Questions and answers

Question reference: S3O-06977

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 21 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to repeal Part 3 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001.

Question reference: S3W-23443

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 18 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many secure tenancies it estimates fall under the (a) modernised and (b) preserved right to buy schemes and what changes have taken place in these numbers since the coming into force of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001.

The information requested for local authority tenants is not held by the Scottish Government.

The information requested for tenants of Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) is held by the Scottish Housing Regulator and is presented in the following table.

Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) “ No. Tenancies with Modernised or Preserved Right to Buy Entitlements

Year:	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Preserved	37,847	113,205	96,857	87,399	82,719	76,500
Modernised	22,134	37,509	51,309	55,861	63,839	71,813

Source: Scottish Housing Regulator, RSL Annual Performance and Statistical returns 2002-03 -2007-08.

Notes:

1. This data has not been verified with individual RSLs although it has been approved by their governing bodies.

2. No information was submitted by Scottish Borders Housing Association for 2006-07 and 2007-08 therefore no figures for these two years have been included.

Question reference: S3W-23444

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 12 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what the maximum monetary discount under the modernised right to buy scheme would be if it was indexed with reference to the appropriate house price index or indices.

Question reference: S3W-23442

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 12 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many secure tenancies there are in each local authority area.

Question reference: S3W-23445

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 12 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has on the number of right to buy sales in each year since 1979-80, broken down by (a) local authority landlords and (b) other social landlords and also showing the number of sales under the (i) modernised and (ii) preserved right to buy schemes.

The number of properties sold each year under right to buy legislation (RTB) by local authorities since 1979-80 are shown in table 1. These figures include sales by the former Scottish Homes and New Towns.

The number of properties sold under right to buy legislation (RTB) by registered social landlords each year since 1987-88 are shown in table 2. Information for the years 1979-80 to 1986-87 is not held centrally.

Table 1: Sales of Public Authority Housing to Sitting Tenants, 1979-80 to 2007-08

Financial Year	Right to Buy (Old Terms)	Right to Buy (Modernised)	Rent to Mortgage	Voluntary Sales	All Sales to Sitting Tenants
1979-80	2,629	0	0	16	2,645
1980-81	4,580	0	0	1,663	6,243
1981-82	9,810	0	0	1,894	11,704
1982-83	13,368	0	0	1,821	15,189
1983-84	15,171	0	0	2,802	17,973
1984-85	13,611	0	0	3,082	16,693
1985-86	11,915	0	0	2,152	14,067
1986-87	12,038	0	0	2,565	14,603
1987-88	18,609	0	0	4,182	22,791
1988-89	27,394	0	0	7,502	34,896
1989-90	32,756	0	17	6,064	38,837
1990-91	25,651	0	118	2,796	28,565
1991-92	20,877	0	166	2,091	23,134
1992-93	20,279	0	418	1,773	22,470
1993-94	18,615	0	131	1,769	20,515
1994-95	20,001	0	87	409	20,497
1995-96	14,974	0	84	209	15,267
1996-97	14,144	0	63	3	14,210
1997-98	15,467	0	32	3	15,502
1998-99	13,186	0	20	5	13,211
1999-2000	13,803	0	34	4	13,841
2000-01	13,523	0	16	2	13,541
2001-02	13,530	0	18	2	13,550
2002-03	17,376	0	8	25	17,409
2003-04	13,523	62	2	5	13,592
2004-05	10,986	211	0	0	11,197
2005-06	9,071	331	0	0	9,402
2006-07	7,007	352	0	0	7,359
2007-08	5,671	299	0	0	5,970

Source: Sales 3 returns to the Scottish Government, Communities Analytical Services (Housing Statistics).

Notes:

Figures include sales of all public authority housing stock. This includes local authorities, the former Scottish Homes, and former New Towns.

Figures includes estimates for Inverclyde for 2007, due to missing returns.

Table 2: Registered Social Landlord (RSL) sales to sitting tenants, 1987-88 to 2007-08

Financial Year¹	Right to Buy (old terms)²	Right to Buy (modernised)	Voluntary Sales	All Sales to Sitting Tenants
1979-80	..	0	..	..
1980-81	..	0	..	..
1981-82	..	0	..	..
1982-83	..	0	..	..
1983-84	..	0	..	..
1984-85	..	0	..	..
1985-86	..	0	..	..
1986-87	..	0	..	..
1987-88	409	0	7	416
1988-89	181	0	26	207
1989-90	340	0	15	355
1990-91	340	0	5	345
1991-92	365	0	16	381
1992-93	330	0	33	363
1993-94	304	0	3	307
1994-95	349	0	33	382
1995-96	328	0	71	399
1996-97	519	0	63	582
1997-98	932	0	28	960
1998-99	874	0	0	874
1999-2000	982	0	0	982
2000-01	1,018	0	0	1,018
2001-02	970	0	26	996
2002-03	1,499	3	58	1,560
2003-04	3,170	18	10	3,198
2004-05	2,344	36	5	2,385
2005-06	1,903	34	5	1,942
2006-07	1,613	51	7	1,671
2007-08	1,471	46	1	1,518

Source: Scottish Housing Regulator, RSL Annual performance and statistical returns 1998-2008

Notes:

1. Figures prior to 1998-99 have been compiled from historical tables. This information was originally provided by Communities Scotland, but is unavailable for the years 1979-80 to 1986-87.

2. The 1998 - 2001 old terms right to buy (RTB) figures also includes rent to mortgage sales.

Question reference: S3O-06776

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 7 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what aspects of the Glasgow pilot community court will be brought forward.

Question reference: S3O-06665

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 30 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to introduce new NHS waiting time targets.

Question reference: S3O-05596

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 January 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 22 January 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps have been taken to ensure that the investigation of serious fraud in Scotland can be carried out effectively.

Question reference: S3W-19321

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 19 January 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-17745 by Nicola Sturgeon on 19 November 2008, how many appeals against pay banding have been lodged by retired NHS staff following assimilation under Agenda for Change, broken down by NHS board.

The data collected by the Scottish Government does not detail either the number of specific review requests submitted or how many of these are from retired members of staff. Current data collection covers both the number of posts for which review requests have been received and the number of postholders affected by review requests.

It is possible that the outcome of review requests received from either current or retired staff will affect a number of retired staff around the country. However, it is not possible to identify the numbers involved from the data held by the Scottish Government.

Question reference: S3W-19322

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 19 January 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-17745 by Nicola Sturgeon on 19 November 2008, how many appeals by retired NHS staff against pay banding are outstanding following assimilation under Agenda for Change, broken down by NHS board.

The data collected by the Scottish Government does not detail either the number of specific review requests submitted or how many of these are from retired members of staff. Current data collection covers both the number of posts for which review requests have been received and the number of postholders affected by review requests.

It is possible that the outcome of review requests received from either current or retired staff will affect a number of retired staff around the country. However, it is not possible to identify the numbers involved from the data held by the Scottish Government.

s

Chamber and committees