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-04842

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 January 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many independent patient treatment requests for medicines licensed for use in the UK in the last five years have been (a) made to NHS boards and (b) approved.

Information on the number of Individual patient treatment requests made to NHS boards and approved in the last five years is not held centrally.

NHS boards and clinicians are expected to take full account of advice from the Scottish Medicines Consortium and Healthcare Improvement Scotland in the planning and provision of NHS services. Where this advice clarifies that a new medicine is not accepted for use within NHSScotland, NHS boards are not expected to make it routinely available. However, NHS boards have arrangements in place for the clinical consideration of “not recommended” medicines for individual patients in certain circumstances (Individual Patient Treatment Requests).

Question reference: S4O-00546

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what advice it has given to local authorities in the last year regarding the renewal of Blue Badges.

Question reference: S4W-04352

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 14 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many pupils are studying (a) standard grade, (b) higher and (c) advanced higher music, broken down by local authority.

The requested information on how many pupils are studying music is not available. However, information on the number of pupils entering music exams in 2010-11 for Standard Grade, Higher and Advanced Higher by local authority is provided in the following table.

Local Authority	Standard Grade	Higher	Advanced Higher
Aberdeen City	227	127	36
Aberdeenshire	265	173	48
Angus	200	72	16
Argyll and Bute	197	95	26
Clackmannanshire	112	56	22
Dumfries and Galloway	403	181	48
Dundee City	302	99	33
East Ayrshire	119	113	27
East Dunbartonshire	168	108	35
East Lothian	176	69	20
East Renfrewshire	0	156	41
Edinburgh City	359	234	70
Eilean Siar	45	22	*
Falkirk	237	116	34
Fife	667	241	71
Glasgow City	948	335	71
Highland	559	226	91
Inverclyde	193	71	27
Midlothian	228	95	27
Moray	256	54	25
North Ayrshire	254	130	29
North Lanarkshire	798	277	43
Orkney Islands	27	46	9
Perth and Kinross	231	104	35
Renfrewshire	443	144	32
Scottish Borders	147	117	30
Shetland Islands	24	12	*
South Ayrshire	55	109	26
South Lanarkshire	663	305	86
Stirling	27	101	29
West Dunbartonshire	235	101	23
West Lothian	492	154	48

Note: *Numbers of less than five have been suppressed for disclosure and quality reasons.

Question reference: S4W-04351

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 14 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with local authorities in the north east regarding options to abolish music tuition.

Question reference: S4W-04353

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 14 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many pupils have been charged fees to sit SQA exams in music in each year since 2007, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S4W-04407

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 12 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it will take to ensure that the governing body for swimming in Scotland is fully representative and consults all stakeholders with an interest in matters related to swimming policy development.

The Sport Governing body of Scottish Swimming are the guardians and custodians of their sport, an essential element of Scottish sport and one that this government recognises and values.

Funding for Scottish swimming is routed via sportscotland however there is no automatic entitlement to investment and Scottish swimming must demonstrate they are able to deliver a plan for their sport which contributes to sportscotland’s Corporate Plan priorities and the National Strategy for Sport.

The monitoring and review of sport governing bodies is a matter for sportscotland and I have asked the Chief Executive Stewart Harris to write to you detailing their governance of Scottish Swimming.

Question reference: S4W-04408

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 12 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it will take to monitor the stakeholder engagement activities of the governing body for swimming in Scotland and how regularly it will review this activity.

Question reference: S4W-04175

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 9 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions ministers have had with UK Government ministers regarding the implementation of the proposed Welfare Reform Bill.

Question reference: S4W-04176

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 9 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions ministers have had with local authorities regarding the implementation of the proposed Welfare Reform Bill.

Question reference: S4W-03853

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 9 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cleaning staff each NHS board has employed in each year since 2007.

The information requested is not held centrally. However, information regarding the number of domestic staff employed by NHS boards is collected. The number of domestic staff employed by NHS Scotland (head count) is shown in the following table by NHS board for years 2007 to 2010.

Please note that data is not directly comparable across NHS boards and across years. The data was collected at different times of year and may be influenced by a number of factors, including boards’ differing use of contract cleaners and overtime working and in-year fluctuations.

Number of Domestic Staff (Head Count) by NHS Board

	2007	2008	2009	2010
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	957	948	998	1,052
NHS Borders	266	266	250	250
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	221	227	234	246
NHS Fife	565	563	589	636
NHS Forth Valley	601	598	592	624
NHS Grampian	1,142	1,157	1,140	1,196
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	1,719	1,787	1,964	2,047
NHS Highland	856	856	1,031	1,070
NHS Lanarkshire	456	450	462	504
NHS Lothian	1,299.5	1,284	1,338	1,399
NHS Orkney	42	44	42	39
NHS Shetland	0	0	0	1
NHS Tayside	675	674	657	693
NHS Western Isles	86	86	86	90
Golden Jubilee	27	37	37	43
Scottish Ambulance Service	17	17	17	30
State Hospital	41	51	55	57
Total	8,970.5	9,045	9,492	9,977