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: S3W-35365

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 19 July 2010
Current Status: Answered by Bruce Crawford on 15 October 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what five subjects were raised most often by members of the public in written correspondence with (a) the First Minister and (b) each cabinet secretary in the last 12 months, and how many representations were received in respect of each subject

The Scottish Government replied to 31,181 items of Ministerial correspondence during the period 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010.

The top five subjects raised most often by members of the public in written correspondence specifically addressed to the First Minister and Cabinet Secretaries in the last 12 months were as follows:

Subject	Number of items addressed to specific Minister or Cabinet Secretary	Total number of items generically addressed to Scottish Ministers
	First Minister
Land Use Planning - casework	64	225
Independence Referendum	48	55
Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill	44	108
National Conversation on Scotland''s Constitutional Future	41	56
Banks	41	74
	Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth
Land Use Planning - Casework	48	225
Banks	23	74
Glasgow Airport Rail Link	21	88
Drinks Industry	20	59
Council Tax	13	62
	Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning
Consultation on Schools Closures	57	120
Local Authority Education Budgets	44	81
Higher Education	41	53
Literacy	27	38
Childcare Support for Students in Higher and Further Education	25	37
	Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing
Hospital complaints (Glasgow, Western Isles)	135	154
Health “ Car Parking Charges	126	137
Hospital Services (Edinburgh, Lothian & Borders)	122	151
Hospital Services (Glasgow, Western Isles)	110	126
Hospital Services (Fife/ Grampian/ Orkney/ Shetland/ Tayside	103	135
	Cabinet secretary for Justice
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al -Megrahi	60	108
Complaints against the Police	49	90
Liquor Licensing	49	97
Sentencing (general and including compensation orders)	45	72
Complaints against a Judge or Sheriff	23	39
	Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment
Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill	59	108
Scotland Rural Development Programme	32	43
Marine (Scotland) Bill	23	25
Scottish Rural Development Plan	18	20
Riding Establishments	13	21
Land Use Planning - casework	13	225

The table does not include the significant volume of correspondence addressed to Scottish ministers which is received in response to either consultation exercises or as part of organised campaigns.

Question reference: S3W-35802

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 20 August 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 14 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to reduce the number of undergraduate dental students

Question reference: S3W-35364

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 19 July 2010
Current Status: Answered by Bruce Crawford on 13 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what the latest cost to date has been of the (a) National Conversation and (b) draft referendum Bill and associated white papers, including the costs for (i) publishing, (ii) consultation, (iii) marketing and advertising and (iv) other

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-30747 on 25 February 2010. The latest cost to date of the core programme of Scottish Government National Conversation events and publications, including branding and staging, remains around £400,000. We do not hold the costs broken down into the categories requested.

The total cost of printing and publication of the draft Referendum Bill consultation was around £8,000. This figure includes a Gaelic and a British Sign Language translation.

The member will also be aware of the published costs of approximately £625,000 incurred by the UK Government and the Scottish Parliament to support the work of the Commission on Scottish Devolution.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Question reference: S3W-36140

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 September 2010
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will provide substantive answers to questions S3W-30178, S3W-30179, S3W-30180, S3W-35364 and S3W-35365

Question reference: S3W-35803

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 20 August 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 6 September 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to abolish the NHS Dental Bursary Scheme

Question reference: S3W-34684

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2010
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 19 July 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what the rate of non-continuation of courses by students was at each dental school in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Question reference: S3W-34686

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 16 July 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many newly qualified dentists have taken up posts in each of the last three years, broken down by NHS board area.

The specific information requested is not held centrally. Information showing the number of dentists who qualified from a Scottish Dental School, in each of the last three years, and took up a training post (either one year''s vocational training or two year''s dental foundation) in Scotland, broken down by NHS board area is presented in the Table.

NHS Board	Final Year: 2006 - 2007 & Training Post commencing 2007	Final Year: 2007 - 2008 & Training Post commencing 2008	Final Year: 2008 - 2009 & Training Post commencing 2009
Highland	4	9	11
Shetland	0	1	2
Orkney	1	1	1
Western Isles	0	2	2
Grampian	6	10	12
Tayside	16	18	23
Borders	1	0	0
Fife	5	5	8
Lothian	15	10	14
Ayrshire and Arran	8	12	7
Dumfries and Galloway	1	0	1
Forth Valley	4	5	6
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	27	26	27
Lanarkshire	21	17	15
Total	109	116	129

Question reference: S3W-34685

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 12 July 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many NHS dentists there were per head of population, broken down by (a) NHS board and (b) local authority area in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

Information showing the number of NHS dentists (headcount) who provided NHS general dental services per head of population by NHS board for the years 2008 to 2010 are presented in the table.

Published data for NHS General Dental Service Dentists by local authority area can be found at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5898.html.

NHS General Dental Service Dentists per Head of Population by NHS Board

NHS Board Area	Headcount¹			Population, estimated			NHS GDS dentists
	Data at 31^st March			Data at 30^th June			Per 100,000 population
	2008	2009	2010	2007	2008	2009	2008	2009	2010
Ayrshire and Arran	179	189	199	367,020	367,510	367,160	48.8	51.4	54.2
Borders	52	55	63	111,430	112,430	112,680	46.7	48.9	55.9
Dumfries and Galloway	70	71	72	148,300	148,580	148,510	47.2	47.8	48.5
Fife	178	198	209	360,428	361,815	363,385	49.4	54.7	57.5
Forth Valley	133	154	171	288,473	290,047	291,383	46.1	53.1	58.7
Grampian	232	252	266	535,290	539,630	544,980	43.3	46.7	48.8
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	685	715	717	1,192,419	1,194,675	1,199,026	57.4	59.8	59.8
Highland	177	184	195	308,790	309,900	310,530	57.3	59.4	62.8
Lanarkshire	257	269	291	560,042	561,174	562,215	45.9	47.9	51.8
Lothian	445	471	480	809,764	817,727	826,231	55.0	57.6	58.1
Orkney	12	17	15	19,860	19,890	19,960	60.4	85.5	75.2
Shetland	18	25	28	21,950	21,980	22,210	82.0	113.7	126.1
Tayside	224	245	250	394,134	396,942	399,550	56.8	61.7	62.6
Western Isles	15	18	17	26,300	26,200	26,180	57.0	68.7	64.9
Scotland	2,576	2,739	2,847	5,144,200	5,168,500	5,194,000	50.1	53.0	54.8

Sources: Information Services Division, National Services Scotland.

General Register Office for Scotland.

Note.

1 A dentist is counted once for each NHS board where he/she has an arrangement to provide general dental services. As a result the sum of the number of dentists in each NHS board area will exceed the number of dentists in Scotland (where a dentist is only counted once).

Question reference: S3W-31362

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) area and (b) estimated value is of (i) vacant and (ii) occupied office space (A) owned and (B) rented by each public body.

Question reference: S3W-31361

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 3 March 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) area and (b) estimated value is of (i) vacant and (ii) occupied office space that it (A) owns and (B) rents, broken down by directorate.

The Scottish Government owns or leases space in 82 properties, with a total net internal area of 120,342m². Two of these properties are currently vacant. In one property, with a net internal area of 5,887m², plans are advanced for it to be re-occupied by another public sector body. The lease on the second property, with a net internal area of 100m², expires at the end of March 2010 and will not be renewed.

Scottish Government does not record space occupied by individual directorates.

Information on the value of the Scottish Government core office accommodation can be found in the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2009, published on the web at:

http://openscotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/10/01085501/0.