensure that the status of the new scrutiny bodies announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth on 6 November 2008 (Official Report c. 12077) reflects the need for the bodies to be independent of ministers and free from political interference.

The government accepted the need for scrutiny to be independent in the response to the Crerar Review that we published in January 2008. The Accountability and Governance Action Group has recently provided recommendations from key stakeholders outwith government on issues such as guaranteeing operational independence from government for scrutiny bodies. The Scottish Government will publish a response to the action groups around the turn of the year.

Question reference: S3W-17138

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 20 October 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Maxwell on 13 November 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many more accessible properties are required across Scotland according to the Scottish House Condition Survey.

The number of further, accessible households required can only be answered indirectly by the data in the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS). The SHCS is a sample survey and therefore all figures are estimates rather than precise counts.

We estimate that there are 436,000 dwellings which have hardstanding of suitable width and step-free access for wheelchair users in Scotland. For all dwellings to be accessible in this way there are a further 1,879,000 dwellings which need to be adapted.

The SHCS found, in 2005-06, that there were 421,000 households with at least one person who has a mobility or physical impairment.

Ninety thousand of these households have access with hardstanding of suitable width and step-free access for wheelchair users; in 70,000 of these households their dwellings do not need further adaptation for them to get around their dwellings; the remaining 20,000 households do need some further adaptation to their dwelling in order to get around it.

Of the remaining 331,000 households, none of which have suitable access for wheelchair users, 229,000 households need no further adaptation to their dwelling to get around the dwelling, but 102,000 households do need further adaptation to get around their dwelling.