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: S4W-19244

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 January 2014
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 29 January 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many GP surgeries are not accepting new patients, broken down by NHS board.

Part 2 of Schedule 5 to the 2004 Regulations sets out the requirements that GP practices and health boards must follow in managing patient lists, including closure of patients lists.

NHS Board	Closed Patient Lists
Ayrshire and Arran	0
Borders	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0
Fife	0
Forth Valley	0
Grampian	0
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	1
Highland	0
Lanarkshire	0
Lothian	0
Orkney	0
Shetland	0
Tayside	0
Western Isles	0

Question reference: S4W-18995

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 16 January 2014

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-17160 by Kenny MacAskill on 12 September 2013, whether it will also provide a breakdown of the number of (a) investigations carried out and (b) dog control notices served by each local authority during the period 26 February 2011 to 26 February 2012.

The information is contained in the following table:

DOG CONTROL NOTICES ISSUED

INVESTIGATIONS CARRIED OUT

LOCAL AUTHORITY	27 FEB 2011 TO 26 FEB 2012	27 FEB 2012 TO 26 FEB 2013	27 FEB 2011 TO 26 FEB 2012	27 FEB 2012 TO 26 FEB 2013
Aberdeen City Council	4	4	207	317
Aberdeenshire Council	3	14	89	198
Angus Council	0	0	27	80
Argyll and Bute Council	7	5	28	43
Clackmannanshire Council	0	0	30	51
Dumfries and Galloway Council	2	4	24	17
Dundee City Council	0	0	5	136
East Ayrshire Council	8	9	24	17
East Dunbartonshire Council	10	0	24	20
East Lothian Council	12	4	14	5
East Renfrewshire Council	0	0	1	1
Edinburgh City Council	0	4	32	164
Falkirk Council	0	4	33	82
Fife Council	10	37	55	159
Glasgow City Council	1	1	12	5
Highland Council	2	8	16	38
Inverclyde Council	0	1	0	3
Midlothian Council	1	1	24	39
Moray Council	0	0	36	99
North Ayrshire Council	1	1	29	24
North Lanarkshire Council	0	0	6	13
Orkney Council	0	0	3	1
Perth and Kinross Council	0	1	40	36
Renfrewshire Council	0	9	36	89
Scottish Borders Council	4	8	16	35
Shetland Islands Council	4	2	32	9
South Ayrshire Council	0	0	3	21
South Lanarkshire Council	0	4	43	48
Stirling Council	1	1	19	8
West Dunbartonshire Council	0	7	41	55
West Lothian Council	22	18	164	214
Western Isles Council	0	0	1	53
TOTAL	92	147	1114	2080

OVERALL FIGURES FEB 2011 TO FEB 2013

239

3194

The figures have been provided by local authorities.

Question reference: S4O-02794

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 January 2014
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 January 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth has had with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing regarding the future financing of the NHS.

Question reference: S4W-18967

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 10 January 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that accredited voluntary registration for healthcare professionals could lead to it being unable to bar professionals who fail to meet acceptable patient safety standards and, if so, what action it will take.

Question reference: S4W-18968

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 10 January 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it will take to ensure that the healthcare delivered by voluntary regulated health professionals meets acceptable patient safety standards.

Health professionals who are on voluntary registers are subject to standards of education, practice and professional development as set out by those registers. Voluntary registers which achieve accreditation through the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care’s Accredited Voluntary Registers scheme give the public the choice to select practitioners on a register that has been independently vetted and approved. All healthcare professionals working within NHSScotland are subject to conduct and performance standards regardless of their regulatory status.

Question reference: S4W-18966

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 10 January 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what representations it has made regarding the introduction of accredited voluntary registration for healthcare professionals; on what dates, and what the outcome was.

The Scottish Government is in regular contact with the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) regarding all aspects of its statutory functions as they apply to Scotland. Prior to the introduction of the Accredited Voluntary Registers scheme, the PSA held two stakeholder engagement workshops in Glasgow, on 9 February and 2 November 2012 respectively. Following the introduction of the scheme another event was held in Edinburgh on 1 November 2013. The scheme has significantly exceeded the PSA’s initial estimates for the number of registers to be accredited in the first year of operation.

Question reference: S4O-02761

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 January 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that schools provide opportunities to learn the skills that will be required in the oil and gas and renewables sectors.

