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: S4W-09226

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 August 2012
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 20 September 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what its target time is for ministerial replies to (a) correspondence and (b) parliamentary questions from members and what proportion of these have met this target with a (i) substantive and (ii) holding response in each year since 2007, broken down by minister.

The target time for ministerial replies to all correspondence is 20 working days and for parliamentary questions is 10 working days when the Parliament is sitting and 20 working days during recess.

Completed information to date shows that the percentage of final replies issued on target for all ministerial correspondence since 2007, broken down by minister, are:

Year	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
	%	%	%	%	%
Alex Salmond	56	77	80	81	60
Bruce Crawford	71	72	91	86	92
Linda Fabiani	78	91	96	90	n/a
John Swinney	89	84	80	97	84
Jim Mather	90	95	98	98	96
Stewart Stevenson	89	93	96	96	95
Fiona Hyslop	94	96	91	84	86
Maureen Watt	93	94	90	96	n/a
Adam Ingram	94	94	90	84	98
Nicola Sturgeon	96	96	97	97	94
Shona Robison	97	99	98	80	89
Stewart Maxwell	90	96	97	96	n/a
Kenny MacAskill	96	92	97	98	98
Fergus Ewing	90	95	95	97	84
Richard Lochhead	78	78	91	93	88
Michael Russell	69	87	90	93	95
Brian Adam					89
Alasdair Allan					95
Keith Brown					91
Aileen Campbell					78
Angela Constance					81
Roseanna Cunningham					96
Derek Mackay					91
Michael Matheson					98
Alex Neil					90

The Audit of Written Parliamentary Questions outlines the percentage of final replies issued on target and this is published in SPICe every quarter.

The information requested on holding responses for ministerial correspondence and parliamentary questions could only be obtained at disproportionate costs.

Question reference: S4O-01298

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 September 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact on the arable sector of recent weather conditions.

Question reference: S4O-01259

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 September 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 September 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to tackle long-term unemployment.

Question reference: S4W-09251

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 24 August 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 5 September 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases involving accused from East Lothian have been heard at (a) Haddington and (b) Edinburgh Sheriff Court in 2012 and how many in each year since 2007.

No information is held locally or centrally on the number of cases heard at Haddington and Edinburgh Sheriff Court involving accused from East Lothian. Information on accused prosecuted in these courts, and throughout Scotland, is based on the locus of the crime rather than the domicile or residence of the accused.

The available information on people prosecuted at these courts is given in the following table.

Persons Proceeded Against¹ in Haddington and Edinburgh Sheriff Court, 2007-08 to 2010-11

	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Sheriff Solemn:
Haddington	0	2	10	43
Edinburgh	656	566	581	564
Sheriff Summary:
Haddington	994	1,038	1,099	1,049
Edinburgh	8,561	7,621	6,317	6,703
All	10,211	9,227	8,007	8,359

Note: 1. Where main offence.

Information for 2011-12 will not be available until publication of the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2011-12 Statistical Bulletin. This is due to be published in November 2012.

The dates of all Scottish Government Official and National Statistics publications are pre-announced, and the up to date list of future publications can be found at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Search/Forthcoming.

Question reference: S4W-09089

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 4 September 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what its positon is on reports that 1,108 patients in NHS Lothian waited over eight hours to be assessed by a doctor in accident and emergency departments in 2011-12.

The report that 1,108 patients in NHS Lothian waited over eight hours in 2011-12 was in response to a question as to how many emergency arrivals were not admitted, discharged or transferred for at least eight hours. Some of these waits will have been because the clinical decision was that the best thing for a particular patient was to stay in the emergency department and the fact that a number of patients waited over eight hours does not mean that they had not been assessed by an appropriately skilled and qualified doctor or nurse in the emergency department itself.

Overall the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that patients receive prompt access to the care which they need. That is why the Scottish Government, alone of the four UK administrations, has continued to set the standard for boards to achieve that 98% of patients should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. However, the government is also quite clear that clinical decision making and patient safety must always take priority.

Question reference: S4W-09090

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 4 September 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to reduce the number of patients required to wait over eight hours to be assessed by a doctor in accident and emergency departments in NHS Lothian.

Question reference: S4W-08788

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 23 August 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many full-time equivalent health visitors have been employed in East Lothian in each year since 1999.

The number of health visitors employed by Community Health Partnership (CHP) is only available from 2007. The following table provides information on Health Visitors employed (whole-time equivalent) in East Lothian CHP each year since 2007. However, the role of the health visitor should not be seen in isolation as they form part of the public health nurse team which incorporates health visitors and school nurses, with some staff fulfilling a dual role.

Table 1: Health Visitors, Public Health Nurses and School Nurses^1,2Employed (Whole-Time Equivalent) in East Lothian Community Health Partnership

	September 2007	September 2008	September 2009	September 2010	September 2011
Health Visitors	21.4	22.3	22.2	20.1	18.5
Public Health Nurses	1.0	3.4	3.2	1.4	1.6
School Nurses	-	3.8	6.1	5.7	6.7
Total	22.4	29.5	31.5	27.2	26.8

Source: ISD Scotland.

Notes:

1. Staff in post at CHP level are not routinely published on the ISD website. However, data on health visitors, public health nurses and school nurses for 2007-12 are available by NHS board and region on the ISD website here:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2012-05-29/Nursing_and_Midwifery_SIP_M2012.xls.

2. Data on Health Visitors and Public Health Nurses for 1999-2005 are available by NHS board and region on the ISD website here:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Historic-Data/WFE01_HB_REG.xls.

Question reference: S4O-01165

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 21 June 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on the value of Edington Cottage Hospital to North Berwick and its neighbouring communities.

Question reference: S4O-01091

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 June 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made with the Scottish Court Service’s review of sheriff and justice of the peace courts.

Question reference: S4W-06791

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 May 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has on whether reductions in Scottish Government funding were a factor in First Scotland East’s decision to reduce bus services in Midlothian and East Lothian.

When announcing bus service reductions in Midlothian and East Lothian Paul Thomas, First Scotland East Managing Director, said “We have for some time been running a number of services in the East and Midlothian regions at a loss. Over a number of years we have tried many marketing and pricing initiatives to change this, but the extra financial pressures put upon us by the current economic climate, high fuel prices and cuts in external funding mean that we simply have no option other than to discontinue the bulk of our operation in East Lothian and Midlothian.”