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: S1O-04704

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 February 2002
Current Status: Answered by Richard Simpson on 14 February 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions there have been with Audit Scotland to ensure that performance indicator comparisons made across all police forces and fire brigades are accurate and consistent.

Question reference: S1W-22255

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 7 February 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) continuing and (b) welfare powers of attorney have been submitted to the Public Guardian since the coming into force of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000; how many were rejected at first instance, and what the reasons were for these rejections, broken down by category.

I have asked John Ewing, Chief Executive of the Scottish Court Service to respond. His response is as follows:According to information held by the Office of the Public Guardian, the number of cases in each category as at 24 January 2002 are as follows:

Registered Power of Attorneys:
Continuing	2,843
Welfare	148
Continuing & Welfare	936
Rejected at first instance:
Continuing	1,080
Welfare	72
Continuing & Welfare	558
Reasons for rejection:
No registration form or fee enclosed/form incomplete	877
Power of Attorney does not conform to requirements of Act	295
Registration prohibited by non occurrence of specified event	262
Other (including Forms unsigned, missing names and dates,errors in completion of relevant certificates etc)	938

Some cases are rejected for more than one reason.

Question reference: S1W-21516

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 January 2002
Current Status: Answered by Colin Boyd on 1 February 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive what mechanism is in place to prevent a conflict of interest arising when solicitors employed by the civil service receive instructions in the same matter from both the Lord Advocate and the Advocate General.

Question reference: S1W-21462

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 24 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 22 January 2002

Question reference: S1W-21461

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 24 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 21 January 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive how many new offences have been created in Scots law since 1 July 1999 to date (a) by Westminster legislation under reserved powers, (b) by Westminster legislation with consent of the Scottish Parliament in devolved areas and (c) by Acts of the Scottish Parliament.

The Executive does not keep a record of Westminster legislation creating UK or GB offences. Since 1 July 1999, 16 Acts have been passed at Westminster with the consent of the Scottish Parliament in respect of devolved areas. In the same time there have been 28 Acts of the Scottish Parliament. Much, but not all, of this legislation created new offences under Scots law.The Scottish Executive maintains a database of new legislation that allocates codes to the breach of legislative provisions to enable prosecution statistics to be collected. In some instances one code covers a number of separate offences contained within an Act of Parliament. It is not possible therefore to use the database to quantify the number of new offences created since July 1999.

Question reference: S1W-21460

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 24 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Colin Boyd on 21 January 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive Scottish Executive whether the Crown Office has any special procedures in place for any prosecution of (a) the First Minister, (b) a Scottish minister and (c) an MSP of a governing party.

Question reference: S1W-21140

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 14 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 15 January 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-20329 by Mr Jim Wallace on 7 December 2001, what the turnover of (a) uniformed and (b) non-operational staff has been at each Scottish Prison Service prison expressed as (i) number of leavers and (ii) percentage of total staff in each of the last five years.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:The available information is:(a) Operational Staff

Establishments	1996 No. of Leavers	1997 No. of Leavers	1998 No. of Leavers	1999 No. of Leavers	2000 No. of Leavers
Aberdeen	11	11	8	-	3
Barlinnie	31	17	9	16	9
Castle Huntly	2	-	2	2	1
Cornton Vale	5	7	6	5	9
Dumfries	7	5	2	2	-
* Dungavel	1	2	3	3	-
Edinburgh	31	26	27	15	19
* * Friarton	3	2	3	3	-
Glenochil	21	14	10	16	15
Greenock	4	10	2	1	7
Inverness	3	4	7	2	8
* Longriggend	7	6	6	6	-
Low Moss	3	3	1	2	2
Noranside	2	3	-	1	1
* Penninghame	1	1	3	-	-
Perth	18	20	16	13	13
Peterhead	15	11	5	10	13
Polmont	12	13	4	5	2
Shotts	14	25	10	7	17
* * Shotts Unit	1	1	1	-	-
* * Shotts NIC	1	1	-	-	-
Total No. of Leavers	193	182	125	109	119
% of Staff	5.7	5.2	3.5	2.9	3.4

Notes:* Closure Establishments.** Amalgamated Establishments.(b) Non-Operational Staff

	1996 No. of Leavers	1997 No. of Leavers	1998 No. of Leavers	1999 No. of Leavers	2000 No. of Leavers
Establishments	1996 No. of Leavers	1997 No. of Leavers	1998 No. of Leavers	1999 No. of Leavers	2000 No. of Leavers
Aberdeen	2	3	-	3	3
Barlinnie	9	21	25	20	10
Castle Huntly	2	2	2	1	-
Cornton Vale	3	1	6	6	7
Dumfries	4	4	4	4	4
* Dungavel	1	2	1	1	-
Edinburgh	7	17	19	15	12
* * Friarton	-	2	1	1	-
Glenochil	7	12	7	4	-
Greenock	4	4	4	5	2
Inverness	2	4	3	3	3
* Longriggend	2	2	5	6	-
Low Moss	5	12	4	4	7
Noranside	1	4	-	2	2
* Penninghame	1	1	1	-	-
Perth	8	12	15	8	9
Peterhead	2	9	4	3	7
Polmont	3	3	4	2	10
Shotts	4	10	7	6	7
* * Shotts Unit	-	-	-	-	-
* * Shotts NIC	-	-	-	-	-
Total No. of Leavers	67	125	112	94	83
% of Staff	9.05	17.8	14.8	11.8	10.7

Notes:* Closure Establishments.** Amalgamated Establishments.Numbers is based on voluntary resignation it does not include retiring employees.Information is not held in respect of HMP Kilmarnock.

Question reference: S1W-21008

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 10 January 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive how much public money in the form of grants from the Forestry Commission and Scottish Natural Heritage has been paid to the owners of Glen Feshie Estate in the Cairngorms since 1967.

Scottish Natural Heritage, which was founded in 1992, and its predecessor bodies have not awarded any grants to the owners of Glenfeshie Estate.The Forestry Commission whose records date back to 1976 has awarded grants as follows;

Year	Total Paid Per Year
1976	237.04
1977	237.04
1978	581.08
1979	2,441.08
1980	612.88
1981	2,132.48
1982	2,442.86
1983	2,442.86
1984	2,442.86
1985	2,442.86
1986	1,226.96
1987	10,502.48
1988	1,991.36
1989	2,408.00
1997	17,187.60
1998	13,000.38
1999	19,999.83
2001	139,390.40

Question reference: S1W-19496

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 26 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what factors lead to a patient being classified as high-risk for the purposes of podiatry and chiropody.

Question reference: S1W-19021

Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 October 2001
Current Status: Answered by Iain Gray on 23 November 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what the total cost was of the report The Public Defence Solicitors' Office in Edinburgh: An Independent Evaluation, giving a breakdown of the costs for (a) research, including researchers' fees, (b) printing and production and, (c) time expended by (i) the Central Research Unit and (ii) the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

The total contract for the evaluation of the public defender system was £362,115 across the 30 months of the project. Researcher's fees are not separately identified in this total since the contract costs were primarily for the engagement of the research team to undertake the evaluation. The printing and production costs were £8,956 for both the report and research findings. It is not possible to calculate the costs of time expended by the Central Research Unit and the Scottish Legal Aid Board since input varied across the duration of the project and detailed records of time input were not kept.