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-24804

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 26 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it supports vulnerable older people being able to choose between meals on wheels and a frozen meals service.

Question reference: S2W-24806

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 26 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what impact it anticipates that the replacement of meals on wheels by a frozen food meals service may have on volunteer development.

Question reference: S2W-24801

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 25 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many paid carers there have been in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The information requested isshown in the following table.

Number of Paid Care Workers¹by Local Authority, 1999-2004

Local Authority	1999	2000²	2001²	2002	2003	2004
Aberdeen City	1,127	1,065	865	774	822	688
Aberdeenshire	1,115	1,182	1,138	1,106	1,210	1,292
Angus	457	501	559	599	625	644
Argyll and Bute	553	569	660	747	597	632
Clackmannanshire	127	122	123	111	110	92
Dumfries and Galloway³	587	96	133	121	110	100
Dundee City	862	708	752	847	824	782
East Ayrshire	499	437	443	431	482	615
East Dunbartonshire	419	397	385	399	372	347
East Lothian	481	478	502	480	465	489
East Renfrewshire	247	292	317	345	334	344
Edinburgh City	2,568	2,565	2,853	2,778	2,868	2,792
Eilean Siar	572	547	494	525	516	536
Falkirk	816	723	726	800	742	737
Fife	2,180	2,226	2,233	2,319	2,492	2,492
Glasgow City	1,361	1,634	1,518	1,436	1,340	1,324
Highland⁴	1,082	447	1,431	1,404	1,336	1,240
Inverclyde	450	604	565	504	509	446
Midlothian	452	420	413	413	401	387
Moray	516	516	387	427	351	435
North Ayrshire	579	649	629	751	665	654
North Lanarkshire	1,493	1,992	1,902	2,183	2,391	2,202
Orkney Islands	414	301	393	379	339	339
Perth and Kinross	435	470	506	512	495	476
Renfrewshire	870	1,020	1,042	1,014	1,060	1,110
Scottish Borders	790	695	774	832	740	864
Shetland Islands	421	436	441	377	389	451
South Ayrshire	488	455	433	500	441	615
South Lanarkshire	1,220	1,298	1,387	1,439	1,715	1,578
Stirling	280	269	280	289	266	301
West Dunbartonshire	717	671	719	725	817	695
West Lothian	629	611	457	534	560	577
Scotland	24,807	24,396	25,460	26,101	26,384	26,276

Source: Staff of Scottish LocalAuthority Social Work Services - publications from 1999 to 2004.

Notes:

1. For the purposes of this table,Paid Care Workers includes Other Qualified Care Staff and Care staff working inDay Care and Residential Resource Workers, Other Qualified Care Staff and Care Staffworking in Residential Accommodation and Home Care Staff (2000-04 only). In 1999,Paid Care Workers included Home Care Staff, Care Staff, Nursery Nurse, Early Educationand Childcare Workers, Day Carers and Other Care Staff in Day Care Units and ResidentialAccommodation.

2. In 2002, revisions were incorporatedinto figures for Dundee in relation to 2000, and into figures for Dundee, Highland andWest Lothian in relation to 2001.

3. From 2000-04 the figures forDumfries and Galloway did not include home care staff.

4. For 2000 only, the figuresfor Highland Council did not include home care staff.

Information on paid care workersemployed by Scottish local authorities is available in the annual Staff of ScottishLocal Authority Social Work Services publications, from 2000 to 2004. The equivalent1999 publication was titled Staff of Scottish Local Authority Social Work Departments.These are all available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/Recent.

Question reference: S2W-24803

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Johann Lamont on 25 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many young people have become registered volunteers in each year since the launch of Volunteer Development Scotland.

There is no central registerof volunteers for which we can report data. However, the Scottish Household Surveyhas data on the rate of volunteering from 1999. We do not hold time-series datafrom before then, so cannot give an indication of volunteering rates from all theyears from 1984, when Volunteer Development Scotland, an independent body, was established.

The annual rates of volunteeringfor 16 to 24-year-olds from the Scottish Household Surveys,1999-2004 are as follows.

Year	Rate of Volunteering (%)
1999	17
2000	24
2001	20
2002	22
2003	18
2004	21

Notes:

1. Answers have beenrounded to the nearest percentage point. Accordingly averages of figures in thetables may differ from published figures for the relevant years.

2. The increase between 1999and 2000 is thought to be due to a change in the question from “Do you give up any time to help as a volunteeror organiser for any charities, clubs or organisations these days?” whereas in 2000the question was, “Thinking back over the last 12 months, have you given up anytime to help any clubs, charities, campaigns or organisations?”

3. The Scottish Household Surveyreports are available on www.scotland.gov.uk/shs.

4. The questionnaire methodologyhas been changed for 2005, so the 2005 figure will not be comparable with the previoustime-series. The 2005 figures will be released with the Annual Report of the ScottishHousehold Survey in August 2006.

Question reference: S2W-24802

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Johann Lamont on 25 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many registered volunteers there have been in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

There is no central registerof volunteers for which we can report data. However, the Scottish Household Surveyhas data on the rate of volunteering from 1999. The Scotland-wide rates of volunteeringin each year from 1999 are as follows.

