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-32139

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 12 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive when it plans to issue a final report of the ministerial task force on second stage housing stock transfer in Glasgow.

The joint team report, publishedin December 2006, provides an analysis of the issues surrounding second stage transferin Glasgow. Following this report, my predecessor set out a clear framework to takethe transfer process forward, which the Scottish Executive is working through withall the key organisations. Copies of both the report and the ministerial responseare available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. numbers 42096and 42097).

The Ministerial Progress Groupon second stage transfer in Glasgow has provided a helpful forum for the key organisationsto meet but it is not intended that it will produce a written report.

Question reference: S2W-32138

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 12 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any inspections of Glasgow Housing Association have taken place or are in the process of taking place and, if so, when and under what remit and terms of reference they commenced, what the outcomes have been, and whether their reports have been or will be made public.

I have asked Angiolina Foster,Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to respond. Her response is as follows:

The first inspection of GlasgowHousing Association (GHA) is currently underway by Communities Scotland. The remitand terms of reference derive from the Housing Scotland Act 2001, Sections 69 and70, and Communities Scotland’s published procedures for inspection. The specificremit for the GHA inspection is to provide an independent external assessment of the effectiveness of the organisation, its delivery against transfer commitmentsand to make recommendations to help improvement.

The inspection report will bepublished later in the year.

Question reference: S2W-32137

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 12 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what procedures it has in place for monitoring and inspecting Glasgow Housing Association and its activities.

I have asked Angiolina Foster,Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to respond. Her response is as follows.

Communities Scotland as regulatorsets the regulatory framework within which all social landlords, including GlasgowHousing Association, must operate. This framework is underpinned by the Housing(Scotland) Act 2001 and published guidance. Following registration in 2003, CommunitiesScotland has worked closely with GHA to ensure it is able to meet its commitmentsto tenants, and is clear on the full range of regulatory requirements. Inspectionis used to ensure that there is a public reporting of the progress being made byGHA and the first post-registration inspection is currently underway. The resultsof the inspection will be published later in the year.

Question reference: S2W-30868

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 January 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 1 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what it estimates the gross domestic product would be in Scotland (a) in total and (b) per capita had the growth of the Scottish economy matched that of the United Kingdom since May (a) 1997 and (b) 1999.

Question reference: S2O-12184

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 February 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 1 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any changes have made to the enterprise and lifelong learning budget for 2007-08.

Question reference: S2W-31726

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 February 2007
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide a breakdown of the costs of the First Minister’s visit to London during the week beginning 5 February 2005, also showing the (a) people he met and (b) subject areas covered at each meeting.

The First Minister met the Chancellorof the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Scotland during his visit to London on 7 February 2007. Inthose discussions he discussed issues raised during the recent meeting of the FinancialServices Advisory Board, of which he is chair, and other matters.

In addition to these officialdiscussions, the First Minister also had a number of private meetings.

The First Minister flew to London at a costof £144 and returned on the Caledonian Sleeper at a cost of £145.

Question reference: S2W-31725

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 February 2007
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has received any proposals from NHS Lanarkshire for approval in relation to planned capital spending on the accident and emergency units at (a) Hairmyres Hospital and (b) Wishaw Hospital and, if so, what the details were of the proposals.

NHS Lanarkshire hassubmitted its Programme Initial Agreement document, An Investment Framework forImproving Health Services in Lanarkshire, for consideration and approval by theHealth Department Capital Investment Group in due course. This document sets outNHS Lanarkshire’s planned developments for acute, community, and primary care premisesover the years 2007 to 2014 and provides a strategic context for individual businesscases for implementing these plans.

Detailed proposalsfor the individual hospital developments will be developed through the businesscase process, the timetable for which is set out in the Programme Initial Agreement.

I have arranged forNHS Lanarkshire’s Programme Initial Agreement paper to be lodged with the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 41995).

Question reference: S2W-31724

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 February 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 19 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many times an ambulance has failed to reach a patient within an hour of being summoned in each of the last eight years in (a) Lanarkshire and (b) Ayrshire.

The figures requested are listedin the following tables. The Scottish Ambulance Service rolled out a priority baseddispatch system during 2002-04, so the figures from 2000-03 relate to all accidentand emergency (A&E) incidents and the figures from 2003-06 relate to CategoryA (life-threatening) and Category B (serious but not life-threatening) calls. CategoryB responses include calls transferred from GPs, hospitals or NHS 24 where the patienthas already received clinical intervention and requires to be taken to hospitalor, in some cases, to another hospital. The current average response time acrossScotland for Category A calls is 8.4 minutes.

Ayrshire	Number of A&E Incidents Which Took Over an Hour to Respond to	Total A&E Incidents for the Year	Proportion of Responses Over 1 Hour
1999-2000	2	19,481	0.010%
2000-01	7	19,904	0.035%
2001-02	3	22,051	0.014%
2002-03	4	22,706	0.018%

Ayrshire	Number of Cat A Incidents which Took Over an Hour to Respond to	Number of Cat B Incidents which Took Over an Hour to Respond to	Total A&E Incidents for the Year	Proportion of Responses over 1 Hour
2003-04	1	0	24,918	0.004%
2004-05	0	3	24,956	0.012%
2005-06	1	6	25,756	0.027%

Lanarkshire	Number of A&E Incidents which Took Over an Hour to Respond to	Total A&E Incidents for the Year	Proportion of Responses Over 1 Hour
1999-2000	4	28,016	0.014%
2000-01	6	29,345	0.020%
2001-02	7	30,992	0.023%
2002-03	36	31,877	0.113%

Lanarkshire	Number of Cat A Incidents which Took Over an Hour to Respond to	Number of Cat B Incidents Which Took Over an Hour to Respond to	Total A&E Incidents for the Year	Proportion of Responses Over 1 Hour
2003-04	4	14	35,541	0.051%
2004-05	0	7	36,683	0.019%
2005-06	3	24	39,047	0.069%

Note: Information provided bythe Scottish Ambulance Service.

Question reference: S2O-11995

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 February 2007
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 15 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive when it expects to make a statement on the funding of, and timescale for, second stage transfer of Glasgow Housing Association¿s (GHA) housing stock.

Scottish ministers remain committedto extending community ownership in Glasgow. That commitment was further underlined in December whenmy predecessor wrote to the GHA board setting out a framework for taking secondstage transfers forward and re-affirming the intention of achieving some early transfers.With my Deputy Minister, I am in on-going discussion with the GHA board and otherkey partners about taking this framework forward.

In the meantime, GHA tenantscontinue to benefit from the massive investment that stock transfer has released.

Question reference: S2W-31601

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 February 2007
Current Status: Answered by Elish Angiolini on 14 February 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-31044 by Elish Angiolini QC on 31 January 2007, whether a charge of perverting the course of justice would be appropriate in respect of the actions of the SCRO experts if evidence came to light that their evidence given at any trial or inquiry or in any report was false.