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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 1042 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S2W-18624

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 21 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has allocated for computer training funding under the Individual Learning Account scheme in the next five years.

The budget for ILA Scotland has been confirmed to 2007-08 as part of the Spending Review 2004 process. The budget allocation is £19.3 million per year.

It is not possible to confirm the level of funding allocated specifically to computer training courses as account holders within both the £200 and £100 offer are able to use their ILA Scotland funding to help support computer training, with account holders in the £200 offer also having the option to choose from a wide variety of other courses.

Question reference: S2W-18622

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 16 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there will be any age restrictions in respect of applicants for computer training funding under the Individual Learning Account scheme and, if so, what these restrictions will be.

Question reference: S2W-18627

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 31 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to evaluate the impact of the ban on smoking in public places, particularly in respect of the turnover of pubs and nightclubs.

We will be undertaking a comprehensive programme of monitoring and evaluation of the health, economic and cultural impact of the smoke-free legislation. As part of that programme we will make use of existing datasets which provide detailed information on the employment and turnover of enterprises in the hospitality sector. For example, the labour force survey will give us quarterly updates on employment trends. The annual interdepartmental business register will allow analysis of trends in the number of enterprises and the churn rate of businesses by sector. The annual business survey will allow analysis of profitability. Data will be available on both a quarterly and annual basis and this will allow for analysis of pre-legislation and post-legislation trends in the performance of firms in this sector.

Question reference: S2W-18101

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 25 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many calls were made to the fire service in each of the last five years and how many such calls were found to be hoaxes, broken down by fire brigade area.

The information is not available in the form requested. Statistics are collected by HM Fire Services Inspectorate relating to the number of incidents attended by the Scottish fire and rescue services including malicious false alarms and are set out in the following tables.

Brigade	2000-01		2001-02		2002-03
	Total Incidents Attended	Malicious False Alarms	Total Incidents Attended	Malicious False Alarms	Total Incidents Attended	Malicious False Alarms
Central Scotland	5,246	429	5,769	431	5,177	380
Dumfries and Galloway	2,121	49	2,084	89	1,874	71
Fife	6,736	558	6,862	484	5,945	423
Grampian	8,123	339	8,074	325	7,916	325
Highland and Islands	5,463	273	5,100	287	5,253	330
Lothian and Borders	21,384	1,179	22,420	1,298	20,461	1,160
Strathclyde	61,013	4,616	61,684	4,740	55,574	4,263
Tayside	9,017	533	9,872	502	7,512	465
Total	119,103	7,976	121,865	8,156	109,712	7,417

Brigade	2003-04		2004-05
	Total Incidents Attended	Malicious False Alarms	Total Incidents Attended	Malicious False Alarms
Central Scotland	5,767	370	5,013	330
Dumfries and Galloway	2,203	52	1,913	49
Fife	7,928	435	6,885	311
Grampian	9,024	271	7,628	239
Highland and Islands	5,328	268	4,784	188
Lothian and Borders	23,966	1,256	20,657	1,123
Strathclyde	60,620	3,853	53,489	3,542
Tayside	9,573	371	8,109	314
Total	124,409	6,876	108,478	6,096

Question reference: S2W-18103

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 18 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many emergency calls were made to the coastguard service in each of the last five years and how many such calls were found to be hoaxes.

Question reference: S2W-18382

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 18 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish the report of the National Smoke Free Areas Implementation Group and accompanying guidelines in respect of the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005.

Question reference: S2W-18104

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 17 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost was of dealing with hoax calls to the (a) ambulance, (b) fire, (c) police and (d) coastguard service in each of the last five years, broken down by region.

Question reference: S2W-18100

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 17 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many calls were made to the police in each of the last five years and how many such calls were found to be hoaxes, broken down by police force area.

Question reference: S2W-18102

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many calls requiring deployment of an ambulance or paramedic were made in each of the last five years and how many such calls were found to be hoaxes, broken down by NHS board area.

The information requested is provided in the following tables.

NHS Board Area	2000-01		2001-02		2002-03
NHS Board Area	Total Responses	Hoax	Total Responses	Hoax	Total Responses	Hoax
Argyll and Clyde	24,619	85	25,613	62	25,688	86
Ayrshire and Arran	21,121	83	23,942	117	24,705	85
Borders	5,444	15	6,049	13	6,274	7
Dumfries and Galloway	6,921	20	8,257	16	8,796	35
Fife	19,836	58	21,289	96	23,946	80
Forth Valley	12,765	32	13,971	33	16,220	40
Grampian	21,065	84	22,818	91	26,142	52
Greater Glasgow	71,057	182	75,392	199	78,615	210
Highland	9,453	49	10,092	47	10,501	49
Lanarkshire	31,067	126	33,508	146	36,150	112
Lothian	50,485	168	52,586	176	55,702	145
Orkney	398	0	384	0	419	0
Shetland	603	0	523	0	521	0
Tayside	22,694	75	25,181	100	26,207	73
Western Isles	1,034	7	1,231	3	1,277	13

Scotland	298,562	984	320,836	1,099	341,163	987

NHS Board Area	2003-04		2004-05
NHS Board Area	Total Responses	Hoax	Total Responses	Hoax
Argyll and Clyde	28,391	86	32,064	75
Ayrshire and Arran	28,494	107	31,189	145
Borders	7,125	11	7,772	24
Dumfries and Galloway	9,768	34	10,125	30
Fife	26,434	57	27,030	82
Forth Valley	17,511	68	18,268	55
Grampian	34,861	131	33,874	134
Greater Glasgow	90,874	258	85,387	261
Highland	12,623	55	12,904	60
Lanarkshire	46,413	161	46,293	174
Lothian	63,271	195	66,135	263
Orkney	471	2	479	1
Shetland	620	2	608	0
Tayside	26,880	65	27,747	99
Western Isles	1,500	7	1,538	12
Scotland	395,236	1,239	401,413	1,415

Question reference: S2W-18099

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 July 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 11 August 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has paid for hotel rooms and associated expenses in respect of EU-related visits in each year since 1997 and how many officials attended such visits in each year.