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-09948

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 26 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether local authorities are able to stipulate under environmental legislation that procured services must be locally sourced in order to reduce their carbon footprint.

Question reference: S3W-09946

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 26 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider introducing legislation to allow local authorities to take into account non-commercial considerations when awarding and managing contracts.

Question reference: S3W-09471

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many suspected cases of tuberculosis have been confirmed by the National Reference Laboratory since 2003, broken down by NHS board.

The following table details the number of laboratory confirmed cases of TB in Scotland in 2003-06. The figures shown is that reported for all laboratories “ almost all of these cases are reported by the reference laboratory but in a small number of cases (e.g. in which the local laboratory culture material has died), the local laboratory alone is reporting the case.

Laboratory Confirmation of TB: 2003-06

	2003	2004	2005	2006*
Argyll and Clyde	21	12	23	2
Ayrshire and Arran	2	6	0	8
Borders	3	3	0	4
Dumfries and Galloway	0	4	0	11
Fife	2	6	15	10
Forth Valley	5	4	4	2
Grampian	13	19	12	23
Greater Glasgow	123	118	113	121
Highland	6	7	11	7
Lanarkshire	21	29	22	42
Lothian	43	64	49	41
Shetland	0	0	0	0
Tayside	10	12	5	12
Western Isles	1	1	1	0
Total cases	250	285	255	283

Source: HPS.

Notes:

*Data for 2006 is provisional and may be subject to change.

Health Board is the NHS board that submitted ESMI Form A, the initial notification form.

A laboratory confirmed case is one with microbiological evidence of mycobacterial infection.

Question reference: S3W-09469

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of tuberculosis have been suspected since 2003, broken down by NHS board.

The following table details for each of the last four years both the number of laboratory confirmed cases of tuberculosis and the number of clinical diagnoses of tuberculosis (without microbiological confirmation). The combination of these two figures provides the total number of suspected cases of tuberculosis that have been recorded for Scotland by the surveillance scheme co-ordinated by Health Protection Scotland (HPS) “ The Enhanced Surveillance of Mycobacterial Infection (ESMI).

Tuberculosis Surveillance Information: 2003-06

	2003		2004
	Lab Confirmed Case	Clinical Diagnosis Only	Lab Confirmed Case	Clinical Diagnosis Only
Argyll and Clyde	21	10	12	11
Ayrshire and Arran	2	6	6	5
Borders	3	0	3	2
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	4	1
Fife	2	12	6	3
Forth Valley	5	6	4	2
Grampian	13	5	19	1
Greater Glasgow	123	47	118	51
Highland	6	1	7	1
Lanarkshire	21	7	29	6
Lothian	43	8	64	19
Shetland	0	0	0	2
Tayside	10	3	12	3
Western Isles	1	1	1	0
Total cases	250	106	285	107

	2005		2006*
	Lab Confirmed Case	Clinical Diagnosis Only	Lab Confirmed Case	Clinical Diagnosis Only
Argyll and Clyde	23	10	2	14
Ayrshire and Arran	0	0	8	1
Borders	0	1	4	4
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	11	0
Fife	15	5	10	3
Forth Valley	4	0	2	1
Grampian	12	13	23	10
Greater Glasgow	113	36	121	50
Highland	11	0	7	2
Lanarkshire	22	4	42	7
Lothian	49	24	41	11
Shetland	0	1	0	1
Tayside	5	0	12	2
Western Isles	1	0	0	0
Total cases	255	94	283	106

Source: HPS.

Notes:

*Data for 2006 is provisional and may be subject to change.

Health board is the NHS board that submitted ESMI Form A, the initial notification form.

A laboratory confirmed case is one with microbiological evidence of mycobacterial infection.

Question reference: S3W-09472

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive when it expects Scottish guidelines on the management of tuberculosis to be published.

Question reference: S3W-09470

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 04 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 19 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many unconfirmed cases of tuberculosis have been sent to the National Reference Laboratory for confirmation since 2003, broken down by NHS board.

The number of unconfirmed cases is given by those cases which are recorded as those with a clinical diagnosis alone. This is detailed in the following table for each of the last four years.

Clinical Diagnosis of Tuberculosis: 2003-06

	2003	2004	2005	2006*
Argyll and Clyde	10	11	10	14
Ayrshire and Arran	6	5	0	1
Borders	0	2	1	4
Dumfries and Galloway	0	1	0	0
Fife	12	3	5	3
Forth Valley	6	2	0	1
Grampian	5	1	13	10
Greater Glasgow	47	51	36	50
Highland	1	1	0	2
Lanarkshire	7	6	4	7
Lothian	8	19	24	11
Shetland	0	2	1	1
Tayside	3	3	0	2
Western Isles	1	0	0	0
Total cases	106	107	94	106

Source: HPS.

Notes:

*Data for 2006 is provisional and may be subject to change.

Health board is the NHS board that submitted ESMI Form A, the initial notification form.

Question reference: S3W-09779

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 18 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what requirements local authorities have to enter into partnership agreements.

The requirements on local authorities to enter into partnership agreements are generally set down in statute. In practice, local authorities are involved in a wide range of statutory as well as non-statutory partnerships with, for example, the NHS, other public agencies and third sector bodies. Partnerships established under statutory provisions include Community Planning Partnerships, Regional Transport Partnerships and Community Health Partnerships. Partnership arrangements are also integral to a range of bodies set up under statute such as Adult Protection Committees and Community Justice Authorities. A significant number of partnerships have been established under non-statutory provisions. These include child care partnerships, adult literacy and numeracy partnerships, delayed discharge partnerships, community safety partnerships, local rural partnerships, the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care and safety camera partnerships. The list given above is not exhaustive.

Question reference: S3W-09215

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 31 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to tackle poverty, inequality and deprivation in Scotland.

I am today launchingthe development of a framework for delivering on the aspects of the Government EconomicStrategy to do with tackling poverty, inequality and deprivation. To support thisprocess I am issuing a discussion paper designed to initiate discussion and debateamong stakeholders across Scotland and generate a dialogue to inform the way forward.This framework will replace the Closing the Opportunity Gap approach, on which weare today making available an evaluation report.

Copies of both documentsare available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib numbers 44579 and44581).

Question reference: S3O-02055

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 24 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how it intends to ensure the safe disposal of energy saving light bulbs, given the official advice from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on smashed low-energy bulbs.

We would strongly encourage householdsand other users of energy-saving light bulbs to use the arrangements put in placefor recycling and recovery of waste electrical and electronic equipment. These requireproducers and distributors to arrange for the take-back of relevant types of wastefor recycling either through recycling centres or retail outlets.

In practice, the more robustconstruction of low-energy light bulbs means they are less likely to break thantraditional bulbs.

Question reference: S3W-07090

Asked by: Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 6 December 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether NHS bodies are legally obligated to report any disciplinary hearings to the Health Professions Council regardless of the outcome.

NHS bodies are notlegally obliged to report disciplinary hearings to the Health Professions Council(HPC). However, NHS, and all other employers, are free to report any concern theyhave about a health professional’s fitness to practice to the appropriate regulatorybody. The HPC would expect employers, on the grounds of public protection, to reportanything that may affect a practitioner’s fitness to practice.