Year	Rate of Volunteering (%)
1999	19
2000	26
2001	25
2002	27
2003	24
2004	23

The Scottish Household Surveydoes not have data in each local authority for every year, due to the size of thesample. We have published local authority figures as follows:

Local Authority	2000		2001-02 (combined)		2003-04 (combined)
Local Authority	Rate of Volunteering (%)	Base	Rate of Volunteering (%)	Base	Rate of Volunteering (%)	Base
Aberdeen City	26	598	25	1,164	23	1,062
Aberdeenshire	34	548	32	1,127	27	1,159
Angus	23	312	32	634	27	587
Argyll and Bute	41	302	28	547	35	523
Clackmannanshire	27	284	26	520	23	539
Dumfries and Galloway	32	420	30	774	27	783
Dundee City	22	366	17	788	15	779

Local Authority	2000		2001-02 (combined)		2003-04 (combined)
Local Authority	Rate of Volunteering (%)	Base	Rate of Volunteering (%)	Base	Rate of Volunteering (%)	Base
East Ayrshire	28	356	28	670	22	648
East Dunbartonshire	32	263	31	556	32	498
East Lothian	31	266	37	553	25	503
East Renfrewshire	31	230	27	506	22	565
Edinburgh City	31	1,185	29	2,231	24	2,299
Eilean Siar	27	295	29	630	27	532
Falkirk	24	389	24	746	21	771
Fife	25	885	25	1,767	23	1,973
Glasgow City	17	1,690	21	3,034	21	3,116
Highland	40	521	33	1,081	33	1,023
Inverclyde	30	285	21	499	18	526
Midlothian	27	266	31	604	23	529
Moray	31	310	26	581	26	582
North Ayrshire	34	390	24	727	21	695
North Lanarkshire	15	729	18	1,546	18	1,628
Orkney	38	251	37	614	42	635
Perth and Kinross	39	362	33	674	34	600
Renfrewshire	18	531	17	899	21	938
Scottish Borders	38	279	41	608	27	633
Shetland	55	269	38	606	23	639
South Ayrshire	29	298	27	654	26	590
South Lanarkshire	19	758	26	1,525	21	1,492
Stirling	32	284	31	570	26	552
West Dunbartonshire	20	270	24	499	17	461
West Lothian	21	362	23	733	20	811
Scotland	26	14,554	26	28,667	23	28,671Bottom of Form

In addition, the Scottish HouseholdSurvey has data on the larger local authorities and local authority groups for interveningyears as follows:

Local Authority	2001		2003
Local Authority	Rate of Volunteering (%)	Base	Rate of Volunteering (%)	Base
Edinburgh	28	1,178	25	1,090
Glasgow	18	1,585	24	1,487
Fife	26	864	22	939
North Lanarkshire	17	794	18	796
South Lanarkshire	21	781	22	751
Highlands and Islands	30	2,034	31	1,946
Grampian	26	1,174	26	1,088
Tayside	26	1,029	24	990
Central	24	931	21	869
Dunbartonshire	26	544	24	454
Renfrewshire and Inverclyde	24	999	21	1,002
Ayrshire	26	1,077	20	906
Lothians	31	942	22	898
Southern Scotland	37	703	31	709
Scotland	25	14,635	24	13925

Notes:

1. Answers have beenrounded to the nearest percentage point. Accordingly, averages of figures in theabove tables may differ from published figures for the relevant years.

2. Margins of error willvary according the sample size.

3. The increase between 1999and 2000 in overall volunteering rates is thought to be due to a change in the questionfrom “Do you give up any time tohelp as a volunteer or organiser for any charities, clubs or organisations thesedays?” whereas in 2000 the question was, “Thinking back over the last 12 months,have you given up any time to help any clubs, charities, campaigns or organisations?”

4. The above local authoritydata has all been published in the Annual Reports of the Scottish Household Survey.While 2000 figures are published, the intention is that local authority data isonly reported at two yearly intervals as the samples are more likely to be robust,especially for smaller authorities, and this is pattern from 2001 onwards.

5. The Scottish Household Surveyreports are available on www.scotland.gov.uk/shs.

6. The questionnaire methodologyhas been changed for 2005, so the 2005 figure will not be comparable with the previoustime-series. The 2005 figures will be released with the Annual Report of the ScottishHousehold Survey in August 2006.

Question reference: S2W-24807

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 25 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many sheltered housing wardens there have been in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S2W-24898

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 24 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to ensure that funds allocated for expenditure on medicines are ring-fenced for this purpose.

Question reference: S2W-24897

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 24 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what (a) discussions it has had with NHS boards and (b) representations it has received in respect of ensuring that funds allocated for expenditure on medicines are used for this purpose.

Question reference: S2W-24860

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 24 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how much has been spent on the Practitioner Services Division’s magazine, Mouthpiece, since the magazine’s inception.

Question reference: S2W-24896

Asked by: Nanette Milne, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 31 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 24 April 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what measures are in place to ensure that funds allocated for expenditure on medicines are used for this purpose.