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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 3512 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S2W-09833

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 25 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding has been distributed through the Change and Innovation Fund in each of the last two years, broken down by NHS board and hospital.

The answer to the question askedis set out in the following table.

Information is not availablecentrally on how funding for change and innovation is distributed within NHS boardareas. Each board’s Change and Innovation Plan details the activity that they willundertake and, in some cases, this is identified by area.

NHS Board area	Total Funding for Change and Innovation in 2003-04	Total Funding for Change and Innovation in 2004-05
Argyll and Clyde	£2.153 million	£2.153 million
Ayrshire and Arran	£1.892 million	£1.892 million
Borders	£536,000	£536,000
Dumfries and Galloway	£783,000	£783,000
Fife	£1.631 million	£1.631 million
Forth Valley	£1.296 million	£1.296 million
Grampian	£2.292 million	£2.292 million
Greater Glasgow	£4.803 million	£4.803 million
Highland	£1.101 million	£1.101 million
Lanarkshire	£2.621 million	£2.621 million
Lothian	£3.444 million	£3.444 million
Orkney	£106,000	£106,000
Shetland	£127,000	£127,000
Tayside	£2,010 million	£2.010 million
Western Isles	£204,000	£204,000
National Services Scotland	£722,000	£722,000
Scottish Ambulance Service	£545,000	£545,000
The State Hospital	£106,000	£0
Total Funding	£26.372 million	£26.266 million

Question reference: S2W-09815

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many police officers were on long-term sick leave in each of the last five years, broken down by police force area.

The number of officers on long-termsick leave at any given time is not held centrally. Information on the number oflong-term sick absences, defined as periods of sick leave of more than 28 days duration,for each the last five years available, is shown in the following table.

Number of Long-Term SickAbsences for Police Officers in Scottish Forces

	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Central Scotland Police	51	79	66	75	78
Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary	27	37	34	37	34
Fife Constabulary	54	50	57	53	56
Grampian Police	75	91	55	66	48
Lothian and Borders Police	296	254	338	324	365
Northern Constabulary	39	32	49	50	63
Strathclyde Police	1,015	815	812	740	788
Tayside Police	240	124	140	114	97
All Forces	1,797	1,482	1,551	1,459	1,529

Note: Sourceis Annual Statistical Returns from forces as submitted to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Question reference: S2W-09810

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people convicted of rape in each of the last 10 years had a previous conviction for the same offence in total and broken down into (a) police force area and (b) sheriff court district.

Question reference: S2W-09773

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Frank McAveety on 17 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive which sporting bodies received funding from (a) sportscotland and (b) other sources in each of the last five years and how much was allocated in each case

This information is published in sportscotland’s Annual Reports and Annual Lottery Sports Fund reports. Copies of these can be obtained from sportscotland and/or accessed online via the sportscotland website, www.sportscotland.org.uk.

We do not have the information on what awards were made to sporting bodies by sources other than sportscotland over the last five years.

If the member wishes information about a specific body or category of body, sportscotland would be pleased to assist if it can.

Question reference: S2W-09753

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 17 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21756 by Ross Finnie on 14 January 2002, which areas are designated nitrate vulnerable 'ones (NVZs); what guidance and grant assistance has been issued to farmers on NVZs, and what the results of the monitoring of river water quality have been in each of the last five years, broken down by river.

Four areas were designated as nitrate vulnerable zones (NVZs) on the basis of nitrate concentrations in groundwater: Moray, Aberdeenshire, Banff and Buchan; Strathmore and Fife; Lothian and Borders, and Lower Nithsdale: they comprise 14% of the land area of Scotland. A detailed guidance pack was issued to all farmers in the NVZs in 2003, and the NVZ Grant Scheme provides assistance for installing or improving livestock slurry or manure storage systems or silage effluent tanks. The river water results in the NVZs over the past five years, shown as the number of surface monitoring sites within set ranges of average concentrations, are as follows:

