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-25826

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many additional specialists were recruited among the relevant allied health professions in order to increase the provision of support available to pupils identified as having autistic spectrum disorder in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S2W-25825

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many additional specialists were recruited among the relevant educational professionals in order to increase the provision of support available to pupils identified as having autistic spectrum disorder in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S2W-25824

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what provision is in place to support pupils with autistic spectrum disorder once they leave the educational system.

The Education (AdditionalSupport for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 places new duties on educationauthorities and appropriate agencies, including Careers Scotland, furthereducation colleges and higher education institutions, to ensure early planning,preparation and the effective exchange of information to support children andyoung people with additional support needs to make a smooth and successfultransition to post-school life – whether that is to education, training orwork.

As autonomous bodies, Scotland’scolleges and universities are responsible for ensuring their provision isaccessible and inclusive to students with disabilities and other additionalsupport needs. Both sectors have been successful in achieving this, asevidenced by the year on year increase in participation by students withdisabilities.

Colleges and universitiescan draw on various support to help them improve their provision. Guidance toPE Colleges on the subject was published in January 2005 when PartnershipMatter’s set out the roles and responsibilities of the various bodies involvedin providing support to students, and other tools from the Scottish Further andHigher Education Funding Council.

Question reference: S2W-25822

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it took to find an explanation for the increase in autistic spectrum disorder among those primary and secondary school pupils with records of needs and/or individualised educational programmes from 1999 onwards and, in particular, the recorded rise between 2001 to 2002.

Up to and including 2001,information was only collected on those pupils with records of needs. Manypupils with high functioning autism and Asperger Syndrome would not have metthe criteria for records of needs but would have Individualised EducationalProgrammes (IEPs). The increase in 2002 onwards is, therefore, partlyattributable to pupils with IEPs being included in the statistical collection.

The Executive is not awareof any peer-reviewed evidence that the prevalence of autistic spectrumdisorders (ASD) has actually increased. The causes, nature and development ofASD are not fully understood but the general consensus is that ASD are aheterogeneous group of disorders resulting from a number of different causes,including a strong genetic factor. Diagnostic boundaries have been broadenedand awareness has increased dramatically over the past 20 years leading to morecases being detected and correctly diagnosed.

Question reference: S2W-25828

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the increase in autistic spectrum disorder among pupils identified with records of needs and/or individualised educational programmes having autistic spectrum disorder, what resources it has put in place to support non-educational agencies, and allied health professionals, to deliver a level of service for these pupils.

The Scottish Executive has beenmaking project grant awards to individual voluntary sector organisations in respectof additional support needs since April 1999. The awards specifically related toautism spectrum disorders have totalled over £1.5 million and are made on the basisof a two or three year cycle.

In addition, the Executive provideda total of £3 million in 2004-05 and in 2005-06 to the Health Boards to assist themto prepare for and to support the implementation of the Education (Additional Supportfor Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. This funding could be used in a variety of ways,such as to provide additional allied health professionals to support children andyoung people with additional support needs, including autism spectrum disorders.

Question reference: S2W-25736

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients received continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP) in each year since 1999.

The information is containedin the following table.

Health Boards	Total
Health Boards	1999- 2000	2000- 01	2001- 02	2002- 03	2003- 04	2004- 05	2005- 06
Argyll and Clyde	1	1	1	10	0	2	1
Ayrshire and Arran	0	0	0	1	0	1	2
Borders	20	29	18	18	31	44	50
Dumfries and Galloway	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
Fife	70	53	60	63	68	113	132
Forth Valley	34	41	33	42	48	63	74
Grampian	38	44	46	74	0	0	1
Greater Glasgow	7	1	7	4	3	2	4
Highland	1	3	2	7	4	0	0
Lanarkshire	1	0	3	2	15	19	21
Lothian	163	152	130	136	134	238	284
Orkney	0	1	0	0	3	1	1
Shetland	2	3	5	0	14	7	6
Tayside	61	49	43	54	70	81	98
Western Isles	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
Northern Ireland*	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
Totals	399	377	348	411	390	571	679

Note: *Because of limitedfacilities in Northern Ireland for people with sleep disorders, patients whorequire a "second opinion" (or the provision of a CPAP machine) inthe view of the consultant, are referred to the Edinburgh Sleep Centre at the RoyalInfirmary of Edinburgh.

Question reference: S2W-25737

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people were waiting for a first appointment at a sleep centre in each year since 1999, broken down by sleep centre.

Question reference: S2W-25710

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive which local authorities recorded an improvement of more than 15% in only two of the 77 statutory performance indicators in each year since 2001.

Question reference: S2W-25711

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive which local authorities recorded a deterioration of more than 15% in seven of the 77 statutory performance indicators in each year since 2001.

Question reference: S2W-25842

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what its advertising budget was, and how many advertising campaigns it ran, in each year since 1999.

I refer the member to the questionS1W-26485, answered on 3 July 2002, providing information on advertising spend by the ScottishOffice-Scottish Executive Departments from 1991-92 to 2001-02.

For information on the Scottish Executive’s advertising spend for 2002-03 please see answer to questionS2W-2481. For information on advertising spend for 2003-04 please see the answer to question S2W-15204.

Advertising spend for 2004-2005is published on the Scottish Executive Marketing Unit website. Please see attachedlink http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/media/17963/adspend05.

Scottish Executive advertisingspend for 2005-2006 is detailed in the following table. Please note these figuresare un-reconciled. Definitive figures will be published in July 06:

Campaign	Total
Alcohol	£664,223.89
ASB	£251,372.67
Career Opps in NHS Scotland	£976,107.92
Childrens Hearings	£99,643.02
Domestic Abuse	£295,950.03
Drug Misuse	£967,016.93
Environment	£368,951.96
Fire Domestic	£287,463.05
Flu	£365,333.28
Healthy Living	£743,600.76
Mental Health	£117,683.10
Organ Donation	£190,570.49
Race	£611,471.60
Road Safety	£605,732.53
Smoking	£1,056,867.36
Teacher Recruitment	£618,668.61
Violence Against PS Workers	£163,263.66
Volunteering	£164,003.13
Miscellaneous	£791,458.64
Total	£9,339,382.63

The miscellaneous figure is advertisingexpenditure out with specific campaigns. Thisincludes the central purchase of a block of outdoor advertising which is used throughoutthe year by the campaigns listed.

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.