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-14105

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 4 March 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many businesses appealed against their assessed rateable value following the last revaluation of rateable values and, of these, how many were (a) wholly and (b) partly successful.

Question reference: S2W-14755

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 February 2005
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 3 March 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how, in its relationship with the UK Government, it interprets the definition of "national security" in section B8 of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998.

Question reference: S2W-14106

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 28 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the total reduction in rateable values was as a result of wholly and partly successful appeals by businesses against their assessed rateable value following the last revaluation of rateable values, broken down by local authority area, expressed also as a percentage of the total rateable value in each case.

The total rateable value lost to revaluation appeals following the 2000 Revaluation is shown in the table, at both Scotland and local authority level. The losses are also expressed as a percentage of the total rateable value at 1 April 2000.

	Total Rateable Value at 1 April 2000 (£)	Total Rateable Value Lost to Revaluation Appeals (£)	Rateable Value Lost to Appeal (%)
Scotland	4,337,487,547	198,676,060	4.6
Aberdeen City	294,690,503	9,358,032	3.2
Aberdeenshire	133,095,670	6,473,283	4.9
Angus	60,345,489	3,851,565	6.4
Argyll and Bute	73,824,644	6,053,851	8.2
Clackmannanshire	32,148,509	2,808,385	8.7
Dumfries and Galloway	82,578,620	2,535,260	3.1
Dundee City	136,149,415	8,773,730	6.4
East Ayrshire	65,532,410	3,676,715	5.6
East Dunbartonshire	47,538,737	2,273,251	4.8
East Lothian	59,428,239	2,198,960	3.7
East Renfrewshire	29,666,715	666,550	2.2
Edinburgh, City of	607,376,722	25,909,590	4.3
Eilean Siar	14,730,246	768,970	5.2
Falkirk	127,477,881	6,563,726	5.1
Fife	274,279,753	17,318,325	6.3
Glasgow City	706,013,103	25,821,473	3.7
Highland	169,657,129	8,350,555	4.9
Inverclyde	54,746,235	2,732,965	5.0
Midlothian	45,575,260	1,944,905	4.3
Moray	57,232,286	2,482,975	4.3
North Ayrshire	96,236,553	3,980,130	4.1
North Lanarkshire	225,605,117	8,237,135	3.7
Orkney Islands	15,983,232	993,830	6.2
Perth and Kinross	109,447,015	6,832,371	6.2
Renfrewshire	144,587,965	6,346,860	4.4
Scottish Borders	56,518,406	2,404,162	4.3
Shetland Islands	32,008,342	2,384,810	7.5
South Ayrshire	82,980,813	4,761,255	5.7
South Lanarkshire	223,864,239	7,488,755	3.3
Stirling	84,702,413	4,063,120	4.8
West Dunbartonshire	64,459,945	3,236,233	5.0
West Lothian	129,005,941	7,384,333	5.7

Source: Statistical Returns (RV/APP and RV/ASS) to the Scottish Executive.

There are currently seven subjects still with outstanding 2000 Revaluation appeals, with a total rateable value at 1 April 2000 of £13.3 million.

Question reference: S2O-05376

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 10 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with NHS Dumfries and Galloway regarding the provision of dental services in the area.

Question reference: S2W-13437

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 2 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-12963 by Mr Tom McCabe on 24 December 2004, what the percentage increase will be from 2004-05 to 2005-06 in non-domestic rates paid by a business whose rateable value increases by the Scottish average and which does not make an appeal against any revised valuation or does not make such an appeal successfully.

Question reference: S2W-13402

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 31 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many undisputed invoices it paid within 30 days of receipt, expressed also as a percentage of all undisputed invoices, for 2003-04.

The figures are given in the following table:

Financial Year	Total Number of Invoices	Number Paid Late	%age Paid within 30 days of receipt or contract terms if different
* 2003/4 – SE Core	84,518	19,391	77

Note: *Total includes SE Core, Consolidated Invoice Transactions and Government Procurement Card Transactions (where applicable).

The core Scottish Executive’s payment performance in 2003-04 was unacceptably low (although it showed significant improvement over the previous year). The Executive has taken a range of steps over the past year to improve performance, and I am confident that our payment performance in 2004-05 will show further substantial improvement.

