- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 9 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what targets it has set for class si'es and what its performance against such targets has been to date.
Answer
The partnership agreementfor a Better Scotland (PABS) contains a commitment significantly to increaseteacher numbers to 53,000 by 2007. These additional teachers will be targetedon reducing class sizes to a maximum of 20 in S1/S2 for Maths and English, 25in P1 and increasing the number of visiting specialists working across theboundary between secondary and primary.
Asa start to training the additional teachers required funding was provided for200 additional places on the primary postgraduate certificate in educationcourse in session 2003-04.
Further substantialincreases in initial teacher education intakes in 2004-05 and subsequent yearswill be required to meet the PABS commitments. These are currently beingconsidered as part of the annual teacher workforce planning exercise which willculminate in guidance to the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. The councilexpect to announce target intakes to courses of initial teacher education inFebruary.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 8 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive whether a feasibility study of land value taxation will be included within the review of local government finance.
Answer
refer the member to the answergiven to question S2W-4310 on 8 December 2003. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility forwhich can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 8 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the introduction of a capital value related property tax will be considered within the proposed review of local government finance.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-4310 on 8 December 2003.All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 8 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what the estimated annual cost would be of abolishing business rates in terms of loss of revenue.
Answer
£1.731 billion (mid-yearestimate) was raised from non-domestic rates in the current financial year. Inprevious years the amount has been:
| Year | Amount |
| 1996-97 | £1.332 billion (certified amount) |
| 1997-98 | £1.327 billion (certified amount) |
| 1998-99 | £1.436 billion (certified amount) |
| 1999-2000 | £1.497 billion (certified amount) |
| 2000-01 | £1.577 billion (certified amount) |
| 2001-02 | £1.673 billion (certified amount) |
| 2002-03 | £1.705 billion (notified amount) |
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 24 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 8 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the introduction of a local income tax will be considered within the proposed review of local government finance.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-4310 on 8 December 2003.All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 21 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 8 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the introduction of a local sales tax will be considered within the proposed review of local government finance.
Answer
We are discussing the remitof the review with COSLA. We will announce our conclusions in due course.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Margaret Curran on 8 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what the remit of community wardens will be; what the total cost of their employment will be per annum; what job requirements they will have to fulfil; what their relationship with the police will be, and what the requirements for recruitment will be.
Answer
The information requested isgiven in Building Strong, Safe and Attractive Communities: Guidancefor Submissions, published by Astron in 2003, copies of which are availablein the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 28543). The ScottishExecutive is providing £10 million per annum in 2004-05 and 2005-06 towards thecost of employing community wardens across Scotland.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 5 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider extending the current household water charge reduction scheme for low income households beyond March 2004 until a revised scheme to address water poverty can be introduced.
Answer
The current transitionalscheme was set up to provide additional assistance to enable low income householdsadjust to increased water and sewerage charges. The main source of assistanceremains the link between domestic charges and the banding and discount arrangements of thecouncil tax system.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 5 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will offer a new relief scheme to all registered charities as a result of the increase in water charges.
Answer
The Executive has put inplace regulations that provide for those charitable and voluntary organisationsthat have been affected by the withdrawal of relief on water and seweragecharges, and which have modest incomes, to be exempted from all water and sewerage chargesuntil 1 April 2006. It has no plans for any further schemes ofassistance.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 November 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 5 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what its assessment is of the impact of non-numeric fingerprinting evidence on the incidence of challenges by defence attorneys to fingerprinting evidence presented by the Crown and what impact any increase in such challenges would have on the legal aid budget.
Answer
A non-numeric standard offingerprint identification has not yet been adopted in Scotland. Themost recent experience of the effect of the change to the non-numeric standard comesfrom England and Wales where that standard was adopted in 2001. Thisindicates that to date there has been no increase with regard to defencechallenges to non-numeric based evidence.
