Questions and answers

Question reference: S4W-13476

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 19 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is considering expanding the national concessionary travel scheme to include community transport services.

The National Concessionary Travel scheme for older and disabled people already includes community transport services that are registered as local bus services. We amended bus registration legislation last year to allow flexibly routed
demand-responsive community transport services which are available to the general public to be registered as local bus services. These changes allow more community transport services to be included in the scheme. We have no plans to extend the scheme further to include other community transport services.

Question reference: S4W-13475

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 19 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is considering action to expand community transport infrastructure.

We have no plans for changing the current arrangements under which the main funding for community transport comes through local authorities’ block funding arrangements.

Community transport organisations will be able to bid in partnership with local transport authorities for resources from the Bus Investment Fund, which we will introduce in April.

We will also provide grant funding of £45,000 to the Community Transport Association in 2013–14 towards building the capacity of the sector in Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-13274

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 14 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether the £20 million of funding announced on 18 February 2013 for shared equity schemes to assist first-time buyers on low to moderate incomes will be available from 1 April 2013.

Question reference: S4W-12784

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 31 January 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many court cases of repossession of residential properties there have been since the Home Owner and Debtor Protection (Scotland) Act 2010 came into force and how many found in favour of the homeowner.

The Home Owner and Debtor Protection (Scotland) Act was introduced in September 2010. Details of the number of repossession cases initiated and disposed offin the sheriff courts by procedure are as follows:

Procedure	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Initiated
Ordinary cause	8,256	4,245	79
Summary application	4	975	6,673
Total	8,260	5,220	6,752
Disposed
Ordinary cause	6,476	5,083	253
Summary application	6	489	3,987
Total	6,482	5,572	4,240

Note: figures for initiations and disposals do not necessarily refer to the same cases.

The figure for the number of cases found in favour of the home owner is not available. In general, it can be assumed that when a case is recorded as having a disposal type of “dismissed” it has been disposed in favour of the defendant (home owner).

Details of the number of repossession cases disposed of as “dismissed” are as follows:

	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Ordinary Procedure	274	1,061	142
Summary Application	3	458	640

Question reference: S4W-13221

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the recommendations are of the review of Passengers’ View Scotland.

I have now concluded my consideration of the future of the Public Transport Users’ Committee for Scotland (PTUC) which operates under the name of Passenger Views Scotland (PVS) and the members have been informed of my decision to close the PTUC down from 1 April 2013.

The report of the arms-length review of Passenger View Scotland (PVS), including recommendations made by the author of the report, will be published on the Transport Scotland website in March 2013.

Question reference: S4W-13222

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether the review of Passengers’ View Scotland has taken account of the Bus Passengers’ Platform and its statutory functions.

Question reference: S4W-13220

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government when the review of Passengers’ View Scotland will be (a) concluded and (b) published.

I have now concluded my consideration of the future of the Public Transport Users’ Committee for Scotland (PTUC) which operates under the name of Passenger Views Scotland (PVS) and the members have been informed of my decision to close the PTUC down from 1 April 2013.

The arms-length review of the PTUC featured in my considerations and was passed to the members of the body in January 2013 with the offer of a discussion with the author of the review. It is my intention to publish the review in March 2013.

Question reference: S4W-13224

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 22 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 5 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what actions the Minister for Transport and Veterans will take in relation to the appointment of members of the board of Passengers’ View Scotland.

I have now concluded my consideration of the future of the Public Transport Users’ Committee for Scotland (PTUC) which operates under the name of Passenger Views Scotland (PVS) and the members have been informed of my decision to close the PTUC down with effect from 1 April 2013.

All but one of the terms of appointment for the current members of Passengers’ View Scotland come to an end on 31 March 2013. The remaining member’s appointment will also come to an end due to the removal of functions from the PTUC on 1 April 2013. Thereafter no further action on appointments need be taken.

Question reference: S4W-12841

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 04 February 2013
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 4 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government whether organisations that are members of Advice UK will be able to bid for the £1.7 million fund to provide direct support for advice services.

Question reference: S4W-12611

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 28 January 2013
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 21 February 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many one-bedroom properties have been built in the social rented sector in each of the last five years, also expressed as a percentage of social housing built.

Chamber and committees