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-10527

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on the statement in Sir Peter Gershon’s report, Releasing resources to the front line - Independent Review of Public Sector Efficiency that “to go further or faster than the savings set out in my Review during the period 2005-06 to 2007-08 would put at risk the delivery of public services.”

Question reference: S2W-10532

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there is any equivalent Scottish review to that announced in Sir Peter Gershon’s report, Releasing resources to the front line - Independent Review of Public Sector Efficiency, that “HM Treasury will conduct a department by department review of the effectiveness of financial management.”

Question reference: S2W-10531

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what it understands by the statement in Sir Peter Gershon’s report, Releasing resources to the front line - Independent Review of Public Sector Efficiency that “I note that the Scottish Executive and Welsh Assembly Government have announced that they are engaged in making annual efficiency gains as ambitious as those in England.”

The Scottish Executive is undertaking an efficiency initiative that is as ambitious as the Gershon review in its scope and will seek to secure comparable or greater gains in efficiency. The Executive was engaged in securing efficiencies in the public sector before the Gershon review. Its Efficient Government initiative will go on until 2010 – longer than the activity outlined in the Gershon report.

Question reference: S2W-10529

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will parallel the commitment in Sir Peter Gershon’s report, Releasing resources to the front line - Independent Review of Public Sector Efficiency, that in order to ensure confidence and credibility of the measures, Her Majesty’s Government is inviting the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission to scrutinise departmental efficiency technical notes before publication.

Question reference: S2W-10526

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the commitment to productivity improvement in the private and public sectors highlighted in its Framework for Economic Development in Scotland strategy will involve matching the 2.5% public sector efficiency target announced for the rest of the United Kingdom in Her Majesty’s Government’s Budget 2004 - Prudence for a Purpose: A Britain of Stability and Strength.

Question reference: S2W-10530

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 10 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether its departments will be required to set out efficiency technical notes setting out the measures and methodologies that they will use to assess efficiency savings and whether departments will then publish final versions of these documents by the end of October, as is planned in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Question reference: S2W-10434

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 28 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what its policy is with regard to public sector efficiency savings; what targets have been set, and how such targets have been made known to the Parliament.

On the 24 June 2004 I announced to Parliament that the Scottish Executive would set out a three year plan to attack waste, bureaucracy and duplication in Scotland’s public sector and to increase productivity in Scotland’s publicsector. I also announced that the immediate goal was to deliver efficiency savings of £500 million from the financial year 2007-08, rising to £1 billion by 2010. Our Efficient Government plan will show that we will exceed this target and secure £650 million in efficiency savings by 2007-08.

Question reference: S2W-10335

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 21 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the estimated total yield was for non-domestic rate income in each year since 1996 contained in the Scottish Office and Executive’s budget documentation; what the actual yield was in each such year, and what factors might account for any significant inaccuracies in the forecasts in each year.

Estimated and actual non-domestic rate income (NDRI) are shown in the table.

Year	Estimated NDRI¹ (£)	Actual NDRI² (£)
1996‑97	1,313,000,000	1,332,051,869
1997‑98	1,326,129,000	1,327,178,743
1998‑99	1,395,228,000	1,435,935,145
1999‑2000	1,440,522,000	1,496,647,480
2000‑01	1,510,992,000	1,577,612,309
2001‑02	1,553,926,000	1,670,869,187
2002‑03	1,569,817,000	1,705,090,426

Notes:

1. Source: Budget Publications.

2. Source: Certified returns submitted by local authorities to the Scottish Executive.

The factors that account for differences in forecasts each year include actual income from non-domestic rates in the past proving to be higher than forecast, mainly due to higher than forecast buoyancy and lower than projected losses on appeals.

Buoyancy is the increase in rateable value due to new properties and improvements to existing properties (less any reduction due to, for example, properties being demolished).

Question reference: S2O-03240

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 16 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there is scope for local authorities to work more effectively together in delivering education services.

Question reference: S2W-09480

Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 August 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the most up-to-date comparative figures are that it has on the si'e of total public sector employment as a percentage of total employment in (a) Scotland, (b) Wales, (c) Northern Ireland and (d) the United Kingdom on a full-time equivalent and like-for-like basis, using as wide a definition of the public sector as possible and providing as much recent trend data as is available.

Table 1 reports figures showingthe percentage of the total workforce employed in the public sector. The numberof full-time equivalent employees is not available so the total number in employmenthas been used.

Table 1: Proportion of EmployeesWho Work in the Public Sector

	Scotland	Wales	Northern Ireland	United Kingdom
1994	29.8%	28.7%	31.1%	24.3%
1995	30.2%	27.6%	30.5%	23.7%
1996	28.3%	27.4%	29.9%	24.0%
1997	27.5%	27.0%	30.1%	23.0%
1998	27.5%	27.7%	30.6%	22.8%
1999	26.8%	28.7%	30.1%	22.8%
2000	27.8%	27.8%	28.3%	23.0%
2001	27.5%	29.9%	29.8%	23.3%
2002	27.7%	28.1%	30.9%	23.2%
2003	27.5%	28.2%	29.2%	23.2%

Source: Labour Force Survey,Spring Quarters

The Labour Force Survey definesthe public sector as:

Nationalised industry or statepension;

Central government, Civil Services,armed forces;

Local Government or council (incpolice, fire services and local authority controlled schools or colleges);

University, Polytechnic or othergrant funded educational establishment;

Health authority or NHStrust, or

Other kind of organisations.

The Labour Force Survey definesthe private sector as:

Public Company, plc, or

Charity, voluntary organisationor trust.

Parliament dissolved ahead of election

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