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-25763

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many staffed beds there were in psychiatric units in each NHS board area in each year since 2000.

The information requested isgiven in the following table.

Table 1. Average Staffed Bedsin Psychiatric Specialties by NHS Board

NHS Board	Financial Year Ending 31 March
NHS Board	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005^P
Scotland	8,145	7,745	7,345	7,145	6,950	6,558
Argyll and Clyde	949	916	882	857	829	786
Ayrshire and Arran	433	424	405	400	394	394
Borders	153	145	142	129	143	131
Dumfries and Galloway	282	180	159	149	157	172
Fife	589	547	522	487	477	464
Forth Valley	369	359	359	351	342	340
Grampian	733	686	659	657	604	547
Greater Glasgow	1,440	1,442	1,337	1,301	1,257	1,158
Highland	261	258	257	226	222	216
Lanarkshire	832	829	787	788	791	714
Lothian	1,208	1,138	1,131	1,135	1,109	1,021
Tayside	853	778	665	623	585	575
Western Isles	43	43	40	41	41	42

Source ISD(S)1.

^PData for year ending March 2005 are provisional.

Question reference: S2W-25770

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 22 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many of its staff at grade B3 or below reported as unfit for work as a result of stress in each year since 2001, broken down by department and expressed also as a percentage of the total number of staff employed at B3 or below.

The following tableshows those members of staff at grade B3 or below in the core departments of the Scottish Executive who have had at least one period of sick absence due to stressin the relevant calendar year. The staff numbers used as the base for the percentagesare as at 31 March for each year.

Department	Number Per Year					Percentage Per Year
Department	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Centrally Managed Staff	15	18	23	24	17	2.0%	2.2%	2.8%	3.0%	2.4%
Development Department	2	11	7	3	6	0.6%	3.0%	2.7%	1.2%	2.8%
Education Department	2	4	7	3	5	1.3%	2.1%	3.7%	1.6%	2.3%
Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Dept	6	3	1	3	5	2.2%	1.0%	0.3%	0.8%	1.3%
Environment and Rural Affairs Department	10	16	19	19	14	1.0%	1.5%	1.8%	1.8%	1.4%
Finance and Central Services Department	3	13	10	10	7	1.2%	4.0%	2.2%	2.3%	1.9%
Health Department	2	6	7	11	3	0.8%	2.0%	2.2%	3.4%	1.0%
Justice Department	5	4	6	3	1	2.8%	2.2%	3.2%	1.4%	0.5%
Legal and Parliamentary Services	1	1	1	0	1	1.9%	1.6%	1.5%	0.0%	1.5%
Office Of The Permanent Secretary	11	20	18	16	18	1.7%	2.9%	2.4%	2.2%	2.2%
Total	57	96	99	92	77	1.4%	2.2%	2.2%	2.1%	1.8%

Question reference: S2W-24790

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 22 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what support it will offer to low-income elderly Olympic sport veterans and medal winners to travel to Melbourne to take part in the 50th anniversary Olympic reunion in November 2006.

Question reference: S2W-25771

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 22 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what training and guidance it has in place to support its staff who suffer from stress.

Question reference: S2W-25769

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 22 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many of its staff at grade C1 or above reported as unfit for work as a result of stress in each year since 2001, broken down by department and expressed also as a percentage of the total number of staff employed at C1 or above.

The following tableshows those members of staff at grade C1 or above in the core departments of the Scottish Executive who have had at least one period of sick absence due to stressin the relevant calendar year. The staff numbers used as the base for the percentagesare as at 31 March for each year.

Department	Number Per Year					Percentage Per Year
Department	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Centrally Managed Staff	0	0	1	0	2	0.0%	0.0%	1.0%	0.0%	2.1%
Development Department	0	0	0	0	1	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.2%
Education Department	0	2	0	0	1	0.0%	3.6%	0.0%	0.0%	1.4%
Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Dept	0	2	2	2	1	0.0%	3.0%	2.7%	2.6%	1.2%
Environment and Rural Affairs Department	1	1	0	0	1	1.0%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.9%
Finance and Central Services Department	0	1	0	0	1	0.0%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.0%
Health Department	1	1	0	0	0	1.1%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Justice Department	0	0	0	0	0	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Legal and Parliamentary Services	0	0	0	0	1	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.8%
Office Of The Permanent Secretary	1	0	0	0	0	2.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Total	3	7	3	2	8	0.4%	0.9%	0.4%	0.2%	0.9%

Question reference: S2W-24792

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 22 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to commemorate the Olympic medal winners from Scotland who represented their country at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.

Question reference: S2W-24443

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 19 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many policy projects are currently being undertaken by its Education Department and, of these, how many are behind schedule.

The Education Department is focusedon the delivery of 103 Partnership Agreement (PA) commitments. Only one will notbe achieved within the specified timescale, Commitment 217 Promote New Deal programmefor sports assistants. The focus of the UK New Deal programme has shifted and thereforethis PA commitment is no longer appropriate. We are continuing to explore otherways of encouraging sports volunteering.

Question reference: S2W-25275

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive why there is no free pre-school care or nursery provision for children under five from families of asylum seekers or refugees.

Localauthorities have a legal duty to provide a free, part-time, pre-schooleducation place for three and four-year-old children.

Freepre-school education is provided regardless of a child’s status, citizenship orethnic background, provided the child is residing in Scotland.

The ScottishExecutive’s Childcare Strategy aims to provide affordable, accessible, qualitychildcare for children aged 0-14 in all neighbourhoods regardless of children’sstatus. Funding is passed to local authorities, who are responsible, inconsultation with their Childcare Partnerships, for allocating funding to meetlocal needs and priorities.

Question reference: S2W-25281

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to extend nursery provision for the under-fives to children of asylum seekers and refugees.

Question reference: S2W-25604

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of childcare staff (a) were qualified in 2005 and (b) are qualified in 2006 to (i) registration standards, (ii) SVQ level 2 and (iii) above SVQ level 2.

The information requested onstaff qualification levels for 2005 is given in table 1.11 of the Pre-School and Childcare Workforce Statistics 2005 publishedby Scottish Executive National Statistics in 2006, a copy of which is availablein the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 39531).

Registration with the ScottishSocial Services Council requires that the worker holds or be working towards anappropriate early education and childcare qualification at SVQ level 2 or equivalentfor support workers, SVQ level 3 or equivalent for practitioners and SVQ level 4or equivalent for managers/lead practitioners. 68% of staff currently hold qualificationsat SVQ level 2 and above.

Information on workforce qualificationsfor 2006 has not yet been collected.