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-05450

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 16 January 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the membership and remit of the Cabinet Delivery Group on Closing the Opportunity Gap will be and whether it will take external advice.

The Cabinet Delivery Groupon Closing the Opportunity Gap is composed of the following ministers and deputyministers:

Minister for Communities (Chair)

Minister for Environment and Rural Development(Deputy Chair)

Minister for Health and Community Care

Deputy Minister for Communities

Deputy Minister for Education and Young People

Deputy Minister for Enterprise and LifelongLearning

Deputy Minister for Justice

First Minister (ex officio)

Deputy First Minister (ex officio)

The Delivery Group has a remit:

Toscope a work programme to ensure that the Executive’s commitments on closingthe opportunity gap, particularly as set out in the partnership agreement, aremet; to set objectives and targets for the work programme; to commission anofficial to take the work programme forward, drawing on a team from across theExecutive; and to report annually to cabinet.

The delivery group hasappointed external members Gill Scott, Director of the Scottish PovertyInformation Unit at Glasgow Caledonian University, and David Nicoll, Chief Executive of the WiseGroup, an innovative organisation based in Glasgow, and operatingthroughout Scotland and the North of England, that assists unemployedpeople back into work.

Question reference: S2O-00900

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 4 December 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with Scottish Water about the current level of water stocks.

Question reference: S2W-04185

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Euan Robson on 2 December 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance has been issued to local authorities in respect of the criteria that should be used when placing or removing a child's name on or from child protection registers.

Question reference: S2O-00840

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Mary Mulligan on 27 November 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive what timetable has been set for the removal of Crown immunity from the planning system.

Question reference: S2W-04129

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by George Reid on 19 November 2003

To ask the Presiding Officer what the outcome has been of the recent consultations about the question and answer sessions held by the Holyrood progress group.

The Convener of the Holyroodprogress group (HPG) has confirmed that the results of the consultationexercise to determine whether or not MSPs wished to continue with the HPG questionand answer sessions are as follows:

In favour of discontinuation	59
In favour of continuation	16
Abstentions	3

The HPG has therefore takenthe decision to discontinue these sessions with immediate effect.

Question reference: S2W-04059

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Euan Robson on 12 November 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive what funding will be made available to local authorities for the provision of services to young people leaving care.

I am pleased to announce that the Executive is making £10 million available over this and the next two years to provide an improved service to young people leaving care, including a full assessment of their needs, and to provide financial and other support for some young people in place of existing Department of Work and Pensions benefits. Local authorities are being informed of their allocation which is detailed in the following table.

	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Aberdeen City	£32,739	£130,957	£163,696
Aberdeenshire	£21,706	£86,826	£108,532
Angus	£15,362	£61,449	£76,811
Argyll and Bute	£11,654	£46,616	£58,270
Clackmannanshire	£10,245	£40,982	£51,227
Dumfries and Galloway	£20,273	£81,093	£101,366
Dundee City	£41,268	£165,070	£206,338
East Ayrshire	£26,356	£105,423	£131,779
East Dunbartonshire	£10,471	£41,884	£52,355
East Lothian	£13,685	£54,738	£68,423
East Renfrewshire	£9,624	£38,496	£48,120
Edinburgh	£81,563	£326,252	£407,815
Eilean Siar	£2,553	£10,211	£12,764
Falkirk	£26,783	£107,134	£133,917
Fife	£64,972	£259,889	£324,861
Glasgow	£210,204	£840,816	£1,051,020
Highland	£31,416	£125,664	£157,080
Inverclyde	£20,943	£83,771	£104,713
Midlothian	£14,422	£57,690	£72,112
Moray	£10,597	£42,389	£52,986
North Ayrshire	£33,534	£134,134	£167,668
North Lanarkshire	£73,210	£292,841	£366,051
Orkney	£1,660	£6,640	£8,300
Perth and Kinross	£16,597	£66,388	£82,985
Renfrewshire	£38,175	£152,700	£190,875
Scottish Borders	£12,328	£49,312	£61,640
Shetland	£2,192	£8,766	£10,958
South Ayrshire	£17,009	£68,038	£85,047
South Lanarkshire	£55,949	£223,797	£279,746
Stirling	£13,210	£52,839	£66,049
West Dunbartonshire	£27,701	£110,802	£138,503
West Lothian	£31,599	£126,394	£157,993
Total	£1,000,000	£4,000,000	£5,000,000

Question reference: S2W-03376

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 7 November 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to publish a strategy for (a) visually and (b) hearing impaired people.

The Scottish Executive has no plans to publish a specific strategy for visually or hearingimpaired people. It is, however, extending the principles set out in Fairfor All across the NHS to ensure that health services recognise and respondsensitively to an individual’s needs, background and life circumstances. The needs of these specific groups willalso be included in an initiative which I launched with the Disability RightsCommission on 3 November.

Question reference: S2O-00661

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 30 October 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive how it plans to help families living in overcrowded conditions.

Question reference: S2W-03114

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2003
Current Status: Answered by Elish Angiolini on 28 October 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive whether guidance issued to Procurators Fiscal encourages the prosecution of licensees charged with selling alcohol to minors.

Procurators Fiscal considerall cases reported to them on their individual merits. To assist ProcuratorsFiscal in their consideration of cases, confidential, internal guidance isprovided in relation to a range of issues. Proceedings will be commenced if thereis sufficient reliable and credible evidence, and it is in the public interestto do so. As stated in our prosecution code, the assessment of the publicinterest necessarily includes consideration of public concern and localcommunity interests.

Question reference: S2O-00493

Asked by: Scott Barrie, MSP for Dunfermline West, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive how it is improving adult literacy.

Following the publication of the Scottish Executive’s Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland reportin July 2001, we have allocated new funding of £51 million over a five-year periodto 2006 to support 80,000 adults by 2004 and 150,000 by 2006. £40 million of thismoney is routed through Community Learning Strategy Partnerships in local authoritieswhere all providers can access funds to supply a range of learning opportunities.My colleague Margaret Curran and I recently announced £1 million for eight nationalpathfinder projects to support the initiative, and a national awareness raisingcampaign is planned for early 2004 to help attract new learners and raise awarenesswith employers.