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-16665

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 31 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many police officers have taken early retirement in each of the last five years, broken down by police force area.

Question reference: S2W-16666

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 31 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many serving police officers have been (a) arrested and (b) convicted of crimes in each year since 1997, broken down by police force area.

Question reference: S2W-16632

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 31 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-15946 by Mr Tom McCabe on 11 May 2005, what the cost of overtime payments was for the 67 ministerial staff, broken down by (a) grade and (b) Executive department in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S2W-16555

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 26 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will reply to my letter of 12 April 2005 regarding prescription charges for cancer sufferers.

Question reference: S2O-06855

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 26 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many of its staff have been appointed to oversee the work of the task force charged with the regeneration of Moray's economy.

The Task Force Project Team, announced by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in March, is being recruited by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The team will work with Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey Enterprise to develop and progress a Strategy and Action Plan for the future direction of the Moray economy.

The Local Enterprise Company is already undertaking the first stages of this work, including a public consultation process.

Question reference: S2W-16554

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 24 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will reply to Alex Salmond MP's letter of 6 March 2005 regarding the A90: Hatton Bends.

Question reference: S2W-16548

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 23 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many dental surgeries there were in each year since 1997, broken down by NHS board area.

Number of NHS general dental practices¹; at 31 March 2004.

NHS Board Area	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Scotland	947	956	956	963	960	959	958	969
Argyll and Clyde	74	74	69	72	73	71	73	80
Ayrshire and Arran	67	70	71	71	68	65	66	67
Borders	15	16	16	17	17	19	19	20
Dumfries and Galloway	27	27	26	28	28	28	28	29
Fife	57	57	58	58	58	56	56	56
Forth Valley	44	45	47	48	48	50	47	48
Grampian	74	74	70	71	71	72	71	70
Greater Glasgow	198	198	200	202	201	200	199	201
Highland	46	50	53	52	51	52	51	54
Lanarkshire	83	82	83	83	86	86	88	88
Lothian	169	167	166	164	163	163	161	159
Orkney	3	3	1	3	4	3	3	3
Shetland	3	4	4	4	3	5	7	9
Tayside	82	83	85	84	83	84	84	80
Western Isles	5	6	7	6	6	5	5	5

Source: MIDAS (Management Information and Dental Accounting System).

Note: 1. Dental practices with at least one dentist within the practice providing NHS general dental services.

Question reference: S2W-16344

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many occasions when automatic speed cameras detected vehicles breaking the speed limit by any amount resulted in (a) no action being taken in respect of a UK registered vehicle, (b) no action being taken in respect of a non-UK registered vehicle other than a diplomatic plate vehicle, (c) no action being taken in respect of a diplomatic plate vehicle, (d) a warning of any kind being issued, (e) a fixed penalty notice being issued and (f) other court action being taken in each of the last five years.

Information relating to (a), (b), (c) and (e) is not held centrally.

In respect of (d), Notices of Intended Prosecution (NIP) under Section 1 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 are issued automatically to registered keepers of the vehicle concerned and any named drivers. Table 1 gives details of issued Notices of Intended Prosecution (NIP) by safety camera partnerships that have joined the Scottish Safety Camera Programme since it was first piloted in 2000-02. This information is for all camera types (fixed and mobile) and excludes offences involving travelling at excessive speeds that would render the driver liable to automatic disqualification. .

Table 1: Notices of Intended Prosecution (NIP) by Safety Camera Partnership

Partnership	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Strathclyde	73,700	48,456	74,580
Fife	-	9,790	12,208
North East	-	9,490	20,512
Lothian and Borders	-	-	39,081
Tayside	-	-	11,260
Dumfries and Galloway	-	-	11,506

Note: Figures given are for partnerships from the year they joined the Safety Camera Programme. Final figures for 2004-05 have still to be collected. Central Scotland is not currently part of the programme. The partnerships in the table expanded or joined the programme as indicated below.

In 2001-02, Strathclyde included only Glasgow City Council area.

In 2002-03, Strathclyde expanded to cover four local authority areas; Fife joined the programme in April 2002 and the North East Partnership joined in October 2002.

In 2003-04, Strathclyde expanded to 12 local authority areas; Dumfries and Galloway joined the programme in July 2003, Lothian and Borders in July 2003 and Tayside in July 2003.

In respect of (f), information on speeding offences detected by automatic speed cameras which resulted in a police conditional offer is given in Table 17 Police conditional offers for moving vehicle offences by type of offence, 1994-2003 of the statistical bulletin Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts, 2003, published by the Scottish Executive in 2005. A copy of this table is available in the Scottish Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 36012). The totals for automatic detection of speeding offences for each year since 1999 are summarised in table 2.

Table 2 – Totals for Automatic Detection of Speeding Offences 1999-2003

Automatic Detection	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Speeding - Restricted Areas	28,319	30,217	42,974	42,298	78,557
Speeding - Other	20,526	22,511	22,881	27,774	53,782
Total	48,845	52,728	65,855	70,072	132,339

Question reference: S2W-16343

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many times automatic speed cameras detected vehicles breaking the speed limit by (a) any amount, (b) over 10% and (c) over 30% in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-16342

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many speech and language therapists were recruited in Aberdeenshire in (a) 2000, (b) 2001, (c) 2002, (d) 2003 and (e) 2004; how many it anticipates will be recruited in 2005, and what the (i) retention and (ii) average vacancy rate has been in each of these years.

This information is not held centrally for Aberdeenshire. The only figures that are available to the Department are those from the local health board NHS Grampian. NHS Grampian covers three local authority areas: Aberdeenshire; Aberdeen City, and Moray.

However, the department is aware of the difficulties that some NHS boards are experiencing in securing some specialist professional staff to undertake the various duties within the health service across whole of Scotland. These workforce shortages are being addressed rigorously and NHS boards as employers are pursing several initiatives on behalf of the health service that will make the NHS in Scotland, as an exemplar employer, an attractive career option so to recruit and retain more staff.