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-05784

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 27 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish the results of its research into right to buy sales and resales.

Question reference: S2W-05773

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 26 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-4809 by Malcolm Chisholm on 19 January 2004, what the values are of the outliers.

The 1% of values that arelonger than the 99^th percentile shown in the answer to S2W-4809 on 19 January 2004cannot individually be relied upon as these will include a mixture of actualtimes and times that are a result of recording errors. Of those patients whohave actually waited longer for in-patient or day case treatment than the valueof the 99^th percentile there will be some whose waiting time isaffected because their doctor has agreed that the guarantee is not appropriatebecause: it would either not be in their best medical interests; theircondition is of low clinical priority; their treatment is highly specialised;or because they are failed to attend earlier appointments; or because thepatients themselves have cancelled or refused appointments.

Among the actions taken byISD Scotland in response to the Audit Scotland Report Review of theManagement of Waiting Lists in Scotland is the planning of a qualityassurance review of waiting lists, to start in March 2004. The review willinclude a selection of patients already treated whose record indicates thatthey waited longer than the 99^th percentile.

Question reference: S2W-05772

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 23 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-4809 by Malcolm Chisholm on 19 January 2004, whether the outliers in the dataset were disregarded for the purpose of statistical analysis of waiting times and lists.

Question reference: S2W-03857

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 November 2003
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 17 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many respite care weeks have been provided by each local authority in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-05776

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 17 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what analysis has been carried out of the impact on homelessness of legislation relating to housing passed during the Parliament's first session.

Question reference: S2W-05786

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 17 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the administration costs have been in each social inclusion partnership in each year of the operation of the partnership.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The amounts claimed in each year are show in the following tables.

Social Inclusion Partnership	Administration Costs 1999-2000 £	Administration Costs 2000-01 £
Great Northern	0	20,000
Arbroath ¹	0	N/A
Argyll and Bute	0	0
Edinburgh North	53,888	51,575
Edinburgh South	0	17,889
Edinburgh Strategic Programme	26,172	12,450
Edinburgh Youth SIP	3,959	13,512
Edinburgh Craigmillar	40,717	40,185
Alloa South and East	2,022	7,616
Dundee Young Carers	1,122	2,500
Dundee SIP1	57,000	50,100
Dundee SIP2	19,317	10,950
Dundee Xplore	5,488	10,250
East Ayrshire Coalfields	0	0
Tranent	0	0
Levern Valley	0	0
Falkirk	0	1,171
Fife	18,775	819
Frae Fife	2,344	4,119
Glasgow Smaller Areas	27,500	17,972
Glasgow Anti-Racist	12,583	19,513
Glasgow Big Step	7,088	12,825
Glasgow Drumchapel	18,750	47,747
Glasgow East End	54,437	54,650
Glasgow Gorbals	5,297	14,425
Glasgow Greater Easterhouse	70,000	78,525
Glasgow Greater Govan	3,781	9,011
Glasgow Greater Pollok	18,113	31,103
Glasgow Milton	2,810	14,100
Glasgow North	81,350	65,805
Glasgow Routes Out	3,515	7,828
Glasgow Springburn	1,386	17,422
Highland Well-Being	0	8,891
Inverclyde	63,020	48,900
Moray Youthstart	0	8,021
North Ayrshire	16,900	797
Motherwell North	29,897	36,176
North Lanarkshire	18,491	17,469
South Coatbridge	5,096	13,637
GO – Perth	1,136	0
Renfrewshire – Ferguslie Park	13,450	20,365
Renfrewshire Paisley	72,025	70,798
Scottish Borders	0	599
Girvan	0	5,370
North Ayr	28,325	31,711
Blantyre/ North Hamilton	0	0
Cambuslang	0	0
Stirling – SPUR	13,251	11,074
West Dunbartonshire	41,702	38,220
West Lothian	4,700	6,400
Total	845,407	952,490

Notes: ¹Arbroath SIP, a former Regeneration Programme, ended its designation in March 2000.

