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-22871

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive which of its core departmental functions are carried out in (a) each region and (b) Edinburgh and what the (i) administration costs, (ii) staff numbers and (iii) total salary bill associated with each function has been in each of these areas in the last year.

The Scottish Executive’s Consolidated Resource Accounts for year ending 31 March 2005 published by the Scottish Executive in 2005, a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 38261) sets out by core departmental aims the expenditure, income and share of the central administration costs (salaries and administration expenditure). Page 55 of the Accounts also provides an analysis of staff numbers by core departments.

Information on salaries and administration costs is not available by region, but I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-22874 on 27 February 2006, which provides a list of Scottish Executive departments (and agencies) by local authority as at 1 April 2005.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Question reference: S2W-22846

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 23 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have successfully completed a drug treatment programme in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-22845

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 23 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many crack cocaine users currently receive community-based treatment.

The Scottish Drug Misuse Database (SDMD) collects information on problem drug users at the point of their coming into contact with drug treatment services. In thefinancial year 2004-05, the number of clients who accessed services (including community based treatment) and reported use of crack cocaine was 348. Of these, 48 people reported that crack cocaine was their main drug of use.

Detailed information is published in the ISD Scotland publication Drug Misuse in Scotland 2005 which is available on the National Drug Misuse website.

http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/05dmss/05dmss.htm.

Question reference: S2W-22847

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 23 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many drug users have participated in drug treatment programes in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Drug Misuse Database (SDMD) collects information on problem drug users at the point of their coming into contact with drug treatment services. The information from the SDMD is provided in the following table.

New Individual Patients/Clients Reported1: 2000-01 –to 2004-05

Number of Individuals
2000-01^r	2001-02^r	2002-03^r	2003-04^r	2004-05^r
10,581	11,685	11,718	13,086	14,332

Source: Scottish Drug Misuse Database. Age group analysis^1,2: year ending 31 March 2005

Source: http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/05dmss/05dmss-011.htm.

Note: 1 All figures in this table exclude penal establishment inmates and information received from needle exchanges. ^rRevised.

Question reference: S2W-22849

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 23 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many of its employees are involved in delivering treatment for the abuse of drugs.

Question reference: S2W-22848

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 23 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many places providing treatment for abusers of drugs were available in each of the last five years.

Information provided by drug action teams through corporate action plans shows the services providing treatment for drug misusers in each of the years for which figures are available. Services are often offered to people with problems with drugs or alcohol or both and it is not always possible to separate the different treatment pathways. The following figures include services treating only drug misusers and those providing treatment for both drug and alcohol problems.

Year	Non-Residential Services	Residential Services
2001-02	214	22
2002-03	211	28
2003-04	238	29
2004-05	308	33

Question reference: S2W-22773

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 23 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the costs were of its central administration in each year since 1999.

The information requested is given in the following Scottish Executive Accounts:

Page 19 of the Scottish Executive Core Departments’ Resource Accounts for year ended 31 March 2000 published by The Stationery Office Limited in 2001, a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 12591).

Page 22 of the Scottish Executive Core Departments’ Resource Accounts for year ended 31 March 2001 published by the Scottish Executive in 2001, a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 18347).

Page 22 of the Scottish Executive Core Departments’ Resource Accounts for year ended 31 March 2002 published by the Scottish Executive in 2002, a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 25810).

Page 23 of the Scottish Executive Core Departments’ Resource Accounts for year ended 31 March 2003 published by the Scottish Executive in 2003, a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 30395).

Page 28 of the Scottish Executive Consolidated Resource Accounts for year ended 31 March 2004 published by the Scottish Executive in 2004, a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 34776).

Page 30 of the Scottish Executive Consolidated Resource Accounts for year ended 31 March 2005 published by the Scottish Executive in 2005, a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 38261).

Question reference: S2W-22774

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 23 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many hospital admissions associated with heroin use there were in each year since 1999, broken down by age and NHS board, and provided in table form.

Question reference: S2W-22636

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 10 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many multi-national companies have established (a) offices and (b) headquarters in Scotland in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S2W-22423

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 3 February 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people in each parliamentary constituency earn (a) £3.60, (b) £3.61 to £3.80, (c) £3.81 to £4 and (d) £4.01 to £4.50 per hour, expressed also as a percentage of total employees in each constituency.

The preferred source for earnings estimates is the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), which is carried out by the Office for National Statistics.

The latest ASHE estimates available by Scottish Parliamentary Constituency (SPC) are for 2003. However, as ASHE is a sample survey we cannot provide data for the requested pay bands as there are too few people in each pay band to produce reliable and non-disclosive estimates.

