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-07385

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 31 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 28 April 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to ensure that all local authorities have a local archive.

This is a matter which will beconsidered as part of the development of the Scottish Public Records Strategy whichI announced in the answer given to question S2W-3740 on 30 October 2003. One of the aims of the strategy is to promote archives and improve their accessibility.All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facilityfor which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

Question reference: S2O-02014

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 April 2004
Current Status: Answered by Euan Robson on 22 April 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress is being made with the provision of vocational college courses for pupils of 14 and older who wish to have that option.

Question reference: S2W-07170

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 20 April 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-5690 by Mr Tom McCabe on 2 February 2004, how it will enable and encourage all interested parties to air their personal views as part of its set piece consultation on smoking in public places.

As my response to question S2W-5690indicates, the consultation aims to provide opportunities for all individuals, businesses,representative groups and other organisations to air their views on this topic.

The public consultation willbe launched in early June and will run until the end of September. It will be wellpublicised and run alongside an awareness raising campaign about the impact of second-handsmoke. The consultation document will be made widely available and will be designedto secure responses from both organisations and individual members of the public.The consultation will also include focus group work, regional seminars, and a nationalconference on 9 September which will allow people the opportunity to debate thekey issues involved. We are also working with Young Scot on a series of activitiesdesigned to involve young people in this important debate.

Full details of the consultationarrangements will be made available at the time of the launch.

Question reference: S2W-07005

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 29 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish details of current provision for housing-related support services funded by the Supporting People initiative and the rules governing future grants.

Supporting People grants of £421 million for 2003-04 have been allocated to local authorities. A further £408 million has been announced for 2004-05. This includes part year allocations to West Dunbartonshire and Argyll and Bute councils. The allocation is also subject to adjustment to provide full year funding to projects which came into operation between 1 April 2003 and 31 March 2004 and were only funded for part of the year. Further decisions on 2004-05 funding will be subject to review. The purpose of this review is to ensure that the services being funded properly meet the objectives of Supporting People and are being delivered in an effective and value for money way and that Supporting People is placed on a secure footing going forward with a clear purpose and remit and the funds to deliver.

Supporting People Grant Allocations to Scottish Councils 2003-04

Local Authority	Grant Allocations
Aberdeen City	£12,306,385
Aberdeenshire	£9,374,919
Angus	£6,292,340
Argyll and Bute	£16,598,238
Clackmannanshire	£3,093,495
Dumfries and Galloway	£15,078,644
Dundee	£11,672,480
East Ayrshire	£6,184,168
East Dunbartonshire	£5,527,821
East Lothian	£9,365,816
East Renfrewshire	£6,254,645
City of Edinburgh	£44,694,924
Eilean Siar	£356,812
Falkirk	£8,275,041
Fife	£27,327,241
Glasgow City	£71,525,949
Highland	£13,892,813
Inverclyde	£8,122,574
Midlothian	£6,050,298
Moray	£6,920,485
North Ayrshire	£14,705,131
North Lanarkshire	£24,845,631
Orkney	£357,044
Perth and Kinross	£4,592,524
Renfrewshire	£18,346,930
Scottish Borders	£5,956,313
Shetland	£788,470
South Ayrshire	£6,231,371
South Lanarkshire	£23,420,550
Stirling	£3,799,843
West Dunbartonshire	£19,396,821
West Lothian	£9,719,099

Supporting People Grant Allocation toScottish Councils 2004–05

Local Authority	Grant Allocations
Aberdeen City	£12,306,385.31
Aberdeenshire	£9,374,918.64
Angus	£6,404,032.96
Argyll and Bute	£8,299,119.18
Clackmannanshire	£3,093,495.45
Dumfries and Galloway	£15,078,643.67
Dundee	£11,672,479,97
East Ayrshire	£6,184,168,29
East Dunbartonshire	£5,527,820.89
East Lothian	£9,365,815.80
East Renfrewshire	£6,258,178.60
City of Edinburgh	£44,694,923.95
Eilean Siar	£356,812.77
Falkirk	£8,275,040.93
Fife	£28,331,955.32
Glasgow City	£71,765,591.36
Highland	£13,892,812.73
Inverclyde	£8,122,573.44
Midlothian	£6,071,374.91
Moray	£6,920,484.90
North Ayrshire	£14,705,130.89
North Lanarkshire	£24,845,631.31
Orkney	£357,044.49
Perth and Kinross	£6,225,993.89
Renfrewshire	£18,346,929.53
Scottish Borders	£5,956,312.66
Shetland	£788,469.79
South Ayrshire	£8,171,860.48
South Lanarkshire	£23,420,550.34
Stirling	£3,799,842.77
West Dunbartonshire	£9,698,410.53
West Lothian	£9,761,338.41

Grants are made by Scottish Ministers under powers conferred by section 91 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 and the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 (Housing Support Services) Regulations 2002 which prescribe eligible housing support services.

