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: S2W-06775

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 05 March 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 19 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2O-559 by Mr Tom McCabe on 2 October 2003, when it now expects the review into the true cost of care to be completed and published.

Question reference: S2W-06527

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 9 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many new, affordable houses for (a) rent and (b) purchase have been constructed with assistance from Scottish Homes and Communities Scotland in each local authority area in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table shows the number of affordable houses for rent and owner occupation, by local authority area, which have been approved for construction with assistance from Scottish Homes and Communities Scotland, in each of the last three years.

Table 1 – Communities Scotland - Number of Affordable Houses for Rent and Owner Occupation by Local Authority Area (2000-01 to 2002-03)

Local Authority	Rent			Owner Occupation
	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03
Aberdeenshire	130	179	281	76	14	28
Angus	115	97	87	0	11	6
Argyll and Bute	64	62	62	12	8	17
City of Aberdeen	149	100	90	41	13	21
City of Dundee	334	305	87	72	7	0
City of Edinburgh	317	324	235	53	0	36
City of Glasgow	1,176	1,555	1,299	287	83	290
Clackmannanshire	72	28	50	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	162	96	98	0	0	0
East Ayrshire	10	36	0	62	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	0	10	4	0	0	0
East Lothian	18	34	0	0	0	0
East Renfrewshire	41	60	15	0	0	0
Falkirk	59	34	16	17	0	0
Fife	261	160	188	72	71	24
Highland	250	167	201	44	15	45
Inverclyde	115	172	135	78	12	0
Midlothian	0	45	14	0	0	0
Moray	35	10	4	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	33	126	71	6	0	0
North Lanarkshire	260	311	154	67	59	40
Orkney Islands	32	46	22	20	29	26
Perth and Kinross	94	129	161	9	19	21
Renfrewshire	187	276	254	19	0	15
Shetland Islands	5	35	4	2	5	3
South Ayrshire	146	95	80	0	0	0
South Lanarkshire	234	179	283	162	20	48
Stirling	85	59	35	22	0	0
The Scottish Borders	99	70	61	11	1	2
West Dunbartonshire	264	48	79	0	7	0
West Lothian	102	90	65	0	0	0
Western Isles	22	40	1	2	0	1”

Question reference: S2W-06529

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 9 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many diabetologists there were in each NHS board area at 31 March and 30 September in each of the last three years.

Central data on medicalstaff numbers is collected via the annual census on 30 September each year. Thecurrent data is correct at 30 September 2003. There is no central datacollected at 31 March in each year.I refer the member to TableB9 in the “Workforce” section of the ISD website http://www.isdscotland.org. Data isavailable on the number of consultants within the specialty of “Endocrinology& Diabetes”, in each of the last three years.

Question reference: S2W-06528

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 9 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding Scottish Homes and Communities Scotland have made available for the construction of new, affordable rural houses for (a) rent and (b) purchase in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table shows the amount of funding for affordable houses for rent and owner occupation in rural areas, which have been provided with assistance from Scottish Homes and Communities Scotland, in each of the last three years.

Table 1 – Communities Scotland - Expenditure on Affordable Houses for Rent and Owner Occupation in Rural areas (2000-01 to 2002-03)

	Rent (£ million)	Owner Occupation (£ million)
2000-01	38.4	5.5
2001-02	48.6	2.7
2002-03	45.4	2.5”

Question reference: S2W-06146

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 February 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 8 March 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what level of funding has been allocated (a) under the Carers' Strategy and (b) for home care services for older people in each of the last three years, broken down by local authority area.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-4264 on 5 December 2003, which addresses the levels of funding allocated to local authorities under the Carers’ Strategy. 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/webapp/search_wa.

The following table sets out the resources available to each local authority for services for home-based elderly. It is up to each authority to decide how best to allocate these resources.

Services for Home based Elderly GAE by Council 2002-02 to 2003-04

Council	2001-02 (£000)	2002-03 (£000)	2003-04 (£000)
Aberdeen City	11,424	12,252	16,101
Aberdeenshire	9,950	10,792	14,401
Angus	6,681	7,171	9,479
Argyll and Bute	6,012	6,391	8,327
Clackmannanshire	2,793	2,990	3,918
Dumfries and Galloway	9,079	9,282	13,062
Dundee City	10,132	10,828	14,134
East Ayrshire	7,356	7,906	10,453
East Dunbartonshire	4,546	4,991	6,750
East Lothian	5,241	5,653	7,470
East Renfrewshire	4,091	4,455	5,967
Edinburgh, City of	24,842	26,439	34,543
Eilean Siar	2,273	2,404	3,113
Falkirk	8,068	8,723	11,526
Fife	19,735	21,304	28,214
Glasgow City	43,215	45,151	57,969
Highland	11,084	12,004	15,947
Inverclyde	5,624	5,916	7,692
Midlothian	3,612	3,920	5,235
Moray	4,281	4,636	6,167
North Ayrshire	8,421	9,014	11,932
North Lanarkshire	18,187	19,507	25,823
Orkney Islands	1,026	1,115	1,482
Perth and Kinross	8,084	8,717	11,579
Renfrewshire	9,533	10,270	13,623
Scottish Borders	6,786	7,317	9,654
Shetland Islands	1,032	1,107	1,442
South Ayrshire	7,359	7,924	10,490
South Lanarkshire	16,201	17,400	23,041
Stirling	4,615	4,951	6,550
West Dunbartonshire	5,920	6,281	8,204
West Lothian	6,490	7,028	9,349
Scotland	293,694	314,383	413,637

Question reference: S2W-05720

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 23 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 6 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many NHS dentists there are per head of population in each (a) NHS board and (b) local authority area.

