Chamber and committees

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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-16449

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 1 June 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how much has been spent on the Education Maintenance Allowance since its roll-out in August 2004, including set-up costs, administration costs and student top-up payments, broken down by local authority area.

Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) programme costs for the financial year to 30 March 2005 totalled £14.48 million. Cost breakdown as requested is detailed in the table below:

Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs) Programme Costs 2004-05 (Financial Year)

Local Education Authority	EMA Payments	Bonus Payments	Admin Costs	Total	Set-Up and Admin Costs**
Aberdeen City	154,830	28,800	4,950	188,580	35,000 (£10k + £25k)
Aberdeenshire	250,170	34,050	6,180	290,400	35,000
Angus	137,320	24,000	4,320	165,640	35,000
Argyll and Bute	140,060	22,800	4,155	167,015	35,000
Clackmannanshire	75,300	13,500	4,440	93,240	35,000
Dumfries and Galloway	230,780	42,150	7,170	280,100	35,000
Dundee*	521,120	165,900	10,515	697,535	35,000
East Ayrshire*	451,880	139,350	10,530	601,760	35,000
East Dunbartonshire	178,270	31,950	4,740	214,960	35,000
East Lothian	125,560	24,000	3,585	153,145	35,000
East Renfrewshire	164,860	27,900	3,660	196,420	35,000
Edinburgh	395,680	70,350	14,205	480,235	35,000
Falkirk	141,140	24,900	5,130	171,170	35,000
Fife	543,640	87,100	13,725	644,465	35,000
Glasgow*	2,066,732	620,865	38,645	2,726,242	35,000
Highland	337,340	54,450	11,490	403,280	35,000
Inverclyde	163,950	29,400	4,845	198,195	35,000
Midlothian	88,820	16,050	2,685	107,555	35,000
Moray	106,240	19,500	3,450	129,190	35,000
North Ayrshire	259,200	44,400	7,995	311,595	35,000
North Lanarkshire	493,080	79,140	14,685	586,905	35,000
Orkney - Schools	36,930	6,450	1,050	44,430	35,000
Perth and Kinross	151,010	23,400	4,665	179,075	35,000
Renfrewshire	281,050	52,350	9,105	342,505	35,000
Scottish Borders	156,850	25,650	4,740	187,240	35,000
Shetland	23,170	4,350	945	28,465	35,000
South Ayrshire	189,480	34,950	6,300	230,730	35,000
South Lanarkshire	460,800	74,250	12,960	548,010	35,000
Stirling	104,100	16,200	2,820	123,120	35,000
West Dunbartonshire*	431,210	98,400	7,560	537,170	35,000
West Lothian	245,020	33,600	7,095	285,715	35,000
Western Isles	49,410	8,250	1,620	59,280	35,000
sub-total	9,155,002	1,978,405	239,960	11,373,367	1,120,000
SFEFC	2,502,815	533,250	69,990	3,106,055	35,000 (£10k + £25k) SFEFC
					546,000
Total	11,657,817	251,155	309,950	14,479,422	**1,701,000 42 x (£5k + £8k) Colleges

Notes:

*Pilot local authority costs run from April 2004 - March 2005.

All other local authorities (LAs) started from national rollout in August 2005.

**EMA Set-Up and Administration Costs.

Admin and Set-Up Costs were accrued to the previous financial year 2003-04.

Set-up and administration costs were allocated equally to all authorities. A one-off set-up payment of £10,000 and an annual administration payment of £25,000 is paid. SFEFC receive the same as LAs but colleges receive slightly different allowances i.e. £5,000 set-up and £8,000 annual admin.

To take account of the variation in activity we also provide a "top up" administration payment in February which takes account of the number of students they actually process applications and payments for. This is paid at £15 per EMA student (to both LAs and colleges but obviously not to SFEFC as they do not pay or assess the students).

By distributing the funds in this way we hope to be fair to small authorities who also have to set up administrative systems to run EMA but still take into account the much larger volumes that authorities such as Glasgow or Edinburgh will process.

NB Bonus payments only include those paid in January 2005.

Question reference: S2W-16450

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 26 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the take-up rate has been for the Education Maintenance Allowance since its roll-out in August 2004, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S2W-16384

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 25 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish a graph showing the average life expectancy of (a) men and (b) women in each year from 1979 to 2005.

Question reference: S2W-16448

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 23 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many pupils have been referred to independent special schools in each year since 1997, broken down by local authority area.

The numbers are given in the following table.

