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-09359

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 22 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many new businesses have been registered in each of the last four years, broken down by local authority area.

The number of new businesses that have been registered for VAT in the last four years in each of Scotland’s local authorities is shown in the following Table 1. This data is produced by the Department of Trade and Industry and 2002 is the most recent year for which data is available.

Table 1: VAT Registrations by Local Authority 1999-2002

	1999	2000	2001	2002
Aberdeen City	580	595	525	610
Aberdeenshire	555	635	580	540
Angus	205	200	195	160
Argyll and Bute	225	195	225	230
Clackmannanshire	85	70	80	75
Dumfries and Galloway	310	280	310	320
Dundee City	250	280	270	230
East Ayrshire	250	200	225	220
East Dunbartonshire	205	205	205	180
East Lothian	190	185	170	185
East Renfrewshire	190	170	160	160
Edinburgh City of	1,420	1,490	1,400	1,250
Eilean Siar	70	45	50	55
Falkirk	255	240	240	270
Fife	650	615	585	625
Glasgow City	1,640	1,560	1,545	1,425
Highland	565	530	530	555
Inverclyde	100	120	110	120
Midlothian	145	160	140	155
Moray	150	170	145	150
North Ayrshire	240	235	205	225
North Lanarkshire	520	540	545	545
Orkney Islands	60	70	55	60
Perth and Kinross	380	385	380	375
Renfrewshire	355	315	330	325
Scottish Borders The	335	280	265	290
Shetland Islands	80	75	45	65
South Ayrshire	235	250	250	255
South Lanarkshire	590	610	655	655
Stirling	270	265	225	260
West Dunbartonshire	140	130	115	100
West Lothian	345	325	350	305

Source: DTI 2003.

Question reference: S2W-09354

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 22 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) inward investment decisions were made and (b) new jobs were created through inward investment in each year from 1999 to 2003.

Scottish Development International (SDI) records information on inward investment projects in which SDI and its partners have had a significant involvement. The figures reflect the number of jobs which a company plans to create or safeguard at the time its decision to invest in Scotland is made. They do not record the total number of jobs created through inward investment in a given year. SDI’s recorded figures for 1999 to 2003 are in the following table.

Year	Projects	Planned New Jobs
1999-2000	91	14,995
2000-01	102	9,742
2001-02	59	4,902
2002-03	57	4,494

Question reference: S2W-09350

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 22 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many firms have been helped by (a) grants for research and development, (b) grants for investigating an innovative idea and (c) knowledge transfer partnerships since 1999.

(a) Grant for Research and Development is a DTI initiative and is available to firms based in England only. The information requested is not held by the Scottish Executive. However, Grant for Research and Development incorporates DTI’s equivalent of each of the Scottish Executive’s SMART, SPUR and SPUR^PLUSgrant schemes. Since 1 January 1999, 254 companies based in Scotland have been supported by the SMART, SPUR and SPUR^PLUSprogrammes.

(b) DTI’s Grant for Research and Development also incorporates assistance for Investigating an Innovative Idea. The Scottish Executive has no direct equivalent of this scheme, although similar support is provided in Scotland by the Enterprise Network and the Innovators Counselling and Advisory Service for Scotland (ICASS). The specific information requested is not held by the Scottish Executive.

(c) Since 1 January 1999, 1,821 UK based companies have been assisted through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. Of these, 218 companies were based in Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-09349

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 22 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the start-up rate was for small businesses in (a) each local authority and (b) Scotland in each year since 1997 and what information it has on the equivalent rate for the United Kingdom as a whole for the same time period.

VAT Registration Rates per 10,000 of the Adult Population Aged 16 and Over for Scottish Local Authorities, 1997-2002

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Aberdeen City	44	40	33	33	30	35
Aberdeenshire	47	40	31	35	32	30
Angus	23	24	23	23	22	18
Argyll and Bute	28	28	30	26	30	31
Clackmannanshire	22	21	22	18	21	20
Dumfries and Galloway	30	27	26	23	26	27
Dundee City	21	23	21	23	23	19
East Ayrshire	23	21	26	21	23	23
East Dunbartonshire	24	26	24	24	24	21
East Lothian	28	26	27	26	24	26
East Renfrewshire	30	26	27	24	23	23
Edinburgh, City of	42	42	38	40	37	33
Eilean Siar	40	34	32	21	23	26
Falkirk	25	20	22	21	21	23
Fife	25	22	23	22	21	22
Glasgow City	35	35	35	33	33	30
Highland	37	39	34	32	32	33
Inverclyde	17	18	15	18	16	18
Midlothian	23	22	23	25	22	24
Moray	28	22	22	25	21	22
North Ayrshire	20	22	22	22	19	21
North Lanarkshire	21	19	20	21	21	21
Orkney Islands	45	39	39	45	36	39
Perth and Kinross	38	36	35	35	35	34
Renfrewshire	25	24	25	23	24	23
Scottish Borders	33	30	39	33	31	33
Shetland Islands	59	57	46	43	26	38
South Ayrshire	27	25	26	27	27	28
South Lanarkshire	26	27	24	25	27	27
Stirling	41	39	39	38	32	37
West Dunbartonshire	15	13	19	17	15	13
West Lothian	27	28	29	27	28	24

Information on VAT registration rates for Scotland and the UK since 1997 is shown in the following table.