Question reference: S2W-06957

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 15 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Elish Angiolini on 29 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the up-to-date figures are on how many cases of alleged offences aggravated by religious hatred (a) have been reported by police to Procurators Fiscal, (b) brought to court and (c) resulted in a conviction.

During the period 27 June2003 (when Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 came intoforce to permit an offence to be proved to have been aggravated by religiousprejudice) until 29 February 2004, the police reported 262 cases including anallegation of religious aggravation. At this stage it is not possible toprovide a definitive account of the number of prosecutions or their results andmany remain active cases, but a report on the first six months of operation ofthis legislation will be available by the end of April 2004.

Question reference: S2W-06231

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 February 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 26 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what funding to local authorities and voluntary organisations has been allocated through competitive bidding by (a) it and (b) the Scottish Office and what information it has on such funding schemes run by (i) NHS boards and trusts, (ii) local authorities, (iii) the lottery, (iv) enterprise bodies and (v) non-departmental public bodies in each year since 1999, stating in each case the (1) value of the scheme, (2) number of successful bids and (3) number of unsuccessful bids.

Information on all these funding schemes is not held centrally. This is an operational matter for each of the bodies concerned.

The following schemes have been identified from within the Scottish Executive as resulting from competitive bidding:

Public Transport Fund Allocations

Year	Value of Scheme	Successful Bids	Unsuccessful Bids
1999-2000	£29.52 million	13	5
2000-01	£29.73 million	21	5
2001-02	£44.45 million	23	3
2002-03	£57.49 million	26	19
2003-04	£58.98 million	23	17

Air Quality Allocations

Year	Value of Scheme	Successful Bids	Unsuccessful Bids
1999-2000	£0.5 million	11	2
2000-01	£0.3 million	9	0
2001-02	£0.3 million	6	0
2002-03	£0.3 million	12	0
2003-04	£0.3 million	14	0

Inaddition, a vehicle emissions testing grant scheme has recently started, with2003-04 as the first year of operation. The funding is £0.5 million, and therehave been three successful and zero unsuccessful bids.

Derelict And Contaminated Land Remediation

Year	Value of Funding	Successful Bids	Unsuccessful Bids
2002-03	£3.9 million	15	3

Question reference: S2W-06351

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 February 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 18 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will ensure adequate and continued funding for Alcohol Focus Scotland's Local Councils on Alcohol to enable them to extend their counselling services, especially in rural areas.

Question reference: S2W-06352

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 February 2004
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 18 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what long-term plans it has to address any impact of the withdrawal of the Transitional Water and Wastewater Charges Scheme on domestic consumers and when any such plans will be made public.

The Executive announced on 3February that the Transitional Reduction Scheme will continue for a furtherthree years. Households on council tax benefit will receive a reduction in theirwater and sewerage bills in the financial year 2004-05 where their bills exceeda threshold of £240.

The Executive intends to putin place arrangements to ensure that the scheme is phased out in a measured andgradual fashion over the financial years 2005-07 so as to minimise the impactof withdrawal. It will consult the local authorities about these arrangements.

In the long term, the bestway to minimise the impact of water charges on all customers is to ensure thatScottish Water delivers its services at an efficient cost. To that end the Executive has put in place regulatory arrangements that require Scottish Waterto make substantial savings in its costs.

Question reference: S2W-06735

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 18 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many civil servants working for it, or the former Scottish Office, on grade B1 and above have been dismissed in each of the last 10 years, broken down by ground for dismissal.

The information requested can be found in the following table.

Staff in Band B and Above in Scottish Executive (Scottish Office) Core Departments at Time of Dismissal

	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Dismissal for disciplinary reasons	-	-	1	2	-	1	1	-	-	-
Dismissal for inefficiency	1		-	1	1	-	1	-	1	1

Question reference: S2W-06353

Asked by: Donald Gorrie, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 February 2004
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 15 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-3977 by Nicol Stephen on 21 November 2003, whether it now anticipates that there will not be any significant increase in traffic volumes on ancillary roads as a result of the proposed online upgrade of the A80, in light of the traffic incident at Haggs Interchange on 18 February 2004 and the resultant congestion on ancillary roads surrounding Cumbernauld, and what the reasons are for the position on the matter.