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-03579

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andrew Welsh on 10 November 2003

To ask the Presiding Officer what representations, and on what issues, the Parliament's staff in Scotland House have made to (a) UKRep and (b) directly to EU institutions.

The remit, agreed by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB), of themember of staff based in Brussels on a fixed term basis for one year from April 2003 is:

to research and produce a report to the SPCB on the options for and the practical aspects of establishing a more permanent Scottish Parliament presence in Brussels,

to provide support for MSPs who serve as delegates to the Committee of the Regions and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in Europe, and

to support visiting MSPs on parliamentary business.

The member of staff has had contact with officials in UKRep, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions, and with MEPs, in connection with this work.

Question reference: S2W-03576

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andrew Welsh on 10 November 2003

To ask the Presiding Officer whether the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body plans to change the number of staff that the Parliament employs in Scotland House.

Question reference: S2W-03577

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andrew Welsh on 10 November 2003

To ask the Presiding Officer what the cost was of establishing a Parliamentary presence in Scotland House and what the annual running costs are, including details of rent paid for accommodation in Scotland House.

Question reference: S2W-03578

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andrew Welsh on 10 November 2003

To ask the Presiding Officer who is responsible for directing work carried out by the Parliament's staff in Scotland House.

Question reference: S2W-03575

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andrew Welsh on 10 November 2003

To ask the Presiding Officer how many staff the Parliament employs in Scotland House and what their functions and annual costs are.

The Scottish ParliamentaryCorporate Body (SPCB) has one member of staff based in Brussels ona fixed term basis for one year from April 2003. This was agreed by the SPCB atits meeting of 7 January 2003.

The staff member is linemanaged by the Head of the External Liaison Unit and by the Clerk/Chief Executive. Reports on his work are submitted every month to the Corporate Body.

The remit of the member ofstaff, agreed by the SPCB, is, in accord with the recommendations contained inthe European Committee’s 5th Report of 2002 on Scotland’s Representation inthe European Union:

toresearch and produce a report to the SPCB on the options for and the practicalaspects of establishing a more permanent Scottish Parliament presence in Brussels,

toprovide support for MSPs who serve as delegates to the Committee of the Regionsand the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in Europe, and

tosupport visiting MSPs on parliamentary business.

Themember of staff works in office space leased to Scotland Europa in ScotlandHouse. The SPCB is paying 15,429.48 euros to Scotland Europa for the use ofthis office space from April 2003 until April 2004. MSPs and parliamentarystaff can also use hot-desk facilities in the office space as a part of theagreement with Scotland Europa.

Overall,the anticipated maximum annual running costs for the one year posting are£70,000, which includes the office costs, and the member of staff’s salary,allowances and travel expenses etc.

The SPCB will considerfuture arrangements on the options for, and the practical aspects of,establishing a more permanent Scottish Parliament presence in Brusselsupon receipt of a report by the member of staff in Brussels inearly 2004.

Question reference: S2W-02993

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 30 October 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive what the name and location is of each registered (a) residential and (b) day-care drug rehabilitation centre; how many people have been referred to each centre, and by whom each centre has been funded, in each of the last five years.

Information about individualresidential and non-residential drug services, including numbers of clients, isavailable in the corporate action plans submitted by drug action teams. Theseare available at www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org.

This source does notdistinguish between registered and unregistered services, nor does it hold informationabout the funding of each service.

Registration of care homesfor residential drug rehabilitation purposes and support services (day-care) isa matter for the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care.

Information on statutory,and voluntary sector operated, drugs services is also held by the ScottishDrugs Forum and can be accessed via their website www.sdf.org.uk. The Know the Score(KTS) Directory of Drug Services is currently being updated, andwill be available in hard copy and on the KTS website (www.knowthescore.info) shortly.

Question reference: S2W-02991

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 28 October 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding drug action teams (DATs) will be awarded in (a) 2003-04 and (b) future financial years for which figures are available.

The operation of drug actionteams (DATs) is supported by £1.5 million of funding in this financial year,allocated via NHS boards. Resources for future years have not yet beenconfirmed.

Resources to tackle drugmisuse are allocated through a number of different funding streams, much ofwhich cannot be separately identified as it is spent through genericexpenditure programmes e.g. social work services; enforcement and criminaljustice activities, including prisons; prevention and education programmes;employability initiatives and funding to support communities.

However, the following tableshows the main drug-specific allocations to NHS boards and local authorities in2003-04. Decisions on funding for 2004-05 have not yet been finalised.

2003-04 Funding	Drug Misuse Treatment	Rehabilitation	Changing Children’s Services Fund
Total (£ million)	16.952*	6.8	8.0

Note:

*Funding does not includeadditional resources of £500,000 allocated to Greater Glasgow NHS Board to meetthe treatment costs of the Glasgow Drug Court pilot.

Question reference: S2W-02857

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Elish Angiolini on 15 October 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-115 by Mrs Elish Angiolini on 19 June 2003, how much it cost to answer that question.

Question reference: S2W-02859

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Elish Angiolini on 15 October 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive how many reports procurators fiscal received from each non-police reporting agency in 2002-03 and, of these, how many (a) were marked “no proceedings” on account of delay on the part of the reporting agency, (b) proceeded to trial, (c) resulted in a conviction and (d) are currently pending.

Procurators fiscal receive inthe region of 300,000 reports annually from the police and over fifty specialistreporting agencies. Around 35,000 of those are from specialist reporting agencies,the majority of whom do not yet report cases electronically. To obtain this datawould require, in addition to writing a programme to interrogate the system, a significantamount of manual checking and interpretation of data. Consequently, it would onlybe possible to provide the information requested at disproportionate cost.

Question reference: S2W-02858

Asked by: Nicola Sturgeon, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Colin Boyd on 15 October 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S2W-1509 and S2W-1510 by Colin Boyd QC on 12 August 2003, how much it would cost to answer these questions.

An exact figure cannot be provided.Procurators fiscal receive in the region of 300,000 reports annually from the policeand over fifty specialist reporting agencies. Around 35,000 of those are from specialistreporting agencies, the majority of whom do not yet report cases electronically.To obtain this data would require, in addition to writing a programme to interrogatethe system, a significant amount of manual checking and interpretation of data.