Table 2: VAT Registration Rates Per 10,000 of the Adult Population Aged 16 and Over for Scotland and the UK, 1997-2002

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Scotland	31	29	29	28	28	28
United Kingdom	41	40	39	39	37	37

Question reference: S2W-09356

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 21 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the change has been in the number of full-time permanent jobs, broken down by local authority area, since 1997, expressed also as a percentage of the number of such jobs.

The table below shows, for Scotland and local authorities, the number of full-time jobs in 1997 and 2002 and net change and percentage change for this time period.

It is not possible to obtain information about permanent jobs.

	1997 (000)	2002 (000)	Net Change 1997-2002 (000)	Percentage Change 1997-2002
Scotland	1470.5	1552.9	82.4	5.6%
Aberdeen City	118.2	117.2	-1	-0.8%
Aberdeenshire	47.4	51.7	4.3	9.1%
Angus	24	22.3	-1.7	-7.1%
Argyll and Bute	22.8	21.5	-1.3	-5.7%
Clackmannanshire	9.5*	9*	-0.5	-5.3%
Dumfries and Galloway	36.8	35.7	-1.1	-3.0%
Dundee City	46.1*	46.4	0.3	0.7%
East Ayrshire	26.3	26.3	0	0.0%
East Dunbartonshire	14.3	15.8*	1.5	10.5%
East Lothian	16.1	16.6	0.5	3.1%
East Renfrewshire	9	11.2	2.2	24.4%
Edinburgh, City of	185.3*	214.4	29.1	15.7%
Eilean Siar	6.1	5.6	-0.5	-8.2%
Falkirk	36.6	40	3.4	9.3%
Fife	89.8	90	0.2	0.2%
Glasgow City	244.3*	267*	22.7	9.3%
Highland	53.4	59.7	6.3	11.8%
Inverclyde	23.5*	21.6*	-1.9	-8.1%
Midlothian	13.9	16.2	2.3	16.5%
Moray	20.5	20.5	0	0.0%
North Ayrshire	30.6	28.1	-2.5	-8.2%
North Lanarkshire	75.2	85.3	10.1	13.4%
Orkney Islands	5.1	4.3	-0.8	-15.7%
Perthshire and Kinross	36.5	37.1	0.6	1.6%
Renfrewshire	56.9	52.4	-4.5	-7.9%
Scottish Borders	27.4	27.3	-0.1	-0.4%
Shetland Islands	7.3	5.3	-2	-27.4%
South Ayrshire	30.8	29.7	-1.1	-3.6%
South Lanarkshire	68.5	78.5	10	14.6%
Stirling	25	27.4	2.4	9.6%
West Dunbartonshire	19.4	18.9	-0.5	-2.6%
West Lothian	44.1	50	5.9	13.4%

Note:

*These figures are aggregates from which agriculture class 0100 (1992 SIC) have been excluded.

Question reference: S2W-09360

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will list all PFI/PPP projects that there have been in respect of the modernisation of police stations.

Question reference: S2W-09357

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 25 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much each police force has spent through PFI/PPPs (a) on the refurbishment and replacement of police stations and (b) in total.

Question reference: S2W-09444

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 20 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what entitlement people with myasthenia gravis have to use the blue badge or any similar parking scheme and what the reason is for the position on this matter.

People who suffer from myasthenia gravis would be able to apply for a blue badge provided that they meet the eligibility criteria.

The eligibility criteria are as follows:

Receipt of the high rate of the mobility component of the Disability Living Allowance;

Receipt of a War Pensioners’ Mobility Supplement;

Registered blind;

A severe disability in both upper limbs, regularly drive a motor vehicle but cannot turn the steering wheel of a motor vehicle by hand even if that wheel is fitted with a turning knob, and

A permanent and substantial disability which means you are unable to walk or have very considerable difficulty in walking. (In this case the local authority may ask some questions to help decide on eligibility).

Question reference: S2W-09114

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 13 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the requirements are for training a community warden and how long the training takes.

Question reference: S2W-09113

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Curran on 13 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many community wardens entered training in (a) 2002-03 and (b) 2003-04 and how much it costs to train each warden.

Local authorities are still inthe process of recruiting and training their community wardens. We anticipate thatonce this process is complete there will be 400 fully-trained community wardensfrom the first round of our funding to tackle anti-social behaviour. The Scottish Executive guidance sets out the core elements of training required for any communitywarden scheme, but training packages are tailored to local needs and delivered ata local level, and therefore likely to vary in terms of length and cost.