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: S4O-01584

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 November 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken to monitor the fairness and transparency of pharmacy applications and appeals.

Question reference: S4W-11177

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 23 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many teachers with physical education as their primary subject are employed in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools and how many there were in (i) 2011, (ii) 2010, (iii) 2009, (iv) 2008 and (v) 2007.

Information on the number of teachers (full time equivalent) whose main subject is physical education is published on the Scottish Government website as supplementary data to the Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland publication. Primary school teacher information is available in table 2.8 and secondary school teacher information in table 3.9 of the following links:

2008-2011:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachcensus2011

and 2007:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachersupplementarydata

Question reference: S4O-01532

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to give access to college places to those on waiting lists.

Question reference: S4W-10614

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 26 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 15 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many homes in each local authority area are defined as empty or uninhabited, broken down by (a) social and (b) privately owned housing.

The following table shows the numbers of dwellings receiving a discount for being long term empty or an exemption for being unoccupied:

As at 3 September 2012

	Long Term Empty Discounts	Unoccupied Exemptions
Scotland	25,454	45,833
Aberdeen City	849	1,455
Aberdeenshire	2,364	1,691
Angus	1,035	1,036
Argyll & Bute	759	960
Clackmannanshire¹	0	362
Dumfries & Galloway	904	1,489
Dundee City	568	2,208
East Ayrshire	640	902
East Dunbartonshire	119	461
East Lothian	286	587
East Renfrewshire	72	361
Edinburgh, City of	2,141	2,159
Eilean Siar	258	600
Falkirk	384	840
Fife	1,657	2,563
Glasgow	2,535	9,294
Highland	1,512	1,953
Inverclyde	597	1,992
Midlothian	361	517
Moray	1,141	878
North Ayrshire	1,285	1,090
North Lanarkshire	543	1,559
Orkney Islands	162	426
Perth & Kinross	898	1,256
Renfrewshire¹	0	1,385
Scottish Borders	1,488	1,409
Shetland Islands	385	223
South Ayrshire	562	731
South Lanarkshire	755	2,567
Stirling	550	697
West Dunbartonshire	363	1,165
West Lothian	281	1,017

1. Clackmannanshire Council and Renfrewshire Council are unable to separately identify long term empty properties from those that are second homes.

Source: Council Tax Base (CTAXBASE) 2012 statistical return provided by councils to the Scottish Government.

A breakdown of these data into social and privately owned housing is not held centrally.

Question reference: S4W-10329

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what savings the Scottish Futures Trust has made from its Property Asset Management Programme; what the estimated savings are for each of the next five years and how these will be achieved.

The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) is working in partnership with public sector bodies and is in the first year of a five year programme to deliver £500m total savings across the Local Civil Estate and £28m annual savings across the Scottish Government Civil Estate.

The asset management programme has a number of work streams at various stages of development. SFT helps secure savings by working in partnership with Scotland’s public bodies across three main areas: surplus property; property efficiency in the central estate; and property efficiency in the local estate.

Surplus Property

As an example, SFT is working collaboratively with NHS Tayside, Angus Council and Historic Scotland on a pilot exercise to develop for sale the Sunnyside Hospital in Montrose. SFT is working to remove the uncertainty for developers and investors in order to increase the site value and bring it to market for sale during 2013.

Property Efficiency in the Central Estate

SFT is working with Scottish Government, agencies and non departmental public bodies to help reduce their office floor plate. Currently occupying some 7 million square feet, the target is to reduce it by at least 25%, with the opportunity to do more.

Property Efficiency in the Local Estate

Across Scotland, many public sector organisations are already improving their use of existing property resource and it is SFT’s task to help build on that success. For example, Fife Council purchased the vacated Amazon distribution warehouse at Bankhead in Fife as a ‘super depot’ to bring as many of their services together under one roof, including: building and property services; catering and cleaning; transportation and environmental services; and grounds maintenance. It is projected that this move will save the Council £3-4m a year in revenue costs. Information such as this is shared with other Local Authorities that are considering similar approaches to shared services.

Question reference: S4O-01458

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 November 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what work is being undertaken to address IT performance issues in the Parliament and in constituency offices.

Question reference: S4O-01485

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 November 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to reviewing sentencing policy.

Question reference: S4W-10542

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 5 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding is given to (a) EDF, (b) Eon, (c) Npower, (d) Scottish Gas, (e) Scottish Power and (f) Scottish and Southern Energy through the (i) Energy Assistance Package and (ii) any other relevant energy schemes.

(i) The Scottish Government pays Scottish Gas under contract to manage and deliver central heating and insulation installations under stage 4 of the Energy Assistance Package. Scottish Gas has received the following amounts to deliver the corresponding number of installations, most of which were new central heating systems:

Financial Year	Payment to Scottish Gas	Number of installations
2009-10*	£28.8 million	7,532
2010-11	£34.2 million	10,289
2011-12**	£29.7 million	9,608

*2009-10 figures exclude Central Heating Programme installations, the predecessor to EAP.

**2011-12 figures are provisional.

This data is taken from the Home Energy Programmes Detailed Report 2009-2012 published in June 2012, available from the Energy Saving Trust website:

www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/Take-action/Home-Energy-Scotland/Energy-Assistance-Package/Programme-statistics

No other energy company receives any funding from the Scottish Government under the Energy Assistance Package.

(ii) No energy company receives funding directly from the Scottish Government for any of the other fuel poverty and energy efficiency programmes.

Question reference: S4W-10096

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 30 October 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding the Student Awards Agency for Scotland has received each year since 2007.

A statement of accounts is prepared by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) each year and laid before the Scottish Parliament by Scottish Ministers. These are published in the Annual Report and Accounts and available at www.saas.gov.uk.

From the Annual Accounts, the amount of operating budget and administration costs for SAAS since 2007 (£ million) are:

	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Fees, Grants & Bursaries	280	284.1	305.5	344.5	320.5
Student Loans (net new lending)	170.1	187	119.8	123	148
SAAS Administration costs (Revenue and Capital)	7.1	7.4	7.5	7.1	7.4

Question reference: S4W-10094

Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Rutherglen, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 05 October 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 30 October 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications the Student Awards Agency for Scotland has processed each year since 2007, broken down by applications for (a) tuition fees, (b) student loan, (c) Young Students' Bursary, (d) Independent Students' Bursary, (e) additional loan, (f) supplementary grant and (g) other sources of funding for (i) higher education and (ii) further education.

The Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) only supports higher education students, at HNC level or above, studying at college or university.

Official statistics are published each year which give accurate numbers for students supported by SAAS. The most recently available statistics Higher Education Student Support in Scotland, 2011-12 was published on 24 October 2012 and are available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/10/1895.

Some students will not be eligible for all categories of support that they apply for each year. In addition, SAAS also receives and processes applications that do not meet any eligibility criteria and are rejected completely. There are approximately 9,000 such cases each year.