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: S1W-19494

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 13 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much, and from what source, including grants from the European Union, Her Majesty's Government, the National Lottery, each further education college received in public funding in each of the past three years and will receive in the current year; what the total annual income from all sources was for each college, and how many students attended each college.

Question reference: S1W-19470

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 12 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment it has made, or plans to make, of the impact of economic globalisation on the Scottish economy and whether it will publish the results of any such assessment.

Assessments of trends in the global economy are published regularly in the Executive's Scottish Economic Report. An assessment of the economic impact of the terrorist attacks was published by the Executive last month. Our policy approach was recently set out in Scotland: A Global Connections Strategy. It makes it clear that we want to see Scotland recognised as the most globally connected small nation in Europe.

Question reference: S1W-19464

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 12 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much each department spends in its catering budget on fair trade products, expressed also as a percentage of total expenditure for each department and of overall Executive catering expenditure.

Question reference: S1W-19463

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 12 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much was spent by each of its departments on television advertising in each of the last three years and this year to date, broken down by the television areas covered by (a) Grampian TV, (b) STV and (c) Border TV.

Spend by department on television advertising in each of the last three years is listed in the table. Breakdown by television areas is not held centrally and cannot be collected without disproportionate cost.

1998	Scottish Office
Department	Campaign	Spend
Home	Domestic Abuse	£270,715
Home	Fire Prevention	£164,312
Health	Nursing Recruitment	£169,670
Education	Childrens Panels	£70,500
Historic Scotland¹	Historic Scotland	£112,868
Development	Road Safety	£308,862
Constitution Group	Scottish Parliament	£434,750
1999	Scottish Office/Scottish Executive
Department	Campaign	Spend
Justice	Domestic Abuse	£301,978
Justice	Fire Prevention	£143,753
Development	Road Safety	£425,365
Constitution Group	Scotland's Parliament	£280,108
Historic Scotland¹	Historic Scotland	£148,649
2000	Scottish Executive
Department	Campaign	Spend
Justice	Domestic Abuse	£315,010
Health	Flu Vaccination	£175,864
Health	Prepare for Winter	£208,833
Health	Alcohol Abuse	£174,487
Development	Road Safety	£770,910
Historic Scotland¹	Historic Scotland	£260,746
2001 to Date	Scottish Executive
Department	Campaign	Spend
Development	Road Safety	£395,834
Development	Travel Awareness	£307,188
Environment and Rural Affairs	Environment	£302,016
Health	Flu	£195,309
Education	Teacher Recruitment	£238,054
Justice	Domestic Abuse	£35,563
Justice	Fire Safety	£65,581

Note:1. Historic Scotland is an agency of the Scottish Executive.

Question reference: S1W-19465

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 12 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is its policy to purchase fair trade products, where appropriate.

Question reference: S1W-19063

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 12 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 9 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment has been made of the impact that the European Commission's proposed Physical Agents Directive will have both generally and, in particular, on the farming industry; what representations it has made to Her Majesty's Government and the Commission on the proposed Directive, and what response it has received.

Question reference: S1W-19395

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 8 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive (a) how many job losses there were and (b) how many jobs were created in the (i) Aberdeen Central, (ii) Aberdeen North (iii) Aberdeen South, (iv) Angus, (v) Banff and Buchan, (vi) Dundee East, (vii) Dundee West, (viii) Gordon and (ix) West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine constituencies in each year since 1 July 1999.

Question reference: S1W-19042

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 8 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many times and which police boards did not take up their full entitlement to police grant in each of the past three years and at what percentage below the grant-aided expenditure provision the budget of each board was set.

The information requested is shown in the following tables (Figures given in).

Force	GAE Available £000	Budget £000	Difference £000	% below GAE £000
1999-2000
Central	£32,913	£32,318	£595	1.8
Fife	£38,958	£38,378	£580	1.5
Northern	£37,190	£35,545	£1,645	4.4
2000-01
Central	£33,468	£33,132	£336	1.0
Fife	£41,652	£41,036	£616	1.5
Northern	£39,014	£38,214	£800	2.0
2001-02
Fife	£44,010	£43,405	£605	1.4

Note:Grant Aided Expenditure is the maximum level of expenditure supported by police grant, which covers 51% of eligible expenditure. Police authorities make up the balance.

Question reference: S1W-18969

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 6 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what level of funding (a) was received by each police force in each of the past three years, (b) is projected in each force for each of the next two years expressed per head of population in each police force area and (c) what the average funding was per head of population nationally.

The information requested is shown in the following table.Police Funding Per Head of Population

	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
Central	£118.56	£120.39	£127.91
Dumfries & Galloway	£141.77	£146.21	£155.35
Fife	£111.56	£118.87	£125.60
Grampian	£116.29	£120.24	£130.82
Lothian & Borders	£146.33	£150.20	£158.22
Northern	£133.54	£140.49	£153.22
Strathclyde	£149.55	£155.61	£163.89
Tayside	£141.68	£149.41	£159.40
Scotland	£139.62	£145.06	£153.78

The figures are based on Grant Aided Expenditure, which is the maximum level of expenditure supported by police grant. In 2002-03 and 2003-04 the average funding per head of population will be £160.74 and £165.17. Decisions have yet to be made on the allocations to individual forces.

Question reference: S1W-18972

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 6 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide details of any grants awarded to each police force for the last year in addition to core funding.

Grants worth over £10 million have been, or will shortly be, made available to forces in the current financial year, to meet special pressures which have arisen during the course of the year. These are in addition to grant aided expenditure. Figures, where a breakdown is available, are given in the table (figures in £000).

Force	Recruitment	DNA Testing
Central	369	63
Dumfries & Galloway	233	40
Fife	435	74
Grampian	676	116
Lothian & Borders	1,442	246
Northern	423	72
Strathclyde	3,710	634
Tayside	612	105
Total	7,900	1,350

In addition, £117,000 has been allocated to Lothian & Borders Police to support its Parliamentary Policing Unit; and discussions are on-going with forces about the allocation of £1.0 million to support implementation of the National Intelligence Model and £0.1 million for analysis of drug driving samples. Some further sums were allocated across individual forces at various times during the year in connection with expenditure on a range of security measures.