- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 15 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 June 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what correspondence it has had in respect of, and what difficulties have resulted from, implementing a more secure recording of licensed firearms.
Answer
The Executive is in regularcontact with the UK Government at official and ministerial level, on this andother firearms issues. Section 39 of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 requiresthat a central firearms register is accessible to all police forces in Great Britain.A central Scottish database has been available to all Scottish forces sinceFebruary 2006, but delays in establishing a database in England and Wales haveprevented the development of an interface with Scotland. Work will continuewith the Home Office to achieve full Section 39 compliance as soon as possible.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 5 June 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how much each of its departments has spent on opinion polls in each year since 1999 and whether the findings of each poll will be published.
Answer
“Opinion polling” has no formaldefinition, but the term is most often used in the context of asking about politicalopinions. The Scottish Executive does not carry out polling of this kind.
The Executive has, however, developeda number of mechanisms to measure and track broader non-political public perceptionsand attitudes. This work informs policy development and evaluation across a widerange of policy areas.
As an example I refer the memberto the answer to question S2W- 26048 on 1 June 2006, whichprovides details of a range of surveys that are used to measure both levels of satisfactionwith public services and perceptions of standards.
All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facilityfor which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 15 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 1 June 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made towards more secure recording of licensed firearms.
Answer
Firearms legislation is reservedbut the processing and recording of firearms licences is a matter for the police.Scottish forces have had a firearms database that is compliant with section 39 of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 since February 2006.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 15 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 1 June 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have had firearm licences withdrawn in each year since 1999.
Answer
The numbers of firearms licencesrevoked are given in tables 2a and 5a, for firearms and shotguns respectively, of the statistical bulletin
Firearms Certificates Statistics,
Scotland, 2005, copies of which are availablein the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 39665). The bulletincan also be found on the Scottish Executive website at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00505.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 1 June 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how many probation officers there have been in each year since 1999, broken down by probation board.
Answer
Scotland does not have probation officers or probation boards.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 15 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Hugh Henry on 31 May 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how many new drug treatment centres it plans to create.
Answer
The Executive does not set updrug treatment centres. It provides funding – currently £32 million per annum -to NHS boards for the treatment and rehabilitation of drug misusers. It is for themto determine the best use of this money.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 08 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 24 May 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how many people were admitted to acute hospitals when their primary or secondary diagnosis was an alcohol-related condition and what proportion these admissions were of the (a) total number of admissions and (b) population, broken down by NHS board in the last three years for which data are available.
Answer
The information requested ispublished by ISD and copies are available in the Scottish ParliamentInformation Centre (Bib. number 39647).
Figures on the number of peopledischarged from Scottish acute and general hospitals with a diagnosis of alcoholmisuse, as a percentage of the total number of people discharged and as a percentageof the population are shown in table 1.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 15 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 23 May 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how many prisoners were parents of dependent children in each year since 1999, broken down by prison.
Answer
I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to respond. His response is as follows:
The information requested isnot available as it is not routinely collected by the SPS. The SPS do recognisethe relevance and importance of the relationship between prisoners and children,and the SPS works extensively with partner agencies to support these family links.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive when the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business will reply to my letter of 4 April 2006 regarding my constituent, Mr H Garner of Banff.
Answer
A reply was issued on Thursday 11 May 2006.
- Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive when the Minister for Health and Community Care will reply to my letter of 5 April 2006 regarding Action Against Autism.
Answer
My reply to the member was issuedon 11 May 2006, within the timescale agreed for ministerialcorrespondence.