Table 1 shows the estimated number and proportion of employee jobs that are paid £4.50 or below by SPC. Table 2 shows a more detailed breakdown of low pay bands for Scotland.

These estimates are based on employee jobs rather than people in employment. One person in employment can have more than one job.

Those who are self employed are not included.

Table 1: Number and Proportion of Jobs Paid £4.50 or Below by Constituency, 2003

Parliamentary Constituency	Number of Employee Jobs¹	Proportion of All Employee Jobs¹
Aberdeen Central	2,000	7.8%
Aberdeen North	2,000	6.4%
Aberdeen South	2,000	4.9%
Airdrie and Shotts	1,000	2.2%
Angus	2,000	5.4%
Argyll and Bute	*	*
Ayr	1,000	5.6%
Banff and Buchan	2,000	8.3%
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross	1,000	7.8%
Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley	2,000	8.2%
Central Fife	2,000	5.6%
Clydebank and Milngavie	1,000	5.4%
Clydesdale	2,000	4.7%
Coatbridge and Chryston	1,000	3.5%
Cumbernauld and Kilsyth	2,000	6.8%
Cunninghame North	2,000	7.1%
Cunninghame South	1,000	3.2%
Dumbarton	2,000	6.1%
Dumfries	2,000	7.8%
Dundee East	2,000	5.4%
Dundee West	2,000	6.1%
Dunfermline East	1,000	4.2%
Dunfermline West	2,000	5.4%
East Kilbride	2,000	5.7%
East Lothian	1,000	4.4%
Eastwood	1,000	2.7%
Edinburgh Central	1,000	2.7%
Edinburgh East and Musselburgh	1,000	3.1%
Edinburgh North and Leith	1,000	2.9%
Edinburgh Pentlands	2,000	4.5%
Edinburgh South	2,000	4.6%
Edinburgh West	1,000	2.1%
Falkirk East	1,000	4.9%
Falkirk West	2,000	5.8%
Galloway and Upper Nithsdale	2,000	12.1%
Glasgow Anniesland	2,000	6.8%
Glasgow Baillieston	2,000	7.9%
Glasgow Cathcart	2,000	7.4%
Glasgow Govan	*	*
Glasgow Kelvin	1,000	3.1%
Glasgow Maryhill	2,000	9.2%
Glasgow Pollok	1,000	6.2%
Glasgow Rutherglen	2,000	7.5%
Glasgow Shettleston	1,000	5.4%
Glasgow Springburn	1,000	5.2%
Gordon	2,000	4.2%
Greenock and Inverclyde	1,000	3.1%
Hamilton North and Bellshill	3,000	8.1%
Hamilton South	2,000	8.2%
Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber	2,000	4.6%
Kilmarnock and Loudoun	2,000	7.5%
Kirkcaldy	1,000	5.9%
Linlithgow	2,000	6.2%
Livingston	2,000	5.6%
Midlothian	2,000	5.6%
Moray	2,000	5.3%
Motherwell and Wishaw	2,000	6.3%
North East Fife	1,000	4.4%
North Tayside	2,000	6.0%
Ochil	1,000	5.0%
Orkney and Shetland	1,000	4.6%
Paisley North	4,000	14.8%
Paisley South	2,000	6.6%
Perth	2,000	7.0%
Ross, Skye and Inverness West	2,000	7.3%
Roxburgh and Berwickshire	1,000	4.3%
Stirling	2,000	7.1%
Strathkelvin and Bearsden	1,000	4.1%
Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale	3,000	7.5%
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine	2,000	5.8%
West Renfrewshire	1,000	3.0%
Western Isles	1,000	12.1%

Table 2: Number and proportion of employee jobs by pay band, Scotland, 2003

Gross Hourly Pay	Number of Employee Jobs¹	Proportion of All Employee Jobs¹
Less than or equal to £3.60	16,000	0.8%
£3.61 to £3.80	6,000	0.3%
£3.81 to £4.00	6,000	0.3%
£4.01 to £4.50	86,000	4.3%
Greater than £4.50	1,908,000	94.4%
All	2,022,000	100.0%

Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Office for National Statistics.

Notes:

* - Data are confidential, 1947 statistics of trade act.

1. Employees whose pay for the survey pay-period was not affected by absence.

2. Estimates include those on training rates of pay.

3. As survey results, these are subject to a degree of error and implied differences may not be significant and instead be within a given error range.

4. Levels are rounded to the nearest thousand.

5. Totals may not equal the sum of individual parts due to rounding.

6. Proportions are calculated on un-rounded figures.