Social Inclusion Partnership	Administrative Costs 2001- 02 £	Administrative Costs 2002- 03 £
Great Northern	21,250	21,781
Argyll and Bute	0	0
Edinburgh North	57,662	54,127
Edinburgh South	26,118	36,535
Edinburgh Strategic Programme	12,756	9,072
Edinburgh Youth SIP	13,956	13,887
Edinburgh Craigmillar	44,457	44,565
Alloa South & East	23,407	25,950
Dundee Young Carers	2,600	2,732
Dundee SIP1	52,250	57,644
Dundee SIP2	10,446	10,678
Dundee Xplore	14,806	13,905
East Ayrshire Coalfields	30,000	30,000
Tranent	0	0
Levern Valley	0	0
Falkirk	0	0
Fife	0	8,263
Frae Fife	0	1,733
Glasgow Smaller Areas	32,292	48,037
Glasgow Anti-Racist	14,499	21,383
Glasgow Big Step	11,183	13,334
Glasgow Drumchapel	49,154	71,063
Glasgow East End	53,661	77,921
Glasgow Gorbals	14,941	20,461
Glasgow Greater Easterhouse	64,550	94,073
Glasgow Greater Govan	17,315	33,812
Glasgow Greater Pollok	55,089	83,171
Glasgow Milton	18,262	21,497
Glasgow North	55,992	83,740
Glasgow Routes Out	6,629	8,408
Glasgow Springburn	16,152	24,200
Highland Well-Being	0	0
Inverclyde	48,330	49,540
Moray Youthstart	0	0
North Ayrshire	1,552	0
Motherwell North	39,246	37,408
North Lanarkshire	21,140	12,656
South Coatbridge	18,235	19,455
GO - Perth	0	5,279
Renfrewshire - Paisley ¹	86,725	74,487
Scottish Borders	3,992	2,983
Girvan	0	0
North Ayr	38,925	0
Blantyre/ North Hamilton	1,440	0
Cambuslang	1,440	0
Stirling - SPUR	11,815	10,830
West Dunbartonshire	50,634	50,110
West Lothian	3,010	0
Total	1,045,911	1,194,720

Notes: ¹IncludesFerguslie Park.

Question reference: S2W-05834

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 13 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many new public sector school developments have been completed since May 1999 and how many such developments have been funded through public private partnerships or the private finance initiative

Question reference: S2W-05881

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 12 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S2W-4961 and S2W-4962 by Malcolm Chisholm on 26 January 2004, whether it can form companies for other purposes and, if not, what statutory impediment prevents it from doing so.

The Scottish Executive may form companies where appropriate powers exist. All decisions oractions, including the formation of companies, by a public sector body must bewithin the powers (intra vires) of that body. Depending on the type ofpublic body, the powers will be set out in one or more of the following:statute, statutory instruments, trading fund orders, company memorandum andarticles of association, trust deeds etc; and powers may also exist in commonlaw. If a public sector body acts outside the scope of its powers (ultravires) then that decision or action is invalid and is unauthorised by law.

Question reference: S2W-05823

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 11 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of officers at each rank within (a) each police force and (b) the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA) is from ethnic minority groups.

Information as at end March 2003 is shown in the following table:

	Inspector	Sergeant	Constable
Central	0	0.8%	0.2%
Dumfries & Galloway	0	0	0.3%
Fife	0	0	0.7%
Grampian	0	0	0.4%
Lothian and Borders	1.1%	0.5%	0.9%
Northern	0	0	0.4%
Strathclyde	0	0.3%	0.9%
Tayside	0	0	0.5%
SDEA	0	0	0.8%

Notes:

1. The source for figures for police forces is the Annual Statistical Returns from forces for 2002-03. The figures for the SDEA were provided directly by thatorganisation.

2. Figures for forces include officers seconded to central service, including for example the Scottish Police College and the SDEA. As a result, officersin the SDEA appear twice in the table but the information provided in the annualstatistical returns does not identify these separately by force.

3. Figures for inspector include chief inspector.

4. There were no officers from ethnic minority groups above the rank of chief inspector.

Question reference: S2W-05827

Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 11 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance it has issued in respect of action to address under-representation of female officers above the rank of constable in police forces.