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-30182

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 December 2009
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 15 January 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what costs have been incurred by the First Minister's office in respect of (a) accommodation, (b) travel, (c) transport, (d) stationery and (e) hospitality since May 2007.

The First Minister''s office costs for the last three years can be found in the following table. It should be noted that the figures in 2007-08 represent the change of Administration. Costs for 2009-10 are not yet available.

	2006-07	2007-08 (Part Year)	2007-08 (Part Year)	2008-09
Staff	£556,802	£52,188	£471,222	£547,367
Travel and Subsistence (including accommodation and transport)	£39,214	£3,490	£38,345	£41,977
Hospitality	£1,288	£703	£1,678	£153
Administration (including stationery)	£41,232	£17,333	£12,617	£30,443
Total	£638,356	£73,714	£523,862	£619,940

Question reference: S3W-30180

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 December 2009
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Executive what the hospitality budget has been for the First Minister’s office in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S3W-30178

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 December 2009
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on hospitality in each month since April 2008, broken down by directorate.

Question reference: S3W-30181

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 December 2009
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent hosting events at (a) Edinburgh and (b) Stirling Castle since May 2007.

Question reference: S3W-30179

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 December 2009
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Executive how much the First Minister’s office has spent on hospitality since May 2007.

Question reference: S3W-29830

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 December 2009
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 10 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the statement by the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change in the chamber on 29 October 2009, whether it still expects to conclude its consideration this calendar year of the reporters’ findings and recommendations following the public local inquiry into the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route.

Question reference: S3W-29217

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 20 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 1 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to its news release of 28 September 2009 identifying the first tranche of secondary schools selected for investment, when the next phase of its new school building programme will begin.

Question reference: S3O-08082

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 October 2009
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 8 October 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will estimate the cost of building a grade-separated junction on the A90 at Laurencekirk.

The member will know from my response to his recent written question, S3W-27346, that to estimate the cost of any such junction requires thorough investigation and design. As there are no current plans to construct a grade separated junction at Laurencekirk, no detailed cost information is available. However, a grade separated junction with a dual carriageway such as the A90 is typically in the range £4.3 million to £22 million (2002-03 prices).

Question reference: S3W-26236

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 31 July 2009
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 6 October 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on hospitality since May 2007, broken down by directorate.

Total Scottish Government expenditure on hospitality for the financial year 2007-08 (April 2007 to March 2008) was £926,000. Due to changes in the internal structure of the Scottish Government during 2007, it is not possible to provide a breakdown of this amount on a comparable basis to the following figures.

Therefore expenditure on hospitality by Directorate-General is shown from April 2008 and is set out in the following table. This table includes all expenditure recorded on the Scottish Government accounting system as hospitality.

Analysis of Hospitality Expenditure	Financial Year 2008-09 (£)	Four Months - 1 April 2009 to 31 July 2009 (£)
Director-General Economy and Chief Economic Adviser	119,519	57,816
Director-General Education	195,332	49,378
Director-General Finance and Corporate Services	140,379	43,230
Director-General Health	129,154	42,224
Director-General Justice	127,950	43,734
Director-General Environment	172,172	53,798
Permanent Secretary	98,053	17,651
Grand Total	982,559	307,831

All expenditure detailed in the table is incurred in accordance with internal guidance on the provision of hospitality and includes the costs of ministerial events with external stakeholders. The guidance outlines the circumstances and range of official hospitality that justifies funding, subject to the appropriate authorisation being granted by the approving officer; this may extend to including the cost of a venue selected for a conference. Hospitality may include:

Hospitality for official visitors, including civil servants from other government departments and visitors from overseas;

Light refreshments for meetings;

Working lunches within and outwith the normal workplace, and

Special occasions.

Question reference: S3W-27346

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 25 September 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it estimates that it would cost to construct a full grade-separated junction on the A90 at Laurencekirk.