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-05407

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 19 January 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish a table showing the types of (a) learning and (b) physical disability of those pupils who currently have a record of needs but will not be eligible for a co-ordinated support plan under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill.

Question reference: S2W-05025

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 December 2003
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 15 January 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any concerns in respect of the impact of the withdrawal of the Headteachers' Association of Scotland (HAS) from the Teachers' Panel of the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT).

Question reference: S2W-05026

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 December 2003
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 15 January 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it will take to ensure that, in any negotiations on teachers' working conditions, the views of members of the Headteachers' Association of Scotland are adequately and fairly taken into account.

Working conditions forteachers are negotiated through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers(SNCT). The make-up of the teachers’ side of the SNCT is a matter for theteachers’ panel, which is made up of the various teachers’ organisations. Theheadteachers’ associations have both recently withdrawn from the panel. the Executive has no statutory powers to intervene but has made it clear our viewthat we regret both that headteachers were not previously represented at themain SNCT, and their subsequent withdrawal from the teachers’ panel. We remaincommitted to supporting a place for Headteachers’ Association of Scotland (HAS)on the SNCT. The Executive meets regularly with HAS and we welcome theirperspectives to help inform our work.

Question reference: S2W-04213

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 5 December 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish a table showing how many social work students trained at Scottish institutions in each of the last 12 years.

The Executive is happy topublish such a table, although this information is only available for an eightyear period, from academic years 19994-95 to 2001-02. (The way in which data is stored does not allow us tocarry out the detailed analysis required by this question for years prior to1994-95.)

Social Work^{1,2 & 3}Graduateand Diplomates from Higher Education Courses in Scotland, 1994-95 to 2001-02

Year	Number
1994-95	1,319
1995-96	1,735
1996-97	2,044
1997-98	2,587
1998-99	2,365
1999-2000	2,636
2000-01	2,534
2001-02	2,457

Sources: Higher EducationStatistics Agency (HESA) and the Scottish Further Education Funding Council(SFEFC)

1. Social Work is defined byHESA as comprising the subjects: Social Work, Residential Social Work,Welfare, Applied Social Work, Youth and Community Work, Community Work, HomeHelp, Counselling, Careers Education/Guidance, Children in Society, ChildCare, Residential Child Care, Caring Skills, Playwork and Health and CommunityStudies.

2. HESA data includes: single Social Work subjects and combinations ofSocial Work subjects contained within the Social Studies grouping.

3. Social Work has beendefined by the Executive from the SFEFC data by combining the subjects: Social Work, Youth and Community Workand Childcare from the HE subject listings for Social Studies.

Question reference: S2W-04215

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Euan Robson on 2 December 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish a table showing how many qualified social workers there were in each of the last 12 years.

Information prior to 1997 isnot held centrally.

ScottishLocal Authority Social Work Services

SocialWorkers (WTE) by Year

Year	Social Workers (WTE)
1997	3,314
1998	3,297
1999	4,288
2000	3,894
2001	3,873
2002	4,017

Question reference: S2W-04214

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Euan Robson on 2 December 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish a table showing how many social workers retired in each of the last 12 years and how many retired early.

Question reference: S2W-03913

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Frank McAveety on 19 November 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive how Concorde will be conveyed to the Museum of Flight at East Fortune and within what timescale.

Question reference: S2W-03947

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 18 November 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will ensure that local government elections are not held on the same day as Scottish Parliament elections to avoid the possible complication of two differing systems of election being used on the same day.

Question reference: S2W-03724

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 12 November 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-2994 by Ms Margaret Curran on 21 October 2003, why it did not provide the information sought in that question in graph form as requested, a format it has previously used in answer to a question requesting comparison between Scottish, English and Welsh figures, and whether it will now do so.

While the Scottish Executive will ensure that any information provided is presented in acomprehensible manner, this does not imply a responsibility to provide information in a particular format as part of a response to a parliamentary question.The information requested is publicly available through the Parliament’s Reference Centre and other sources; urgent requests for factual information may be addressed directly to relevant staff in the Executive after first having tried alternative available sources such as the Parliament’s Reference Centre.

Question reference: S2O-00638

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Euan Robson on 30 October 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is with regard to national testing and league tables.

We are currently consulting on proposed changes to thesystem of national testing for pupils aged between 5 and 14, including replacingexisting national test materials with a web-based national assessment bank and replacingthe current 5-14 survey with a more rigorous system for monitoring achievementat a national level – the Scottish Survey of Achievement.

For theposition on the separate issue of league tables, I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-3475 lodged by Rhona Brankin and answered on 24 October 2003.