NVZ Area *	mg/l nitrate	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Moray, Aberdeenshire, Banff, Buchan	0-25	13	13	13	13	12
Moray, Aberdeenshire, Banff, Buchan	25-40	4	4	4	4	5
Moray, Aberdeenshire, Banff, Buchan	¡Ý 40	0	0	0	0	0
Strathmore, Fife	0-25	16	15	18	18	18
Strathmore, Fife	25-40	6	6	7	7	9
Strathmore, Fife	40-50	5	5	3	3	1
Strathmore, Fife	¡Ý 50	1	2	0	0	0
Lothian, Borders	0-25	15	15	16	15	16
Lothian, Borders	25-40	4	4	3	4	3
Lothian, Borders	¡Ý 40	0	0	0	0	0
Lower Nithsdale	0-25	1	1	1	1	1

Note: *In some NVZs the data represents more than one site on a single river.

Question reference: S2W-09710

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 16 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many infection control nurses there are, expressed also per head of population, broken down by NHS board.

The following table shows the number and rate per 100,000 population (headcount and whole time equivalent (WTE) of NHS employed infection control nurses at 21 May 2004. Rates per 100,000 population should be treated with caution as the variability between boards may be explained in part by the relatively small number of infection control nurses in each area.

Number of Infection Control Nurses by NHS Board

NHS Board	Headcount at 21-May-04	WTE at 21-May-04	Headcount per 100,000 Population	WTE per 100,000 Population
Total	128	118.5	2.5	2.3
NHS Argyll and Clyde	14	14	3.4	3.4
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	5	5	1.4	1.4
NHS Borders	3	3	2.8	2.8
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	3	3	2	2
NHS Fife	6	5.8	1.7	1.6
NHS Forth Valley	4	4	1.4	1.4
NHS Grampian	9	8.23	1.7	1.6
NHS Greater Glasgow	23	20.17	2.7	2.3
NHS Highland	8	6.4	3.8	3.1
NHS Lanarkshire	11	10.4	2	1.9
NHS Lothian	19	17.1	2.4	2.2
NHS Orkney	1	1	5.2	5.2
NHS Shetland	1	1	4.6	4.6
NHS Tayside	12	11.6	3.1	3
NHS Western Isles	2	1.2	7.7	4.6
Special NHS Boards^*	7	6.6	-	-

Source Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health.

Source of Population Estimates as at 30 June 2003: General Register Office for Scotland.

Note: *Special NHS boards include NHS National Services Scotland, Golden Jubilee National Hospital and The State Hospital.

Question reference: S2W-09709

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 16 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many GP practices have closed their patient lists in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board.

NHS Fife	5
NHS Greater Glasgow	1
Total	6

The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts)(Scotland) Regulations 2004 came into effect on 1 April 2004 and introduced a statutory arrangement under which a GP practice can close its patient list. Since 1 April 2004, six lists have been closed to new patients.

It has always been open to a GP practice to refuse an application from a patient to join its patient list but previously there were no provisions for lists to be closed. Any patient whose application is refused becomes eligible to be assigned to a practice by the local health board. A practice may decide to refuse all applications for a particular period for various reasons, such as when a partner was on study leave, but in the past, unless the patient list was at the maximum of 3,500 per doctor, it was open to the health board still to assign patients to such a practice. Only by formal closure under the new procedures will a practice not receive further patients.

Question reference: S2W-09711

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 16 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients have been treated for depression in each year since 2000, broken down by age.

Question reference: S2W-09740

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 16 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many NHS consultant posts are currently vacant, broken down by speciality and NHS board area.

I refer the member to the answer given to S2W-9293, answered on 15 July 2004. 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/search_wa.

Information on consultant vacancy rates within each specialty is available within Tables B11 (Whole Time Equivalent) and B12 (Headcount) on the ISD website at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.

Question reference: S2W-09744

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 16 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many out-patients were waiting for (a) less than 9 weeks, (b) less than 13 weeks, (c) less than 26 weeks, (d) more than 26 weeks and (e) more than 52 weeks for an NHS appointment, broken down by individual speciality and NHS board, in the most recent quarter for which figures are available.