Table 1 shows the number and rate per 100,000 population of NHS dentists working in the General Dentist Service (GDS) and in the Hospital and Community Health Service (HCHS) by NHS board area.

Table 2 presents the same GDS figures, but by local authority area. HCHS dentist figures are not available centrally at local authority area level.

Table 1: The Number of NHS Dentists per 100,000 Population by NHS Board Area

NHS board	Number of GDS dentists ^1,2,3,5	Number of GDS dentists per 100,000 population ⁴	Number of HCHS dentists^6,7	Number of HCHS dentists per 100,000 population ⁴
Scotland	1,968	40.5	666	13.2
Argyll and Clyde	176	42.0	34	8.1
Ayrshire and Arran	137	37.3	31	8.4
Borders	37	34.5	9	8.4
Dumfries and Galloway	40	27.2	19	12.9
Fife	131	37.4	37	10.6
Forth Valley	95	34.0	21	7.5
Grampian	167	31.9	49	9.4
Greater Glasgow	430	49.6	162	18.7
Highland	78	37.5	40	19.2
Lanarkshire	212	38.3	46	8.3
Lothian	357	45.8	111	14.2
Orkney	9	46.9	4	20.8
Shetland	12	54.7	6	27.3
Tayside	161	41.6	92	23.7
Western Isles	7	26.7	6	22.9
Special Health Boards	-	-	12	-

Notes

1. Excludes emergency service dentists.

2. Includes salaried GDS dentists.

3. A GDS dentist may havemore than one contract with an NHS primary care trust/Island health board ifhe/she has more than one practice; or have a contract with more than one NHSprimary care trust/Island health board if he/she practises in more than one NHSboard area. As a result, the sum of the number of GDS dentists in each NHSboard exceeds the number of GDS dentists practising in Scotland.

4. At mid-year 2002; SourceGRO population estimates.

5. As At 31 December 2003;source MIDAS (Management Information & Dental Accounting System)

6. At 30 September 2002;source Medical & Dental Census, ISD Scotland.

7. Headcount.

Table 2: The number of General Dental Service (GDS) Dentists at 31st Dec 2003per 100,000 Population by Local Authority Area

Local authority area	Number of GDS dentists ^1,2,3,4,6	Number of GDS dentists per 100,000 population ⁵
Scotland	1,968	40.5
Aberdeen City	88	42.1
Aberdeenshire	55	24.2
Angus	36	33.3
Argyll and Bute	33	36.3
City of Edinburgh	230	51.3
Clackmannanshire	14	29.2
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	7	26.7
Dumfries and Galloway	40	27.2
Dundee City	70	48.6
East Ayrshire	38	31.7
East Dunbartonshire	52	48.5
East Lothian	41	45.2
East Renfrewshire	44	49.1
Falkirk	43	29.5
Fife	130	37.1
Glasgow City	291	50.4
Highland	78	37.5
Inverclyde	29	34.7
Midlothian	24	29.8
Moray	24	27.7
North Ayrshire	49	36.1
North Lanarkshire	121	37.7
Orkney Islands	9	46.9
Perth and Kinross	56	41.4
Renfrewshire	88	51.2
Scottish Borders	37	34.5
Shetland Islands	12	54.7
South Ayrshire	50	44.8
South Lanarkshire	125	41.4
Stirling	38	44.1
West Dunbartonshire	35	37.7
West Lothian	62	38.8

Notes:

1. Excludes emergency service dentists.

2. Includes salaried GDS dentists.

3. A GDS dentist may have more than one contract with an NHS primary care trust/Island health board if he/she has more than one practice; or have a contract with more than one NHS primary care trust/Island health board if he/she practises in more than one NHS board area. As a result, the sum of the number of GDS dentists in each NHS board exceeds the number of GDS dentists practising in Scotland.

4. A GDS dentist is deemed to be practising in a local authority area where the postcode of his/her practice is within the boundaries of that local authority area.

5. At mid-year 2002; Source GRO population estimates.

6. As At 31 December 2003; source MIDAS (Management Information & Dental Accounting System).

Question reference: S2W-05711

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 23 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 6 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, how many NHS dentists there are now in each (a) NHS board and (b) local authority area.

Question reference: S2W-05719

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 23 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 6 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many dentists there are per head of population in each (a) NHS board and (b) local authority area.

Question reference: S2W-05645

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 2 February 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many vacancies there are for specialist audiologists, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S2W-05646

Asked by: Mike Rumbles, MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 29 January 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average waiting time is after an assessment by a specialist audiologist to receive the required hearing aid, broken down by NHS board.

The information requested isnot available centrally. Information on outpatient waiting times is collectedcentrally only for an initial appointment at a consultant-led clinic, followingreferral by a general medical or dental practitioner, and at specialty levelonly.

The Executive is committedto improving audiology services across NHSScotland. A co-ordinated audiologymodernisation programme is currently underway, and we are investing almost £20million over five years from 2002 to 2007 to ensure NHS boards are equippedwith the necessary facilities, equipment, staff and aids.