Question reference: S4W-18741

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 December 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 16 December 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the provision of health services for the Elsick development in Aberdeenshire.

Question reference: S4W-18460

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 13 December 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted for attacks on emergency service staff in each year since 1999.

The available information is given in the following tables.

The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Police (Scotland) Act 1967, have provisions for a person who assaults, resists, obstructs, molests or hinders emergency workers. Offences which specifically involve an assault on emergency workers cannot generally be identified separately from other section offences in the data held centrally.

The Police Act 1996 Section 89(1) provides for any person who assaults a constable in the execution of his duty, or a person assisting a constable in the execution of his duty, shall be guilty of an offence.

Other assaults on emergency workers which may result in other charges such as serious assault or attempted homicide cannot be identified separately in the available statistics and so are not included.

People prosecuted in Scottish Courts for offences against emergency workers¹, 1998-99 to 2012-13

	Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005	Police (Scotland) Act 1967	Police Act 1996	All
1998-99	0	3,351	0	3,351
1999-00	0	2,882	0	2,882
2000-01	0	2,725	0	2,725
2001-02	0	3,033	0	3,033
2002-03	0	3,164	0	3,164
2003-04	0	3,515	0	3,515
2004-05	0	3,603	0	3,603
2005-06	57	3,683	0	3,740
2006-07	212	4,071	0	4,283
2007-08	287	4,127	0	4,414
2008-09	309	3,989	0	4,298
2009-10	290	3,599	0	3,889
2010-11	336	3,329	0	3,665
2011-12	411	4,081	0	4,492
2012-13	391	3,915	3	4,309

People with a charge proved in Scottish Courts for offences against emergency workers¹,1998-99 to 2012-13

	Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005	Police (Scotland) Act 1967	Police Act 1996	All
1998-99	0	2,715	0	2,715
1999-00	0	2,274	0	2,274
2000-01	0	2,149	0	2,149
2001-02	0	2,452	0	2,452
2002-03	0	2,880	0	2,880
2003-04	0	3,124	0	3,124
2004-05	0	3,200	0	3,200
2005-06	54	3,286	0	3,340
2006-07	200	3,644	0	3,844
2007-08	275	3,703	0	3,978
2008-09	301	3,574	0	3,875
2009-10	281	3,184	0	3,465
2010-11	323	2,989	0	3,312
2011-12	356	3,364	0	3,720
2012-13	330	3,137	2	3,469

Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings data.

Note: 1. Where main charge.

Question reference: S4W-18459

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2013
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 13 December 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many attacks on emergency service staff have been reported in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board area.

The police recorded crime statistics collected centrally are based on an aggregate return at local authority level, and as such, do not distinguish the circumstances of the crime, such as the occupation of the victim. In addition, as local authority areas do not nest into NHS health board areas, it is not possible to produce a breakdown of recorded crime data by NHS board areas.

Following the introduction of the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005, a new crime code (Common Assault of an Emergency Worker) was created. This crime code also includes offences under the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 and the Police Act 1996. Prior to this, a common assault on an emergency worker would have been recorded and classified as a Common assault and as the dataset cannot be interrogated on the basis of occupation of the victim, it is not possible to identify emergency workers prior to 2005-06. Where an emergency worker is the victim of a Serious assault, these will be included within the Serious assault crime code. However it is not possible to identify emergency workers separately.

The following table shows the number of offences of Common assault of an emergency worker for Scotland since the introduction of the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005.

Financial Year	Common assault of an emergency worker¹
2005-06²	518
2006-07	723
2007-08	753
2008-09	1,150
2009-10	5,320
2010-11	6,456
2011-12	7,107
2012-13	6,514

Notes:

1. In 2010, an inconsistency in the classification of assaults on police officers was identified. Some police forces had continued to classify assaults on police officers as an offence of Common Assault rather than the new offence of Common assault of an emergency worker. As a result, 2009-10 is the first year in which all police forces were consistently classifying common assaults on police officers under this new offence.

2. The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 came into force on 9 May 2005.

In June 2010, Justice Analytical Services in the Scottish Government produced a short paper which reports on the results of a special exercise to investigate these classification issues. This paper is publicly available via the following web link: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/JusticeOccasional.