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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 2611 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S1W-16694

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 17 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what foundation Modern Apprenticeships at Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ) level 2 have existed, how many apprenticeship places were available and how many were filled in each sector in each year since 1997 to date, broken down by local authority and local enterprise company area.

There is no such information available. Modern Apprenticeships were introduced in Scotland to address the skills needs at intermediate level and lead to a SVQ Level 3. Skillseekers provides training opportunities for young people at SVQ Level 2, at a similar level to Foundation Modern Apprentices in England. These are funded from within the block grant-in-aid provided by the Scottish Executive to Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Question reference: S1W-16685

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 17 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much was spent by each local enterprise company (LEC) in 2000-01 on training, broken down by trade/profession, and what the budget of each LEC is in the current financial year for this purpose.

Question reference: S1W-16554

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 12 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people are employed in the tourism departments of (a) Scottish Enterprise and (b) Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Question reference: S1W-16392

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jackie Baillie on 11 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much money from Scottish Executive or Scottish Office sources has been committed to the Pilton/Muirhouse area of Edinburgh in each year from 1997-98 to the current year, specifying the recipient organisation in each case.

Information on Executive financial allocations is not generally attributable to specific neighbourhoods, but available information about spending commitments which include Pilton and/or those specifically dedicated to Muirhouse is as follows:

	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
	£ million
Social Inclusion Partnership Fund	2.453	3.111	2.877	2.685	2.544
New Housing Partnership Fund*	0.170	*	*	*	*
CCTV	-	-	0.048	-	-
Community Safety	-	-	-	0.055	-
Empty Homes Initiative	-	0.300	-	-	-

*Allocation for 1998-2002 was £4.052 million.

The recipient organisations were as follows:

City of Edinburgh Council (SIP Fund)

City of Edinburgh Council/Scottish Homes (NHP Fund)

City of Edinburgh Council (CCTV)

City of Edinburgh Council (Community Safety)

City of Edinburgh Council (Empty Homes Initiative)

The SIP Fund allocations are attributable to the North Edinburgh SIP. The Annual Report of this and other SIPs is now available in the Parliament's Reference Centre and these contain details of allocations or spend.

Question reference: S1W-16391

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jackie Baillie on 11 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much money from Scottish Executive or Scottish Office sources has been committed to the Wester Hailes area of Edinburgh in each year from 1997-98 to the current year, specifying the recipient organisation in each case.

Information on Executive financial allocations is not generally attributable to specific neighbourhoods, but the available information about spending commitments specifically dedicated to Wester Hailes is as follows:

	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
	£ million
Social Inclusion Partnership	2.550	1.614	1.850	1.850	1.765
New Housing Partnership Fund*	0.388	*	*	*	*
CCTV	-	-	0.089	-	-

*Allocation for 1998-2002 was £9.273 million.

The recipient organisations were as follows:

City of Edinburgh Council (SIP Fund)

City of Edinburgh Council/Scottish Homes (NHP Fund)

Wester Hailes Partnership (CCTV)

Question reference: S1W-16520

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 6 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-16175 by Angus MacKay on 20 June 2001, when and how the information on numbers of hardship relief claims by businesses affected by the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak will be made available.

The table below shows the number of cases of hardship relief that had been granted by each council as at 21 June 2001, and the number that were still under consideration at that date. Data on unsuccessful claims are not held centrally.Applications for relief are still being received by councils, and some businesses may still be collecting evidence to support their claims, so the figures below are likely to rise as further applications are processed.

Council	Hardship relief claims granted	Hardship relief claims under consideration
Aberdeen City	0	0
Aberdeenshire	0	26
Angus	10	15
Argyll & Bute	0	215
Clackmannanshire	0	1
Dumfries & Galloway	501	0
Dundee City	0	3
East Ayrshire	0	8
East Dunbartonshire	0	3
East Lothian	0	4
East Renfrewshire	0	0
Edinburgh	0	24
Eilean Siar	7	0
Falkirk	0	1
Fife	0	0
Glasgow	0	0
Highland	44	92
Inverclyde	0	0
Midlothian	0	0
Moray	0	0
North Ayrshire	0	16
North Lanarkshire	0	0
Orkney Islands	2	2
Perth & Kinross	9	2
Renfrewshire	0	0
Scottish Borders	328	372
Shetland Islands	0	0
South Ayrshire	0	11
South Lanarkshire	0	0
Stirling	0	25
West Dunbartonshire	0	0
West Lothian	0	3
Scotland	901	823

Question reference: S1W-16521

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 22 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 6 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what measures have been put in place to enable production engineers being made redundant from the Motorola plant in Bathgate to move into the field of micro-electronic design and to participate in Project Alba.

