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-20471

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 21 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many dentists have left the NHS to work in private practice in each year since 1997.

Question reference: S2W-19922

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 18 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) press releases and (b) consultation documents it has issued in each year since 1999.

Individual news releases and consultation documents are listed on the Scottish Executive website at - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/ and

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Consultations/.

A quick tally of the news release and consultation figures are set out in the following table:

	1999¹	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005²
News Releases³	1,103	2,068	2,184	1,954	1,881	1,702	1,268
Consultation Documents	89	141	165	169	157	175	132

Notes:

1. Figures since devolution.

2. Covers the period up to 8 November 2005.

3. The news release figures cover mainly national releases. Versions of national releases amended for issue to local media are generally not included in the figures.

Question reference: S2W-20388

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it had with the Home Office to assist the Home Office in determining the size of the drugs trade in the United Kingdom.

Question reference: S2W-20387

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to compile an estimate of the size of the illegal drugs trade in Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-20389

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has ever (a) contacted or (b) been contacted by interested parties who were willing to provide information or conduct research into the drug trade in Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-20386

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what bodies hold the information needed to compile a reliable estimate of the size of the illegal drugs trade in Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-20253

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 18 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the change in gross domestic product per hour worked was in each year since 1975.

Data on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per hour worked are produced by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Data are available on a regional basis since 1996, therefore changes in GDP per hour can only be expressed from 1997 to the most recent year available (2003). Table 1 highlights the respective growth in GDP per hour per year over the period.

Table 1: Output (Gross Value Added) per hour worked in Scotland

Year	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Index	100	101.5	102.2	104.0	107.1	106.2	108.6	111.8
Growth rate		1.5%	0.8%	1.7%	3.0%	-0.8%	2.3%	2.9%

Sources: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/tsdataset.asp?vlnk=4841,

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Product.asp?vlnk=8095

Although GDP per hour is widely recognised as a more accurate measure than GDP per worker, there are difficulties in making this data internationally comparable. For this reason the ONS recommends that the data are treated as experimental and that GDP per worker continues to be used as the standard measure for productivity.

Question reference: S2W-20270

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 18 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the level of public spending per head was in Scotland in each year since 1997, broken down by local authority area, and what comparative information it has on the equivalent figures for the rest of the United Kingdom.

The level of total identifiable expenditure on services per head in Scotland (on both devolved and reserved matters) and the UK as a whole since 1997 is shown in the following table.

Total Identifiable Spend per Head of Population

Year	Scotland (£ Per Head)	UK (£ Per Head)
1997-98	4,861	4,101
1998-99	5,019	4,214
1999-00	5,377	4,562
2000-01	5,692	4,832
2001-02	6,308	5,280
2002-03	6,667	5,640
2003-04	7,346	6,164
2004-05	7,786	6,617

Source: HM Treasury’s Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2005.

The Treasury document does not give figures for the UK excluding Scotland, nor is information by local authority area held centrally.

Question reference: S2W-19964

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 17 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average waiting times have been for cancer patients from (a) diagnosis and (b) urgent GP referral to start of treatment in each of the last 12 quarters.

The average is affected disproportionately by a small number of waits that may be clinically appropriate. As NHS Scotland makes progress towards meeting the Executive’s waiting time targets and treats more patients who have had longer waits, median waiting times will rise

This can be demonstrated from the information in Table 1. in Q2 2002 the median wait was 18 days and 73% of patients were treated within one month of diagnosis; in Q1 2005 the median wait was 20 days and 81% of patients were treated within one month of diagnosis.

(a) Diagnosis to Start of Treatment

Breast Cancer

Information is collated centrally to report performance against the Scottish Executive target that by October 2001, women who have breast cancer and are referred for urgent treatment will begin that treatment within one month of diagnosis, where clinically appropriate.

Table 1:

Period of Diagnosis	Median Wait (Days)
Q2 2002	18
Q3 2002	16
Q4 2002	16
Q1 2003	16
Q2 2003	20
Q3 2003	20
Q4 2003	22
Q1 2004	18
Q2 2004	20
Q3 2004	20
Q4 2004	21
Q1 2005	20

Other Cancers

New systems were put in place from Q4 2004 to monitor compliance against the national cancer waiting times target that by the end of December 2005 the maximum wait from urgent referral to treatment for all cancers will be two months. These systems are being developed to include different types of cancer.

Table 2:

Period of Diagnosis	Median Wait (Days)
Q4 2004	19
Q1 2005	17

Note: Q4 2004 includes colorectal, lung and ovarian cancers initially (and from Q1 2005 also includes melanoma).

(b) Urgent Referral to Start of Treatment

Table 3:

Period of Referral	Median Wait (Days)
Q4 2004	41
Q1 2005	41

Note: Q4 2004 includes breast, colorectal, lung and ovarian cancers initially (and from Q1 2005 also includes melanoma).

Question reference: S2W-19956

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by George Lyon on 17 November 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive in how many deaths malnutrition was recorded as a cause in each of the last 10 years, broken down by (a) age and (b) NHS board.

The information requested is given in the following table which covers all deaths where malnutrition was recorded on the death certificate. Malnutrition was selected as the underlying cause of death for some 15% of these cases.

Deaths in Scotland Where Malnutrition¹ was Recorded on the Death Certificate

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
(a) by age group
All ages	40	73	55	65	75	79	86	96	81	99
<15	-	1	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-
15-29	1	1	1	-	2	-	1	-	3	1
30-44	-	3	4	-	3	5	1	2	6	5
45-59	4	4	8	9	5	2	12	16	15	14
60-74	9	26	20	16	25	26	27	25	25	38
75+	26	38	22	40	40	45	45	53	32	41
(b) by NHS Board Area
Argyll and Clyde	1	6	5	2	4	4	6	6	7	11
Ayrshire and Arran	4	8	6	5	4	10	8	7	4	6
Borders	-	2	2	-	3	2	3	3	4	3
Dumfries and Galloway	1	-	-	1	2	2	-	1	2	3
Fife	2	6	5	6	4	1	7	3	8	5
Forth Valley	1	2	1	4	4	6	1	7	6	5
Grampian	-	3	6	5	4	7	9	5	6	4
Greater Glasgow	16	20	8	13	16	27	13	19	15	21
Highland	3	1	1	7	3	2	2	2	1	5
Lanarkshire	3	7	6	2	6	2	4	7	6	11
Lothian	6	7	8	11	17	8	21	22	14	15
Orkney	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
Shetland	-	1	-	1	-	1	1	2	1	1
Tayside	3	10	7	7	7	7	11	12	6	8
Western Isles	-	-	-	1	1	-	-	-	1	-

Notes:

1. International classification of diseases:

1995-99: Ninth revision (ICD9), codes 260 - 263

2000-04: Tenth revision (ICD10), codes E40 - E46.