Numbers of Pupils Referred to Independent Special Schools by Local Authority

Local Authority	1997	1998	1999¹	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Aberdeen City	16	26	17	42	22	35	47	63
Aberdeenshire	40	46	38	48	45	54	49	53
Angus	3	6	10	7	13	8	11	15
Argyll and Bute	7	13	22	17	18	21	23	27
Clackmannanshire	10	7	8	12	10	7	8	5
Dumfries and Galloway	3	10	16	10	7	7	9	10
Dundee City	16	10	16	17	15	15	15	21
East Ayrshire	13	10	15	28	32	26	16	21
East Dunbartonshire	14	12	18	15	16	11	8	14
East Lothian	15	10	11	19	20	14	16	16
East Renfrewshire	14	15	7	13	11	4	5	21
Edinburgh, City of	8	74	84	98	63	85	88	90
Eilean Siar	103	4	6	4	4	3	2	1
Falkirk	45	49	51	61	61	46	43	56
Fife	19	15	14	20	38	39	36	33
Glasgow City	116	130	163	168	147	149	152	148
Highland	33	35	48	40	23	17	23	20
Inverclyde	15	22	19	14	18	20	22	26
Midlothian	21	12	14	21	23	28	29	34
Moray	6	6	5	5	2	5	4	6
North Ayrshire	44	47	54	49	46	40	33	56
North Lanarkshire	24	30	39	42	46	41	31	39
Orkney Islands	-	1	-	1	2	2	2	2
Perth and Kinross	19	20	24	33	28	32	26	34
Renfrewshire	36	32	38	51	47	54	47	66
Scottish Borders	9	8	11	14	12	18	19	21
Shetland Islands	1	2	1	3	1	2	1	-
South Ayrshire	22	22	13	26	34	31	26	42
South Lanarkshire	7	20	17	26	28	34	38	41
Stirling	20	17	19	23	22	19	18	19
West Dunbartonshire	9	19	38	43	37	40	32	48
West Lothian	44	39	46	46	35	32	20	24
Local Authorities Outwith Scotland	23	18	21	38	28	24	21	16

Source: Independent Schools Census.

Note: 1. Total pupils does not match figure previously published.

Question reference: S2W-16382

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many houses are currently unoccupied and what plans it has to reoccupy these houses.

The latest available information on unoccupied dwellings comes from council tax billing systems as at 6 September 2004. This indicates that there were a total of 109,591 unoccupied dwellings in Scotland. Houses can be empty for various reasons. The figure quoted covers both the social-rented and private sectors and includes second homes, holiday lets and dwellings awaiting improvement or demolition.

The Scottish Executive continues to pursue a range of initiatives to bring empty properties back into use. Local authorities are required to produce local housing strategies to tackle the housing problems in their areas. This can include assessing the need for action on empty homes if it is a priority for their area. The Empty Homes Initiative returned around 1,400 properties between 1997 and 2002. Communities Scotland is responsible for the Rural Empty Properties Grant and Lead Tenancies Empty Property Lease Scheme which also supports the letting or re-occupation of empty houses. Empty houses in the local authority and housing association sectors will be addressed, whether through demolitions or improvements through Scottish Housing Quality Standard delivery plans. We are also encouraging public sector landlords to minimise transitional vacancies through efficient letting processes.

Question reference: S2W-16378

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether its Health Department and NHS Lothian will take action to address the acute clinical needs of psychiatric patients in Lothian.

Meeting the clinical needs of all patients in Lothian is the responsibility of Lothian NHS Board. Among the recommendations arising from NHS Lothian’s recent public consultation on proposals for acute hospital services, services for older people and mental health services, is the replacement of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. As part of the replacement programme, NHS Lothian plans to move acute adult inpatient mental health services to new facilities on the Royal Edinburgh site and to St John’s Hospital in Livingston.

Major changes are also planned in East Lothian, which will result in a new Haddington Hospital, to replace the existing buildings at Roodlands and Herdmanflat. There will, of course, be community mental health services in place before the acute services are closed.

Question reference: S2W-16434

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish its analysis of the responses to the consultation on the Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Bill.

Question reference: S2W-16433

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish the responses to its consultation on the draft Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Bill and whether it will place these in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

Question reference: S2W-16445

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive when the table "Number and percentage of school pupils with no qualifications at Standard Grade (or equivalent) or better on leaving school", available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 33501), will be updated to show the number of children who left school with no qualifications in 2003-04.

Question reference: S2W-16446

Asked by: Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 May 2005
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 18 May 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many candidates have achieved 70% or above in standard grade (a) maths and (b) English in each year since 1997.