Question reference: S2W-13406

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 27 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many civil servants there have been in each of its departments in each year since 1999 and, of these, how many were on secondment from non-departmental public bodies, expressed also as a percentage of the total number of civil servants in each department.

The number of full-time equivalent permanent staff employed in each of the Scottish Executive core departments as at 1 April of each year since 1999 is set out in table A.

The number of people who were on inward secondment and known to have come from non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) to Scottish Executive core departments is set out in table B. Information for the years 1999 and 2000 is not availableas no individual records have been retained for any inward secondees from NDPBs.

These secondees are not civil servants and are not generally included in Scottish Executive staffing figures and are therefore not included in table A. If the number of secondees were expressed as a percentage of the total of civil servants plus secondees then due to the small numbers involved the percentage of secondees in each department would be less than 1% in each department

Table A:

Number of Permanent Full-Time Equivalent Staff in Scottish Executive Core Departments

	April 99	April 00	April 01	April 02	April 03	April 04
SE Core Total	3,706.5	3,929.3	3,985.6	4,144.6	4,332.6	4,411.0
Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries	940.6	..	..	..	..	..
Environment and Rural Affairs	..	963.7	1,017.2	1,074.1	1,086.1	1,086.2
Central Services	..	1,081.8	..	..	..	..
Corporate Services	..	..	705.5	640.8	624.9
Office of the Permanent Secretary	..	..	..	..	..	745.0
Executive Secretariat	..	..	283.6	341.1	..	..
Finance	..	..	128.3	143.1	..	..
Finance and Central Services	..	..	..	..	556.1	569.0
Legal and Parliamentary Services	..	..	..	..	173.5	179.2
Ministerial Group	..	..	..	85.2	89.2	..
Education and Industry	582.6	..	..	..	..	..
Education	..	355.4	384.8	295.6	268.5	275.4
Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning *	..	296.9	309.4	331.3	340.8	517.2
Health	251.5	308.0	337.3	374.8	382.9	396.0
Home	369.8	..	..	..	..	..
Justice	..	326.2	234.1	215.1	227.2	253.4
Development	482.2	517.3	506.5	564.2	486.0	312.4
Centrally Managed Staff	74.4	80.0	78.9	79.3	97.4	77.2

Note: *Transport Group moved from Development Department to becomepart of the Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department towards theend of 2003.

Table B:

Number of Inward Secondees fromNDPBs to Scottish Executive Core Departments

	April 99	April 00	April 01	April 02	April 03	April 04
Environment and Rural Affairs	..	..	3.0	2.0	5.0	4.0
Office of the Permanent Secretary	..	..	..	..	..	1.0
Finance and Central Services	..	..	..	..	..	1.0
Education	..	..	..	..	1.0	..
Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning*	..	..		1.0	2.0	3.0
Health	..	..	..	..	2.0	2.0
Justice	..	..	..	..	1.0	2.0

Note: *Transport Group moved from Development Department to becomepart of the Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department towards theend of 2003.

Question reference: S2W-13435

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 27 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what improvements are planned for the A75 over the next five years; what the estimated cost of each improvement is, and what the planned date for the start of construction is in each case.

The following improvements to the A75 are currently being prepared.

Scheme	Cost £ Million¹	Earliest PossibleStart Date²
Barfil to Bettyknowes	2.8	2005-06
Cairntop to Barlae	5.4	2005-06
Newton Stewart	2.2	2005-06
Planting End to Drumflower	3.5	2005-06
Dunragit Realignment	12.1	2006-07
Hardgrove to Kinmount	9.5	2006-07

Notes:

1. At 2005 levels.

2. Subject to satisfactory completion of statutory procedures without recourse to Public Local Inquiry.

Question reference: S2W-13083

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 25 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cars cross the Forth Road Bridge southbound on an average weekday between 6.30 am and 9.00 am.

Question reference: S2W-13084

Asked by: Alasdair Morgan, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 17 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 25 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many rail passenger seats are available on an average weekday on southbound services crossing the Forth Rail Bridge between 6.30 am and 9.00 am.