- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 18 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive when the table "Number and percentage of school pupils with no qualifications at Standard Grade (or equivalent) or better on leaving school", available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 33501), will be updated to show the number of children who left school with no qualifications in 2003-04.
Answer
A revised table is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 36493). The revised table clarifies that the information provided in response to this question and the original question S2W-9895 refers to school leavers who have not achieved full course awards.
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 17 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many houses are below tolerable standard and what plans it has to remove such houses from the housing stock.
Answer
The most recent estimate from the Scottish House Condition Survey, which is the only consistent national source of information on houses below tolerable standard, is that there were 20,000 households living in houses below the standard in 2002. This is 0.9% of all households in Scotland. The 2002 edition of the Survey, chapter 5 of which deals with the tolerable standard, can be found at
www.shcs.gov.uk/pdfs/SHCS2002report_revised.pdf.
Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 it is the duty of local authorities to deal with houses in their areas that are below tolerable standard, by ensuring that they are closed, demolished or brought up to the standard. The Housing (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced on 7 March, would require each local authority to set out in its local housing strategy a strategy for ensuring that it complies with this duty.
The Executive provides funding through Private Sector Housing Grant to local authorities to address condition issues in private sector housing. One of the priorities for action for their use of this funding is dealing with houses below tolerable standard. Total provision for Private Sector Housing Grant for 2005-06 is £72 million.
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 17 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish a graph showing the percentage of public sector houses which have been sold to tenants in comparison with England in each year since 1999.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-16379 on 17 May 2005. Which contains the Scottish data required to construct such a graph. 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/wa.search. The following table shows comparable data for England.
Sales of Local Authority Dwellings to Tenants: England 1999-2003
| | Sales to Tenants | Estimated Stock as at 31 March | Sales as Percentage of Stock |
| 1999 | 51,212 | 3,178,000 | 1.61 |
| 2000 | 54,856 | 3,012,000 | 1.82 |
| 2001 | 50,735 | 2,812,000 | 1.80 |
| 2002 | 59,241 | 2,706,000 | 2.19 |
| 2003 | 71,910 | 2,457,000 | 2.93 |
Source: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister housing statistics live tables.
Notes:
1. Sales figures exclude sales by new towns.
2. Stock series from 1992 to 2001 for England has been adjusted so that the 2001 total dwelling estimate matches the 2001 Census. Stock estimates are rounded to the nearest thousand.
The chart requested has been lodged in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 36465).
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 17 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many public sector houses have been sold to tenants since 1999, expressed also as a percentage of the total number of public sector houses.
Answer
The following table shows the number of local authority dwellings sold to tenants and estimated local authority stock.
Sales of Local Authority Dwellings to Tenants: Scotland 1999-2003
| | Sales to Tenants | Estimated Stock as at 31 December | Sales as Percentage of Stock |
| 1999 | 13,317 | 584,000 | 2.28 |
| 2000 | 13,981 | 558,000 | 2.51 |
| 2001 | 13,169 | 535,000 | 2.46 |
| 2002 | 15,849 | 515,000 | 3.08 |
| 2003 | 17,526 | 493,000 | 3.55 |
Source: Scottish Executive Development Department Analytical Services Division Housing Statistics branch.
Notes:
1. For purposes of comparability, 2003 data for Scotland include sales and stock for Dumfries and Galloway, Glasgow and Scottish Borders where complete stock transfers took place in the course of 2003. Figures exclude other housing association stock but include Scottish Homes stock.
2. Stock estimates are rounded to the nearest thousand.
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 17 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of occupied houses is privately owned.
Answer
Information on tenure of occupied houses can be found in two published sources, both available on-line: the 2002 Scottish House Condition Survey report. (
http://www.shcs.gov.uk/pdfs/SHCS2002report_revised.pdf) and the Scottish Household Survey 2003 report (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/housing/shsar03-00.asp).
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 April 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 18 April 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what the current position is in respect of the plans for the new Royal Edinburgh Hospital.
Answer
NHSLothian is in the process of updating the outline business case (OBC) followingthe recent public consultation regarding the board’s mental health and well beingstrategy.
It isexpected that the OBC will be submitted to the Scottish Executive HealthDepartment in summer 2005.
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 April 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 18 April 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what the current position is in respect of any income from the sale of Gogarburn Hospital and other premises being used to build the new Royal Edinburgh Hospital.
Answer
The business case for thenew Royal Edinburgh Hospital will explore procurement based on value for money.Both PPP procurement and public sector capital funding will be explored.
NHS Lothian advise that thepotential capital requirement is included within NHS Lothian’s capital plansand the income from the sale of Gogarburn has been utilised over the last threeyears to improve clinical services in Lothian.
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 18 March 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what the current levels of staff shortages are in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools, broken down by local authority.
Answer
A set of tables, Full-time Equivalent Teacher Vacancies in Schools, which is in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 32903), shows the number of teacher vacancies in local authority schools at February 2004, the latest information available. A further survey is being undertaken at February 2005 and the results are currently being collected and analysed.
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 2 March 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether any studies have been carried out in the last eight years on stress affecting teachers.
Answer
In 2002, the Executive commissionedthe Scottish Council for Research in Education to review the literature of researchon teacher stress over the previous ten years.
The review, entitled Feelingthe Strain identified fourteen Scottish references. A copy has been placed inthe Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Inevitably, there will have been otherstudies into teacher stress carried out elsewhere.
The Executive is currently providingfinancial support to Teacher Support Scotland to develop, with three local authorities, a pilot projectaimed at developing a strategy to improve the well being of teachers in Scotland. Localauthorities, as teachers’ employers, have responsibilities in these areas. Beingaware of the local circumstance in which their teachers work, local authoritiesare best placed to identify and provide the support required.
- Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 January 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 10 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what role social capital plays in social inclusion and what impact any such role has on the role of the state in social inclusion.
Answer
The concept of social capital continues to be the subject of active debate. Leading social scientists such as Putman define it in general terms as relating to “connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trust that arise from them”. Expressed in this way, claims have been made that social capital is influential in explaining a wide range of factors in society including educational performance, performance in the labour market, and civic participation, all of which relate to social inclusion.
Yet the mechanisms by which social capital may operate to produce these effects is far from clear. Progress is being made in research to put the concept onto a more rigorous footing, for example to identify categories of social capital and to understand the significance of formal and informal networks and local and wider processes of social attachment, for different social groups in the community. Until this is clearer it is not possible to properly assess the role of the state in promoting social capital as a mechanism for increasing social inclusion.
Researchers in the Scottish Executive are actively engaged with those developing the knowledge base in this important area.
