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: S1W-10887

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 16 January 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what contribution it will make to the establishment of a fund to support Post Offices and their retail facilities in deprived urban areas.

Question reference: S1W-10886

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 16 January 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what contribution it will make to Social Network Payments to prevent any closures of sub-Post Offices in rural and deprived urban areas.

Question reference: S1W-10883

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 16 January 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what services it will seek to buy from the Post Office under Her Majesty's Government "Gateway" proposals approved by the Performance and Innovation Unit of Her Majesty's Cabinet Office, and what is the estimated cost of so doing.

The Post Office and postal services are reserved matters. Ring-fenced funding has been set aside by the UK Government in the Spending Review for new investment over the next three years to start the implementation of the Performance and Innovation Unit report on the Post Office network. Included is provision for modernisation of the urban network.

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has stated that the UK Government will require the Post Office to maintain the rural network.

Policy on the Universal Bank is reserved to the UK Government which supports universal banking services accessible at post offices as the best way forward for bringing those people who do not currently have bank accounts into the financial mainstream. The Post Office and the high street banks are working together to develop the concept of universal banking services and the Government is closely monitoring developments. The Government has made a firm commitment to contribute towards the costs of universal banking.The Scottish Executive will continue to work with the Scottish financial institutions and others, such as the credit union movement, to improve the choice and accessibility of appropriate financial products available to those on low incomes. The Scottish Executive will also look at delivery of online public services through post offices in due course alongside other options. The proposal to establish a fund to support post offices and their retail facilities in deprived urban areas is for England only. Under the Scottish Executive's Digital Government agenda, a target has been set to have 100% of public services available online by 2005. The Executive will wish to consider options for delivering these services with various partners e.g. post offices, banks and supermarkets.

Question reference: S1W-10884

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 16 January 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive which options it favours for the provision of universal banking services through the Post Office network for those people who cannot or do not wish to use traditional bank accounts.

Question reference: S1W-10885

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 16 January 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will subsidise the provision of universal banking services by the Post Office and, if so, to what extent.

Question reference: S1W-11363

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 1 December 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive which non-departmental public bodies have been abolished since May 1997.

Question reference: S1W-11179

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 27 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what the main differences are between the planning application for IKEA received by Glasgow City Council and for the Heathfield development received by South Ayrshire Council.

Question reference: S1W-11178

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 27 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it used the same criteria when deciding whether to call in the applications for planning permission for (a) IKEA from Glasgow City Council and (b) the Heathfield development from South Ayrshire Council and why different decisions were taken in each case.

Question reference: S1W-07142

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 May 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 24 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive to detail (a) the total lottery funding allocated to Scotland over each of the last three years, (b) what amount and percentage of the total was allocated for all arts and cultural projects and (c) what amount and percentage of the total was allocated for capital expenditure on arts and cultural projects.

The total amounts of lottery funding allocated to Scotland in each of the three years to 31 March 2000 were as follows:

1997-98	£ 125,336,331
1998-99	£ 125,533,102
1999-2000	£ 183,364,125

As funds are allocated to projects by a number of distributors and records are not compiled centrally, it is not possible to provide the requested detailed breakdown. However, the Scottish Arts Council allocated the following amounts to arts projects in the years in question:

1997-98	£ 35,387,000
1998-99	£ 33,532,000
1999-2000	£ 16,576,000

The drop in SAC allocated funds in 1999-2000 is explained by (a) the timing of the Capital Grant Committee's decisions, which pushed the allocations into the following year's accounts, and (b) the impending transfer of responsibility for film production to Scottish Screen from 1 April 2000, with the consequential movement of lottery funding, which meant that few decisions on film projects were taken in the year ending 31 March 2000. Lottery funds do not require to be allocated or spent in a particular year and can be carried forward.

Question reference: S1W-11162

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 24 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide details of planning permission applications referred to it in each of the last five years where the Minister found against the recommendations of the reporter.

The information required is as follows:

Year	Total number of decisions issued	Reporter's recommendation not accepted
1996	28	2
1997	23	0
1998	30	2
1999	46	4
2000 (to date)	21	4
TOTAL	148	12

The cases where the recommendations of the Reporters were not accepted are:

1996 Proposed retail development at Heathfield, Ayr. (Refused)

Proposed residential development at Muirhead. (Granted)

1998 Proposed factory outlet centre at Levenfields, Kinross. (Refused)

Proposed extension to hotel at Banchory. (Granted)

1999 Proposed retail development at Darnley Mains, Glasgow. (Refused)

Proposed retail development at Hermiston Gait, Edinburgh. (Refused)

Proposed residential developments (2) at Stonehaven. (Granted)

2000 Proposed superquarry at Lingerbay, Isle of Harris. (Refused)

Proposed factory outlet centre extension at West Calder. (Refused)

Proposed retail developments (2) at Heathfield, Ayr. (Refused)