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-12548

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 9 December 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many scientists and technical support staff are employed on (a) basic and (b) applied research programmes funded by it and where these jobs are located.

Data are available on the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff engaged in Research and Development within the Scottish Executive and its associated agencies. The latest data are for the financial year 2002-03 when there were 1,540 FTE staff. The split between basic and applied research is not collected.

Staffing figures for research funded by the Scottish Executive but undertaken outside the Executive are not available.

The breakdown by location is collected for the NUTS2 areas of Scotland and presented in the following table:

Number of Staff-Employed in Research and Development in the Scottish Executive and its Associated Agencies Financial Year 2002-03

Location	No of Staff (Full-Time Equivalent)
North East Scotland	554
Eastern Scotland	762
South West Scotland	214
Highlands and Islands	10
Total	1540

No staff were located outside Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-11975

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 18 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any calculations have been carried out on the impact of fuel prices rises on fuel-poor households and, if so, whether the results will be made available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

Question reference: S2W-11974

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 November 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 18 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what representations it has made to energy companies regarding fuel price rises.

Question reference: S2W-11347

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 17 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the current waiting time is for a referral to a clinical psychologist, broken down by NHS board area.

The information requested is not available centrally.

Information on NHSScotland waiting times is collected centrally only for hospital in-patient and day case treatment and first out-patient appointments with a consultant, following referral by a general medical or dental practitioner. Clinical psychology is undertaken by a range of healthcare professionals and carried out in a variety of settings, including communityand primary.

Question reference: S2W-11821

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 10 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the drop-out rates of students have been for each university in each of the last 20 years.

There is no single measure that captures the “drop-out rate”. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) has published a range of indicators relating to student retention within the the higher education system, since 1996-97. The table below reports data on the performance indicator “Non-continuation following year of entry”, published annually by HESA (formerly published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England). It shows the percentages of entrants to full-time degree courses who are no longer in higher education in the year following their entry into higher education. However, this indicator does not give information on the relatively small percentages of students who leave higher education in the years after their first year.

Also, some of the individuals who leave in the first year will return to higher education after a year out and HESA publishes an indicator containing those data (in Table 4 of their performance indicator data). Further information on this and other higher education performance indicators can be obtained via the following link:

http://www.hesa.ac.uk/pi/.

Percentage of Full-Time First Degree Entrants no Longer in Higher Education Following Year of Entry to Institution

	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
All Scottish Institutions	10	9	10	10	10	11
University of Aberdeen	9	10	9	11	11	9
University of Abertay Dundee	17	12	19	13	15	13
Bell College	-	-	-	-	-	28
University of Dundee	9	8	10	11	10	13
University of Edinburgh	5	5	4	6	4	5
Edinburgh College of Art	6	4	11	10	9	12
University of Glasgow	8	6	7	9	8	9
Glasgow Caledonian University	16	15	16	19	14	14
Glasgow School of Art	4	5	5	8	6	7
Heriot-Watt University	9	7	8	8	10	11
Moray House Institute of Education	7	-	-	-	-	-
Napier University	19	8	11	8	15	18
Northern College of Education	10	9	12	12	-	-
University of Paisley	18	17	20	19	18	19
Queen Margaret College	11	8	10	10	11	10
Robert Gordon University	14	13	13	14	11	11
Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama	7	2	10	5	5	9
Scottish College of Textiles	10	-	-	-	-	-
University of St Andrews	4	4	4	2	3	4
St Andrew's College of Education	13	9	-	-	-	-
University of Stirling	5	5	7	8	8	6
University of Strathclyde	7	7	8	9	9	10
UHI Millennium Institute	-	-	-	-	-	37

Source: Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) & Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)

Notes: Missing values are due to following:

In 1998-99 Moray House merged with the University of Edinburgh.

In 1998-99 The Scottish College of Textiles merged with Heriot-Watt University.

In 1999-2000 St Andrews College of Education merged with the University of Glasgow.

