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: S1W-15038

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 3 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what the core contractual hours for police officers were in each police force in each of the last three years; how many and what percentage of officers in each force exceeded these core hours in each of these years, and what the average number of hours worked per week per officer was in each force in each year.

Question reference: S1W-15036

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 3 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average waiting time for paediatric orthodontic treatment was in each of the last three years, broken down by health board area.

Question reference: S1W-15045

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jack McConnell on 3 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many secure places for young offenders there were in each of the last three years, broken down by parliamentary region.

Any child or young person may be placed in secure accommodation either following a children's hearing, or by a local authority chief social work officer, with the agreement of the person in charge of the secure establishment, or by a court. The number of secure places located in residential establishments available for children and young people as at 31 December in each of the last 3 years by parliamentary region is as follows:

Parliamentary Region	1998	1999	2000
Lothian	12*	12*	12*
Mid-Scotland and Fife	2	2	Nil
North-East	25*	25*	29**
Southern	24	24	24
West	24	24	30
Total	87	87	95

* Includes one emergency bed** Includes two emergency beds

Question reference: S1W-15039

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 3 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many and what percentage of police officers worked more than 48 hours per week averaged over any 17 week period in each of the last three years, broken down by police force.

Question reference: S1O-03329

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 3 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it supports voluntary and charitable organisations receiving assistance towards their water bills.

Question reference: S1W-15042

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much and what percentage of the budget made available to (a) Grampian Health Board and (b) Tayside Health Board for drug detoxification treatment was spent outwith the Grampian and Tayside areas in each of the last three years.

Figures available for the year 1998-1999 show that, for residential rehabilitation only, the spend outwith the area was for (a) Grampian Health Board £110,000 or some 66%, and for (b) Tayside Health Board, 100%. Figures are not available for 1997-98.The Drug Action Teams within both Health Board areas are working to establish local residential drug rehabilitation services in addition to the range of other treatment and other care services available for drug misusers.

Question reference: S1W-15025

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many babies have been born with a drug addiction in each health board area in each of the last five years.

The information available is shown in the following table. Discharges Recording Drug Misuse. It shows cases in which the foetus and new born baby is affected by maternal use of drugs of addiction and there are neonatal withdrawal symptoms from maternal use of drugs of addiction.

Neonatal discharges¹ - Scotland:
By health board and local council area of residence; year ending 31 March 2001
	All Discharges				Discharges Recording Drug Misuse³

					Number				Rate per 1,000 Discharges
Area of Residence	1997	1998	1999^r	2000^p,4	1997	1998	1999^r	2000^p,4	1997	1998	1999^r	2000^p,4
Scotland	17 351	17 322	17 893	16 832	161	217	246	220	9.3	12.5	13.7	*
Health Board
Argyll and Clyde	2 303	1 304	1 128	1 143	9	11	22	32	3.9	8.4	19.5	28.0
Ayrshire and Arran	854	998	888	683	10	17	23	28	11.7	17.0	25.9	41.0
Borders	273	238	251	272	-	1	-	2	-	4.2	-	7.4
Dumfries &Galloway	274	315	285	291	2	3	5	7	7.3	9.5	17.5	24.1
Fife	570	527	532	498	6	6	10	15	10.5	11.4	18.8	30.1
Forth Valley	580	676	611	698	2	7	2	12	3.4	10.4	3.3	17.2
Grampian	3 825	3 952	3 841	3 939	24	60	42	63	6.3	15.2	10.9	16.0
Greater Glasgow	2 989	3 466	3 894	2 966	59	66	100	17⁴	19.7	19.0	25.7	*
Highland	552	595	555	603	3	4	5	6	5.4	6.7	9.0	10.0
Lanarkshire	1 441	1 390	1 584	1 314	4	2	4	6	2.8	1.4	2.5	4.6
Lothian	2 187	2 414	3 074	3 469	20	16	19	28	9.1	6.6	6.2	8.1
Tayside	1 210	1 106	894	639	21	24	13	3	17.4	21.7	14.5	4.7
Orkney	112	143	121	104	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Shetland	119	127	144	152	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	6.6
Western Isles	24	28	29	17	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Other²	38	43	62	44	1	-	1	-	26.3	-	16.1	-
1 - A baby may be admitted to and discharged from neonatal care more than once. Figures relate to the total number of discharges, not the number of individual babies
2 - Area of residence "not known" or outwith Scotland.
3 - Drug misuse is defined using the following International Classification of Disease (10th Revision) codes: P96.1 and P04.4
4 - Numbers are lower than expected due to under recording, particularly in Greater Glasgow, Western Isles and Shetland health board areas.
p - Provisional data.
* - Data withheld

Additional information is published in Drug Misuse Statistics Scotland 2000 (Chapter 6 - Drug Misuse in Pregnancy), a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib number 10066).The publication can also be accessed at the following web address:http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/000bull/Chapter6.pdf

Question reference: S1W-15022

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much National Lottery Charities Board funding has been allocated to each (a) parliamentary region and (b) parliamentary constituency, and what percentage of the total monies allocated by the Board in Scotland each of these figures represents.

Question reference: S1W-15027

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications for National Lottery Charities Board funding there have been from each (a) parliamentary region and (b) parliamentary constituency, specifying the percentage of successful applications in each case.

Question reference: S1W-15032

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many intravenous drug users were diagnosed with hepatitis B in each of the last five years, showing any percentage increase or decrease in each year, broken down by health board area.

The information requested is given in the following table:

Hepatitis B infected drug users : 1996-2000
health board¹	Number					Percentage change²
Hepatitis B (Drug misuse cases)	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-00	1996-00³
Argyll & Clyde	4	15	17	11	3	275	13	-35	-73	-25
Ayrshire & Arran	-	-	1	-	-	n/a	n/a	-100	n/a	n/a
Dumfries & Galloway	-	-	-	2	-	n/a	n/a	n/a	-100	n/a
Forth Valley	-	-	-	-	-	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Grampian	5	1	25	65	44	-80	2400	160	-32	780
Greater Glasgow	7	7	13	20	18	0	86	54	-10	157
Highland	-	-	-	1	1	n/a	n/a	n/a	0	n/a
Lanarkshire	-	-	-	2	3	n/a	n/a	n/a	50	n/a
Lothian	1	-	-	1	1	-100	n/a	n/a	0	0
Tayside	-	-	-	13	1	n/a	n/a	n/a	-92	n/a
Not Known	3	1	2	-	-	-67	100	-100	n/a	-100
Scotland	20	24	58	115	71	20	142	98	-38	255
1 'Health Board' refers to the persons health board of residence, or where it is not known the health board of specimen.
2 Percentage change is calculated by dividing the previous year from the subsequent year, multiplying by 100 and subtracting 100.
3 Percentage increase between years 1996 and 2000.

Additional information is published in Table number 71 and pages 107 to 109 of Drug Misuse Statistics Scotland 2000 (Chapter 8 - HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis B and hepatitis C Infection), a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib number 10066).The publication can also be accessed at the following web address:http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/00bull/Chapter8.pdf