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-18122

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-17638 by Cathy Jamieson on 26 July 2005, whether all the data collected by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons is reflected in the published reports.

Question reference: S2W-18253

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 01 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 18 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive when it estimates that roadwork improvements to the Auchenkilns roundabout will be completed; what the original budget was for this project and what its latest estimate is of the cost of the current works.

The contractor expects the new junction to be fully open to traffic at Christmas 2005. The pre tender estimate for the construction of this scheme was £18.9 million. The tender price was more expensive than anticipated at £21.98 million. The contract is expected to cost £22.24 million, with the additional expenditure arising from the provision of additional sound insulation to contain traffic noise.

Question reference: S2W-17637

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 June 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 12 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-17266 by Cathy Jamieson on 24 June 2005, what interests the member of the Office of the Solicitor to the Scottish Executive was representing at the fatal accident inquiry into the death of James Barclay in HM Prison Kilmarnock in January 2002, given that the contract between Kilmarnock Prison Services Ltd and the Scottish Prison Service indemnifies Scottish ministers and the Scottish Prison Service from claims made against them in respect of the prison.

Question reference: S2W-17929

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by John Scott on 12 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the total expenditure on IT equipment and software supplies has been in each year since 1999.

The total investment made per financial year on IT equipment and software supplies to enable and support the business of the Parliament, its Members, Members’ staff and SPCB staff since 1999, is listed in the table below.

Financial Year	Hardware and Software Costs
1999-2000	£1,176,754.71
2000-2001	£974,352.92
2001-2002	£1,900,029.36
2002-2003	£1,221,890.35
2003-2004	£1,795,359.23
2004-2005	£901,039.41
2005-2006 (Q1)	£142,088.59

Question reference: S2W-17791

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 10 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide details of the lottery funding made available to sportscotland in each of the last three financial years, and to be allocated in this financial year, for spending on sport in Scotland.

Since 1994, Sportscotlandhas invested over £220 million of National Lottery funding in sport in Scotland.

Sportscotland’s plans for distributing National Lotteryfunding for sport in Scotland for 2003-2007 are set out in Raising our Game,sportscotland’s Lottery Fund Strategy. Duringthe four years 2004 to 2007 sportscotland aim to invest an average of about £25million a year in their new Lottery categories. Even allowing for inflation,this is more than the £21 million a year forecast for 1999-2003 in Levellingthe “Playing Field”, Sportscotland’s previous lottery strategy, and morethan the annual investment actually achieved by sportscotland during thatperiod, which averaged over £22 million.

Sportscotland’s share of Lotteryfunds placed in the National Lottery Distribution Fund was £21.097 million in2002-03, £18.288 million in 2003-04 and £19.673 million in 2004-05.

Other National Lotteryfunding for sport in Scotland includes funding from the New Opportunities Fund of£87 million for PE and sport in schools and £11.5 million for community sport.

Question reference: S2W-18002

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 10 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the estimated cost is of upgrading the A77 to dual carriageway from Whitletts Roundabout in Ayr to (a) Maybole and (b) Stranraer.

Question reference: S2W-18222

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 29 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 10 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish its employability framework.

Question reference: S2W-18001

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 9 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide details of all the schools designated as Schools of Ambition, including the criteria used for selecting these schools, the additional resources each will be allocated, what targets they have been set, what involvement the private sector will have and what review and monitoring arrangements will be in place to assess progress.

Question reference: S2W-18006

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 9 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether all those local authorities that were not given the opportunity by COSLA to bid for funding for a pilot scheme for the education of children in care will now be given the opportunity to bid for additional resources from the Scottish Executive and whether guidelines will be issued to ensure that when such programmes are delegated to COSLA local authorities other than Labour-controlled authorities get the opportunity to bid for such monies.

All local authorities hadthe opportunity to participate in this programme. I wrote to all 32 Chief Executives on 26 October 2004 announcing the £6 million additional funding for aprogramme of educational support for looked after children and advising themthat pilot areas would be identified in consultation with COSLA. The one localauthority that is not a member of COSLA did not indicate any concern with thisapproach nor note any interest with the Executive.

Question reference: S2W-17792

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 5 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what methodology the Chief Executive of EventScotland used to justify his statement on 6 July 2005 that holding the 2012 Olympic Games in London would benefit Scotland by many millions of pounds.

The remark made by DavidWilliams, the Chief Executive of EventScotland, about the benefits expected toflow through to Scotland as a result of the Olympic Games being held in London in2012 was based on his personal experience of the benefits which flowed to thewhole of Australia a result of the Sydney Games in 2000.

David Williams was previouslydirector general of the Queensland Government’s tourism department, which ranthe secretariat for Queensland’s Olympic Taskforce 2000 as well as developingstrategies for tourism, business, arts and culture designed to maximise thebenefits of the Sydney Games 2000 for Queensland.

The final report of theOlympic Taskforce recognised the success of the Sydney Games and estimated thetotal value of the benefits to tourism, business and sport to be in excess of$1 billion Australian dollars. The key outcomes achieved for Queenslandincluded A$128 million of Games related business for small to medium sizebusinesses and A$285 million secured by national or international companieswith headquarters in Queensland. It was also estimated that over A$700 million worthof publicity was generated for Queensland as a visitor destination.