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: S2W-07083

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Colin Boyd on 31 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) procurators fiscal, (b) precognition officers, (c) administrative staff and (d) policy staff have been employed in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in each year since 1999 and how they are distributed across Scotland.

The functional split of staff is provided in the table:

	1/4/99	1/4/00	1/4/01	1/4/02	1/4/03	1/3/04
Legal Staff (inc. trainees)	302	319.4	350.7	367.4	402.4	426.8
Administrative staff	680.4	711.5	719.8	759	853.1	882.5
Precognition Officer (PO)	83.4	85.7	91.5	103.6	103.1	113.8
Policy staff (legal & trainees)	*	*	*	14.6	12	12
Policy staff (administrative)	*	*	*	7.1	7.1	10.6
Permanent Staff Total	1065.8	1116.6	1162	1251.7	1377.7	1445.7

Note:

*Prior to 2002 the figures for Policy staff were recorded within the cumulative total and are therefore not recorded separately

The distribution of staff as at 1 March 2004 is as follows:

	Legal Staff	Administrative Staff	Precognition Officer	TOTAL
Grampian	29	34.8	6	69.8
Highland and Islands	16	26.3	2	44.3
Central	16	36.5	7	59.5
Tayside	29	47.5	7.4	83.9
Fife	19.2	34.6	4	57.8
Lothian and Borders	55.6	110.7	12.3	178.6
Argyll and Clyde	37.2	60.7	9.4	107.3
Ayrshire	22.2	36.4	6.3	64.9
Dumfries and Galloway	10	17.6	1	28.6
Lanarkshire	45.1	74.9	8	128
Glasgow	88	174	45.4	307.4
High Court, Edinburgh	1	2	-	3
High Court, Glasgow	3	11	2	16
VIA*	-	45.7	-	45.7
Crown Office (including new Criminal Confiscation Unit and Civil Recovery Unit)	67.5	180.4	3	250.9
Totals	438.8	893.1	113.8	1445.7

Note:

*VIA has staff located in Aberdeen, Airdrie, Dumfries, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hamilton, Inverness, Kirkcaldy, Paisley, Stirling and Kilmarnock.

Figures in both tables are calculated on a full time equivalent basis and do not include staff on unpaid leave (including unpaid sick and maternity), career break, secondments out of the Department or casual staff.

Question reference: S2W-07340

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 31 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will issue its consultation paper on animal welfare legislation.

Question reference: S2W-07084

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Elish Angiolini on 30 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in developing the Victim Information and Advice service throughout Scotland and what the timetable is for rolling out the service.

The Victim Information andAdvice (VIA) service is available in all Fiscal Areas. At present, thefollowing districts are covered:

Paisley, Kilmarnock, Stirling, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright,Stranraer, Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, Peterhead, Stonehaven, Inverness, Airdrie, Hamilton, Lanark, Edinburgh and Dundee.

These districts account for 73% of the totalcaseload of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

COPFS is committed to makingthe service available to the whole of Scotland by the end of 2004.

Question reference: S2W-07274

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 26 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 29 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will issue revised Special Branch guidelines for the police.

Together with the HomeOffice and the Northern Ireland Office, I am today publishing revised Guidelinesfor Special Branch Working in the UK. The guidelines were produced inconsultation with the police service, the Security Service and other relevantpartners.

The new guidelines describe,for the first time in a publicly available document, the roles andresponsibilities of Special Branch in the UK; the legislative framework within which theyoperate; and the manner in which Special Branch work is co-ordinated across theUK.

Question reference: S2W-07082

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Colin Boyd on 29 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive why there has been an increase in the use of casual staff to cover administrative tasks in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

As part of the Department’songoing modernisation programme, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Servicehas recently begun the implementation phase of its Future Office System (FOS).

FOS is an electronicworkflow and document management system which will streamline much of theadministrative and clerical work undertaken, including that arising frominitial decision making.

It was envisaged that staffsavings would be realised following implementation and that these savings wouldoccur primarily at the basic administrative grade.

In order to minimise anypossible redundancy situation, it was agreed, with trade union support, to fillvacancies at that level which occurred in the last 9 months on a temporaryfixed term basis in the expectation that a significant number of these postswould no longer be needed in 2004-05 and in order to avoid the need for redundanciesof permanent staff. The use of temporary or casual staff has indeed allowed thedepartment to avoid making staff redundant.

Question reference: S2W-07086

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 19 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 29 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made with its plans to increase the number of people donating bone marrow.

The NHS bone marrowregistry, The British Bone Marrow Registry (BBMR), which is run by the NationalBlood Service in England, registers donors from Scotland, England and Northern Ireland.

The registry met its targetof increasing new donors by 40,000 in 2002-03 and has a target of recruiting afurther 40,000 donors during 2003-04.

The Scottish National BloodTransfusion Service (SNBTS) provides tissue typing in support of the BBMR andcurrently has over 11,000 active donors on the register and around 1,000 donorsare added annually.

Question reference: S2W-06925

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 25 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much has been spent on patient transport from the Vale of Leven Hospital to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, in particular how much has been spent by NHS Argyll and Clyde in transporting patients by taxi, following the changes to accident and emergency services, and what the average cost of an individual taxi journey has been during this period.

Question reference: S2W-06923

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 25 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-3779 by Malcolm Chisholm on 21 November 2003, when local communities, elected members and clinicians will be involved in the process of considering the report from NHS Argyll and Clyde and NHS Greater Glasgow on the pattern of patient choice for consultant-led maternity units in their area.

Question reference: S2W-06920

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 25 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the terms of the code of conduct agreed by NHS Argyll and Clyde on 8 March 2004 were and whether these terms differ from any standard code for NHS boards.

NHS Argyll and Clyde’s Codeof Conduct for board members is available from the system headquarters at RossHouse, Paisley.

All public bodies covered bythe ethical standards regime have to have a Code of Conduct in place that isbased on the Model Code of Conduct for Members of Devolved Public Bodies, underthe terms of the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland)Act 2000.

Argyll and Clyde NHS boardmembers are covered by such a code, and have adopted a code that also includes,as an annex, an extract of text on best practice guidance for members of publicbodies, published by the Scottish Executive in February 2003.

Question reference: S2W-06921

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 25 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is consistent with the code of conduct of NHS Argyll and Clyde for elected councillors, who are members of the board, to meet the Minister for Health and Community Care as part of a local authority delegation.