In 2000 Bell College was awarded HEI (Higher Education Institution) status.

In 2001-02 Northen College of Education merged with the University of Aberdeen and the University of Dundee.

Data on higher education activity at the eight partner colleges of the UHI Millennium Institute were included in HESA data from 2001-02.

Question reference: S2W-11348

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 4 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many clinical psychologist posts are currently unfilled, broken down by NHS board area.

Question reference: S2W-11346

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 3 November 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children are currently registered as homeless, broken down by (a) type of temporary accommodation and (b) local authority area.

The table provides the information requested as at 31 March 2004. This is a snapshot showing homeless families with children in temporary accommodation on that date.

Local Authority	Total Number of Dependent Children
Local Authority	Local Authority	Hostel	Bed and Breakfast	Other¹	Total
Scotland	3,284	215	234	100	3,833
Aberdeen City	3	10	-	-	13
Aberdeenshire	118	20	2	4	144
Angus	23	-	1	-	24
Argyll and Bute	9	9	17	2	37
Clackmannanshire	45	9	4	3	61
Dumfries and Galloway	64	-	4	4	72
Dundee City	113	26	-	-	139
East Ayrshire	12	20	-	-	32
East Dunbartonshire	91	-	11	-	102
East Lothian	56	-	23	-	79
East Renfrewshire	20	-	-	-	20
Edinburgh, City of	285	-	21	-	306
Eilean Siar	2	-	-	-	2
Falkirk	103	-	-	4	107
Fife	204	8	-	-	212
Glasgow City	902	-	67	-	969
Highland	51	5	20	13	89
Inverclyde	90	-	-	-	90
Midlothian	7	-	1	-	8
Moray	59	-	1	-	60
North Ayrshire	108	26	6	-	140
North Lanarkshire	238	-	-	-	238
Orkney	36	-	-	-	36
Perth and Kinross	45	6	3	-	54
Renfrewshire	109	1	20	-	130
Scottish Borders, The	16	-	-	-	16
Shetland	45	-	-	8	53
South Ayrshire	58	18	4	-	80
South Lanarkshire	161	33	29	62	285
Stirling	51	24	-	-	75
West Dunbartonshire	72	-	-	-	72
West Lothian	88	-	-	-	88

Note: 1. The category “other” includes mainly housing associations and private landlords.

Question reference: S2W-11344

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Johann Lamont on 18 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many households are currently living in fuel poverty, broken down by household income.

The latest data available is the Scottish House Condition Survey 2002. At that time 286,000 households lived in fuel poverty, broken down by household income as shown in the table:

Weekly income £	Numbers of households in fuel poverty
	86,000
100-199.99	159,000
200-299.99	29,000
300-399.99	8,000¹
400-499.99	*
500-699.99	*
700+	*

* indicates an unweighted sample of less than 30

¹ indicates an unweighted sample of 30 to 100.

Question reference: S2W-11343

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Johann Lamont on 18 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many households are currently living in fuel poverty, broken down by tenure.

Question reference: S2W-11345

Asked by: Adam Ingram, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 October 2004
Current Status: Answered by Johann Lamont on 18 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many households are fuel poor, broken down by household type.

The latest data available is the Scottish House Condition Survey 2002. At that time 286,000 households lived in fuel poverty, broken down by household type as shown in the table:

Household type	Numbers of households in fuel poverty
Single adult (I adult of non-pensionable age and no children)	46,000
Small adult (2 adults of non-pensionable age and no children)	24,000
Single parent ( 1 adult of any age and 1 or more children)	9,000¹
Small family (2 adults and 1 or 2 children)	9,000¹
Large family (2 adults and 3 or more children, or 3 or more adults and 1 or more children)	9,000¹
Large adult (3 or more adults and no children)	20,000
Older smaller(2 adults of pensionable age and no children)	63,000
Single pensioner(1 adult of pensionable age and no children)	105,000

¹ indicates an unweighted sample of 30 to 100