Support from the Scottish Executive will continue to facilitate the provision of high quality training programmes for those individuals wishing to develop their skills. It is a priority of the Motorola Taskforce to ensure that all Motorola workers have access to appropriate training, where this is identified as being the best means of equipping them for future employment. The taskforce is willing to consider any reasonable proposals for retraining from those workers affected by the closure.Training opportunities through ISLI (the Institute for System Level Integration) have been mooted as a potential means of providing enhanced level training to those who require it to enable access to the higher value end of the electronic sector. Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian are working closely with ISLI and the Alba Centre to establish a viable proposal which fits with the needs of the Motorola employees.

Question reference: S1W-16410

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Morrison on 3 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding each local authority has contributed to its local area tourist board in each year since 1997.

The information is as follows:

Local Authority Grants to Area Tourist Boards

Area Tourist Board	Local Authority	1997-98 (£)	1998-99 (£)	1999-2000 (£)	2000-01 (£)	2001-02 (£)
Aberdeen and Grampian	Aberdeen City	300,000	150,000	150,000	150,000	150,000
	Aberdeenshire	300,000	300,000	300,000	300,000	300,000
	Moray	100,000	150,000	165,000	165,000	150,000
Angus & City of Dundee	Angus	158,000	158,000	158,000	158,000	158,000
	Dundee	246,000	246,000	246,000	246,000	246,000
Argyll, the Isles, Loch Lomond, Stirling and Trossachs	Argyll And Bute	189,000	190,000	169,000	170,000	170,000
	Clackmannan-shire	28,807	59,300	28,800	28,800	28,870
	Falkirk	6,300	55,400	60,300	57,000	57,082
	Stirling	157,455	195,600	235,400	235,400	153,850
	West- Dunbartonshire	56,325	56,200	57,700	57,700	55,030
Ayrshire and Arran	East Ayrshire	82,450	79,200	79,200	80,000	79,150
	North Ayrshire	170,000	163,200	163,200	158,300	158,300
	South Ayrshire	153,000	145,500	146,900	141,135	141,150
Dumfries and Galloway	Dumfries and Galloway	360,000	350,000	350,000	350,000	360,500
Edinburgh & Lothians	Edinburgh	989,200	989,600	989,600	989,600	989,600
	East Lothian	185,700	185,000	185,000	200,000	206,000
	West Lothian	46,500	62,900	62,900	59,755	62,900
	Midlothian	35,000	35,000	35,000	35,000	35,000
Greater Glasgow and Clyde Valley	Glasgow	1,496,398	1,448,779	1,645,093	1,908,000	1,918,000
	East- Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	40,000
	East-Renfrewshire	0	0	0	0	0
	Inverclyde	100,000	100,000	100,000	40,000	0
	North- Lanarkshire	0	60,000	60,000	0	0
	Renfrewshire	70,000	56,000	73,000	73,300	85,500
	South- Lanarkshire	102,000	97,000	97,000	97,000	97,000
Highlands of Scotland	Highland	550,000	495,000	509,900	487,523	497,273
Kingdom of Fife	Fife	480,000	450,000	450,000	450,000	450,000
Orkney	Orkney	185,500	190,100	190,100	198,696	189,000
Perthshire	Perthshire	514,200	483,500	469,000	469,000	468,500
Scottish Borders	Scottish Borders	275,000	267,000	269,000	269,000	277,000
Shetland	Shetland	107,000	129,000	188,500	130,000	150,000
Western Isles	Western Isles	70,000	82,000	84,500	84,050	84,050

* Note: These figures are based on information up to April 2001.

Question reference: S1W-16421

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 3 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive which (a) internet service provider and (b) internet exchange is currently used by (i) Scottish Enterprise, (ii) Highlands and Islands Enterprise, (iii) visitscotland, (iv) each health board and (v) each local authority; whether, if some or all of these bodies do not currently use an internet service provider which uses a Scottish internet exchange, it will encourage them to switch to a provider which uses a Scottish exchange and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

Procurement decisions by non-departmental bodies, health boards and local authorities are a matter for the individual bodies concerned. The information requested is not therefore held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. It is not possible for the Executive to encourage the bodies listed to switch to an internet service provider which uses a Scottish exchange; it would be unlawful under European law for public bodies to discriminate in favour of providers according to their location, or the location of their sub-contractors.

Question reference: S1W-16420

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2001
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 3 July 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive which (a) internet service provider and (b) internet exchange it currently uses and, if this internet exchange is not located in Scotland, what plans it has to change to an internet service provider which uses a Scottish exchange, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

The Scottish Executive's internet service provider is Cable and Wireless, who support the Government Secure Intranet (GSI). Members of the GSI have access to a range of services including a facility to exchange classified electronic mail securely, secure access to the internet, and directory services. Changing our internet service provider would mean that we could no longer use the GSI and we therefore have no plans at present to make such a change. When procuring services of this nature, the Scottish Executive would not discriminate in favour of providers based in Scotland, or providers using Scottish exchanges, because European law prohibits discrimination on grounds of nationality or location when awarding public contracts.