- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 23 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking or plans to take to improve the provision of dental services in rural areas, in particular, in Dumfries and Galloway.
Answer
Steps taken include:
Scottish Dental Access Initiative grants to encourage practitioners to set up or expand NHS practices in areas of unmet patient demand or high oral health need, including rural areas;approval of salaried dentist posts in areas where island health boards or Primary Care NHS Trusts have indicated that there are difficulties with NHS dental provision or oral health needs;a scheme whereby fees may be paid to dentists travelling to rural areas for loss of remunerative time spent on travel and to compensate the dentist where visits are cancelled at short notice, andthe early years enhanced capitation scheme to encourage dentists to register and provide preventative advice and treatment to 0-2 and 3-5-year-olds, with payment on a sliding scale depending on the level deprivation.
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 23 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what guidelines it has issued or intends to issue on the maximum number of patients a dentist may have.
Answer
No guidelines have been issued and there are no plans to issue any.
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 23 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what guidelines it has issued or plans to issue on the maximum distances which patients should be required to travel to receive dental treatment.
Answer
No guidelines have been issued and there are no plans to issue any.
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 23 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of the adult population in the Dumfries and Galloway Health Board area is registered with an NHS dentist.
Answer
For the year ending March 2000, 45% of adults in the Dumfries and Galloway area were registered with an NHS dentist.
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 23 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what studies it has carried out or intends to carry out to assess the impact of the European Distance Selling Directive on Scottish businesses, and what the results of any such studies carried out to date were.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has not carried out any studies on the impact of the Distance Selling Directive on Scottish businesses and has no plans to carry out any such study.
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 14 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 23 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to review the availability of dental services in rural areas, in particular, in Dumfries and Galloway.
Answer
Problems of access to NHS dentistry within all areas of Scotland, including remote and rural areas, are being kept under review by the Executive on a continuous basis, and is one of the areas being looked at by the Implementation Support Group for the Action Plan for Dental Services in Scotland.
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 March 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 23 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with Her Majesty's Government about deferring or restructuring VAT and income tax payments and other government levies and charges due to be paid by Scottish farmers, businesses and others affected by the foot and mouth disease outbreak and about the economic and social effect which requiring these payments to be made at this time may have.
Answer
In addition to the £13.5 million emergency package for the Scottish rural economy, several measures were announced by the UK Government on 20 March which will help Scottish farmers, businesses and others affected by the outbreak. They include flexibility from the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise on the timing of payments for businesses with cash flow difficulties, scope for continuing credit for businesses already in receipt of the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, and continuing credit from the Banks for small businesses badly affected.
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 April 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Allan Wilson on 21 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive how many extra visitors attended the National Collections of Scotland in 1999-2000 as a result of the funding made available by its Education Development, as highlighted in note 25.5 of Scottish Executive Resource Accounts 1999-2000, and whether it has an estimate of any increase in visitors as a result of such funding in 2000-01.
Answer
The number of visitors to the National Institutions of Scotland were:
| | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 |
| National Galleries of Scotland | 876,519 | 962,142 | 1,049,652 |
| National Museums of Scotland | 630,596 | 788,134 | 1,015,494 |
| National Library of Scotland | 44,316 | 66,162 | 80,628 |
| Total | 1,551,431 | 1,816,438 | 2,145,714 |
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 April 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Allan Wilson on 21 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether private sponsorship and funding of the National Collections of Scotland increased in 1999-2000 as a result of the funding made available by its Education Department, as highlighted in note 25.5 of Scottish Executive Resource Accounts 1999-2000, and, if so, by how much and whether it has any estimate of any increase in such sponsorship as a result of such funding in 2000-01.
Answer
The sums raised by the National Institutions of Scotland in private sponsorship and funding were:
| | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 |
| National Galleries of Scotland | 681,000 | 1,192,000 | 1,586,000 |
| National Museums of Scotland | 7,309,000* | 4,334,000* | 2,964,000* |
| National Library of Scotland | 245,000 | 222,000 | 251,000 |
| Total | 8,235,000 | 5,748,000 | 4,801,000 |
*includes fundraising for the Museum of Scotland, which opened in November 1998, amounting to £5.5 million, £1.9 million and £1.3 million.
- Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 April 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 17 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-14758 by Ross Finnie on 17 April 2001, why there is no estimate for any loss of income to the proposed single water authority should water prices charged by the North of Scotland Water Authority be brought into line with those charged by the East and West of Scotland Water Authorities when this goal is specifically mentioned in paragraph 1.14 of The Water Services Bill - The Executive's Proposals as a reason for creating a single authority
Answer
The passage referred to makes clear that the move to a single authority will allow charge harmonisation. At what level those charges will be harmonised will not be established until the strategic charges review has been carried out. Thus, as indicated in my earlier answer, no estimate has been made of the impact of bringing the current North of Scotland Water Authority charges into line with current charges in the other areas.
