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-20866

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 9 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S2W-15435 and S2W-17042 by Cathy Jamieson on 14 April and 17 June 2005, whether it is the Scottish Prison Service Controller based in HM Prison Kilmarnock or Premier Prison Services Ltd which has ultimate responsibility for reporting breaches of contract by the company for its operations at the prison.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to respond. His response is as follows:

The contract places the onuson the contractor, requiring them to inform SPS of any failures to meet contractualcommitments.

In addition the SPS Controllerteam based at HM Prison Kilmarnock is responsible for monitoring the performance of thecontractor.

The responsibility for reportingsuch incidents is detailed in the contract which can be viewed at www.sps.gov.uk.

Question reference: S2W-21280

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 8 December 2005

Question reference: S2W-21542

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2005
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it would expect the Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise to agree to meet the sponsors of a £16 million investment project designated for an unemployment blackspot in Lanarkshire.

Question reference: S2W-20031

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 October 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 7 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many civil service vacancies in each grade it has advertised (a) only externally, (b) only internally and (c) simultaneously for both internal and external applicants in each of the last six years and how many external applicants have been recruited under (a) and (c) in the same time frame.

The Scottish Executive fills posts through a variety of different methods, as appropriate, including internal and external recruitment and managed moves of existing staff. Where vacancies are advertised externally it is open to Scottish Executive staff who meet the relevant criteria to apply. The Scottish Executive does not centrally collect the information required to answer the question in the way it is broken down.

The following tables show data held on the Scottish Executive human resources system for staff recruitment and moves, by grade, for the Scottish Executive core departments (i.e. excluding Scottish Executive agencies and associated departments) for each year since 2000. Table 1 shows the number of staff recruited externally. Table 2 shows the number of internal staff moves within the core departments, including those internally advertised and those filled through managed moves. Although the Executive does not hold information for all external and internal staff moves outwith the core departments, tables 3 and 4 show the number of staff moves for Scottish Executive agencies and associated departments where these are from or to the core departments.

Table 1: Staff Assigned to the Scottish Executive Core Departments Recorded as Having a Method of Entry to Post of “New Recruit”

Year	A1	A2	A3	A4	B1	B2	B3	C1	C2	C3	NA*	SCS	Total
2000	245	19	53	1	179	78	20	37	2	1	8	9	652
2001	415	19	89	1	199	90	21	59	4	0	14	13	924
2002	157	13	52	3	210	72	19	41	1	0	9	12	589
2003	149	5	16	1	130	61	17	68	1	0	8	3	459
2004	67	8	11	2	144	51	13	18	3	0	6	4	327
2005#	63	1	13	0	65	30	8	22	1	1	11	7	222

Table 2: Number of Staff who Moved Posts within the Scottish Executive Core Departments, by Year of Move

Year	A1	A2	A3	A4	B1	B2	B3	C1	C2	C3	NA*	SCS	Total
2000	37	29	191	38	144	254	111	113	28	10	7	61	1,023
2001	48	31	206	40	142	265	105	145	50	8	1	41	1,082
2002	56	37	219	33	148	324	110	128	27	9	1	39	1,131
2003	68	37	256	31	152	303	127	131	19	7	2	46	1,179
2004	45	30	205	42	132	334	146	139	63	5	5	58	1,204
2005#	26	22	122	38	63	194	87	98	20	10	4	42	726

Table 3: Number of Staff who Moved to a Post in a Scottish Executive Core Department from a Post in a Scottish Executive Agency or Associated Department, by Year of Move

Year	A1	A2	A3	A4	B1	B2	B3	C1	C2	C3	NA*	SCS	Total
2000	13	4	53	4	32	42	11	15	9	1	1	8	193
2001	14	5	50	4	36	39	15	13	10	2	0	4	192
2002	13	4	59	6	48	39	18	23	7	2	1	7	227
2003	16	9	51	6	51	59	17	29	6	0	5	5	254
2004	14	6	56	2	47	57	23	36	7	0	4	6	258
2005#	10	8	52	4	25	45	6	23	4	0	5	9	191

Table 4: Number of Staff who Moved from a Scottish Executive Core Department to a Post in a Scottish Executive Agency or Associated Department, by Year of Move

Year	A1	A2	A3	A4	B1	B2	B3	C1	C2	C3	NA*	SCS	Total
2000	11	10	34	4	29	34	16	26	14	1	3	5	187
2001	13	3	48	3	30	33	12	16	6	1	1	7	173
2002	10	8	47	5	33	51	19	32	9	3	0	3	220
2003	11	6	50	1	33	45	21	33	8	3	4	1	216
2004	13	14	66	5	33	57	23	39	11	3	1	7	272
2005#	7	7	36	3	25	53	17	29	8	2	5	7	199

Notes:

#Moves up to 30 September 2005.

*Not assimilated i.e. no Scottish Executive grade.

Question reference: S2W-21072

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-20542 by Cathy Jamieson on 21 November 2005, what the average length of time is that a prisoner awaiting transfer from a regular prison to the open estate must wait before such transfer is complete.

Question reference: S2W-21070

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-20542 by Cathy Jamieson on 21 November 2005, what the average number of prisoners who should have been held in an open prison but were not was in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-20890

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what information it is able to provide on what steps are being taken to resolve the disagreement between fingerprint experts in Aberdeen and the Scottish Criminal Records Office and whether it considers that such disagreement might jeopardise future court cases involving the Scottish Fingerprint Service.

The only known disagreement concerns an identification made by the Glasgow bureau in 1997, about which three fingerprint officers in the Aberdeen bureau published an opinion in 2005. This opinion had no impact on the case in question and has no implications for any current or future court cases where fingerprint evidence is used.

Following that case, under the guidance and instruction of the Lord Advocate, more than 2,000 identifications made by the Glasgow bureau were verified by experts from the Metropolitan Police Service and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. In addition, Scottish fingerprint officers now have annual competency tests and are subject to a continuous professional development programme. The processes used are subject to internal quality assurance and to external independent audit under the ISO 9001:2000 Certificate to which the Scottish Fingerprint Service is accredited.

Question reference: S2W-21071

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-20542 by Cathy Jamieson on 21 November 2005, what the (a) highest and (b) lowest number of prisoners awaiting transfer to the open estate was in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-21073

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 5 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the purpose is of transferring a prisoner from a regular prison to an open prison.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

For two main reasons, first to test and help prepare suitable long-term prisoners for their return to society, secondly to manage carefully selected low supervision prisoners in the most cost-effective manner currently available. Many prison services operate a mix of closed and open prisons.

Society benefits first from these long-term prisoners being carefully prepared, in stages, for release. This is particularly true of life sentence prisoners, who follow a carefully structured pre-release programme in consultation with the Parole Board. Secondly it saves taxpayers money by not placing carefully selected prisoners in more secure and expensive prisons than is necessary.

Question reference: S2W-20822

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 November 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 5 December 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress is being made in respect of the introduction of the non-numeric fingerprint standard; when it will be implemented, and whether the disagreement between fingerprint experts in the Scottish Fingerprint Service has had any impact on any delay.

Preparations to enable the introduction of a non‑numeric standard for fingerprint evidence in Scotland are well advanced. To that end, plans are being put in place for a national consultative process with all stakeholders in the Scottish Criminal Justice Community. There is no disagreement between experts in the Scottish Fingerprint Service about the introduction of a non-numeric standard of fingerprint identification.