- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 02 September 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 13 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what will be the legal status of the draft Concordats between it and Her Majesty's Government.
Answer
Concordats are administrative agreements. It is not intended that they should constitute a legally enforceable contract, or create any rights or obligations which are legally enforceable, between the Scottish Ministers and the UK Government.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 12 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive how many public appointments made by Her Majesty's Government it is consulted about and what is the procedure for agreeing such appointments.
Answer
The Executive is consulted on all appointments to the sixty-five cross border public authorities. Details of each authority are provided in SI 1999 No. 1319.The procedure for agreeing appointments varies from appointment to appointment. In all cases approval is sought from the relevant Scottish Minister before appointments are made. Variations arise in the procedures for making appointments adopted by the sponsor department. This means that in some instances Executive officials will play an active role in the selection and assessment process, including sitting on candidate interview panels. In others, detailed discussions and consultation will take place through correspondence.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Rhona Brankin on 12 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has made or intends to make representations to Her Majesty's Government regarding the systems used to measure and monitor the proportion of money distributed via the National Lottery which is allocated to Scottish projects.
Answer
The Scottish Executive maintains close contact with the Department for Media, Culture and Sport on a routine basis as part of its procedures for monitoring National lottery funds allocated to Scottish projects. The shares of Lottery proceeds distributed by sportscotland and the Scottish Arts Council are determined by statute and related to population. Scotland's share of other distributors' funds is not pre-determined but has generally exceeded the population share.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 November 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 12 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what the total value is of any compensatory savings required by local authorities to achieve the Executive's guideline for the year 2000-01 of absorbing a 3% pay award for local authority employees and what the separate figure is for teachers' pay.
Answer
Every 1% increase in the local authority pay bill will cost local authorities an estimated £30 million. A 1% increase in the teachers' pay bill will cost local authorities an estimated £13 million. Our present spending plans provide for local authority spending to rise by 3.6% in 2000-01 over the comparable figure for this year.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 12 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to reform charity law in Scotland.
Answer
The Scottish Executive announced on 3 November that an independent commission would be established to review and reform charity law in Scotland. Ministers are currently considering the chair, membership, remit and timetable of the commission and a further announcement will be made to the Parliament in due course.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 12 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide details of the remits of all Executive staff employed within Scotland House in Brussels.
Answer
The Scottish Executive EU Office has six members of staff - four are members of the Scottish Executive and two are locally engaged staff.
The office has four main functions: • to provide support and advice to the Scottish Executive on EU matters;• to gather information in Brussels and relay it back to the experts in Brussels as soon as possible;• to assist in influencing EU decision making;• to raise Scotland's profile in the EU.The remits of the staff are:
• Head of Office
• Policy Adviser 1 (and Deputy Head) whose policy areas include agriculture,
fisheries and industry;
• Policy Adviser 2, whose policy areas include regional policy, education, culture and
health;
• Policy Adviser 3, whose policy areas include environment, transport and Justice
and Home affairs;
• Office Manager;
• PA/support.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Angus MacKay on 11 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive how many serving councillors have been convicted of fraud or other forms of corruption broken down by local authority in each of the last three years and what their party of affiliation was at the time of conviction.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 24 December 1999
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will make representations to Her Majesty's Government with a view to negotiating for a share of oil revenues from the North Sea to be earmarked for public spending in Scotland.
Answer
Oil revenues, like other taxes and duties, are pooled at a UK level and the aggregate pooled revenues are then distributed in accordance with relative need. As is clear from the latest edition of Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland, covering the years to 1997-98, (published on 13 December), Scotland benefits significantly from this pooling arrangement and the Executive has no plans to propose changes to it.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 23 December 1999
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-2610 by Mr Jack McConnell on 1 December 1999, what estimate is made in the Scottish Executive's forecast budgets for local authorities for the current and each of the next two financial years for (a) pay awards and (b) redundancy costs.
Answer
It is for local authorities themselves to decide what provision to make for pay awards and redundancy costs when setting their budgets. The local government settlement for next year will allow spending to rise to £6,746 million, an increase of 3.7% over the comparable figure this year and higher than the forecast increase in the RPI.
- Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Henry McLeish on 23 December 1999
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-1036 by Henry McLeish on 6 September 1999, whether it will provide updated information on the number of young people who have secured sustained employment through the New Deal.
Answer
Employment policy is reserved to the UK Government which takes the lead on funding and delivery of the New Deal. In Scotland it does this in partnership with the Scottish Executive and contributing Scottish organisations as indicated in the answer to question S1W-3137 also answered today.This information is detailed as part of the Government's statistical services monthly statistical first release on New Deal held centrally by the Scottish Parliamentary Information Centre.
