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-32276

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many nursing graduates had not completed a preceptorship one year after their graduation in each of the last three years.

This information is not held centrally. NHS boards areresponsible for ensuring that newly qualified nurses and midwives are supportedinto the workforce. In addition, since January 2006, all newly qualified nursesand midwives who take up employment in NHS Scotland have the opportunity toundertake Flying Start NHS, a web-based blended learning programme whichsupports practitioners during the first year of employment. To date, 1,750nurses and midwives have registered with the Flying Start programme.

Question reference: S2W-32224

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) average and (b) longest waiting times were for treatment in (i) ear, nose and throat, (ii) general surgery, (iii) gynaecology, (iv) orthopaedic, (v) rheumatology, (vi) urology and (vii) pain relief specialities in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board.

Median waiting times are not an Executive target. Our policyis to reduce the longest waiting times for patients. On 31 December 2006, no patient with a guarantee had waited more than 26 weeks for a first out-patientappointment. This national maximum waiting time will be reduced to 18 weeks bythe end of this year.

Information on median and 99thpercentile waiting times for treatment is given in Median and 99th percentilewaiting times (days) for out-patient appointments and in-patient/day caseadmissions for selected specialties by NHS board; years ending 31 March 2002 -2006 a copy of which has been placed in the Scottish Parliament InformationCentre (Bib. number 42300).

The 99th percentile waiting timeis used in preference to the maximum wait in these analyses. This approach istaken because the one percent of values that are larger than the 99thpercentile cannot be relied upon; cases with very long waits may be a mixtureof actual times and times that are a result of recording errors.

Centrally held data cannotspecifically identify either inpatient/day case admissions or outpatientappointments for pain relief specialties, thus, these data are not presented.

Question reference: S2W-32221

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how much each local authority spent on (a) residential care homes and (b) nursing homes for elderly people in each of the last five years.

As from April 2002 the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act2001 removed the statutory distinction between residential care homes andnursing homes. Consequently, local authority expenditure on residential carehomes and on nursing homes was combined from financial year 2002-03 onwards andreclassified as Older People - Care Homes (Non Respite). The following tableshows expenditure in each of the last five years. The figures for 2001-02 arethe combined figures under the two previous headings. Those from 2002-03 onwardsare the figures under the single new heading.

Older People - Care Homes (Non Respite) Net RevenueExpenditure

Local Authority	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Scotland	266,352	326,375	352,913	397,999	422,887
Aberdeen City	13,164	18,509	22,406	22,544	26,077
Aberdeenshire	10,924	5,877	6,023	21,155	22,242
Angus	7,074	10,500	10,541	12,885	12,484
Argyll and Bute	5,529	9,278	8,508	9,421	11,325
Clackmannanshire	2,155	2,570	2,736	3,188	3,529
Dumfries and Galloway	6,823	8,982	9,644	9,540	7,312
Dundee City	8,314	11,871	13,352	16,056	15,306
East Ayrshire	5,635	9,267	10,388	10,820	11,329
East Dunbartonshire	343	0	6,344	2,618	5,397
East Lothian	4,279	7,300	6,897	8,304	9,833
East Renfrewshire	3,408	8,902	4,062	5,031	5,896
Edinburgh City	14,820	34,967	43,351	45,877	46,146
Eilean Siar	3,948	4,627	4,039	4,242	4,978
Falkirk	8,291	5,133	8,101	8,242	7,919
Fife	16,594	16,035	20,224	29,153	27,481
Glasgow City	42,612	20,057	17,554	17,227	15,877
Highland	15,039	22,278	24,483	26,255	27,514
Inverclyde	4,733	7,105	7,380	5,463	5,644
Midlothian	3,623	5,728	6,894	7,463	7,323
Moray	4,397	5,794	7,009	6,347	6,775
North Ayrshire	7,655	10,413	11,541	12,967	12,786
North Lanarkshire	18,950	27,293	24,735	28,910	27,507
Orkney Islands	2,090	2,162	2,329	1,951	3,047
Perth and Kinross	7,172	12,065	15,266	15,868	14,613
Renfrewshire	8,490	11,540	14,052	14,936	13,979
Scottish Borders	5,313	5,566	10,329	10,133	11,121
Shetland Islands	1,485	1,372	1,636	2,044	3,285
South Ayrshire	5,456	6,300	7,114	7,337	6,490
South Lanarkshire	13,039	21,269	5,435	8,330	25,831
Stirling	2,457	5,438	5,908	5,977	6,932
West Dunbartonshire	7,289	7,457	7,588	8,301	7,369
West Lothian	5,251	720	7,044	9,414	9,540

Source: As reported on theLFR 3 (Social Work) for the above years.

Question reference: S2W-32259

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average (a) output of farm businesses by farm type and (b) change in output was in each year since 1997.

The information requested is given in the following table.The table uses data from the Farm Accounts Survey (FAS) which covers the farmtypes listed below but does not cover horticulture, specialist pigs and poultryfarms. The final column shows the number of farms sampled in 2005-06.

Average Output (Farm Type)	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
LFA: Specialist Sheep	48,984	44,220	38,163	41,127	42,276
LFA: Specialist Beef	68,471	67,314	69,414	68,944	80,451
LFA: Cattle and Sheep	82,473	77,887	73,250	73,708	84,563
Cereals	102,403	95,560	103,664	101,106	79,921
General Cropping	146,502	156,289	171,966	170,946	134,124
Dairy	160,410	144,571	142,182	153,937	183,148
Lowground Cattle and Sheep*	-	-	-	64,500	-
Mixed	110,563	101,958	103,536	106,493	108,765
All	98,852	94,345	96,710	98,620	97,866

Note:*Results are not shown for farm types of less than five holdings, as theresults may not be reliable.

TheFAS covers farms that are equal to or greater than 0.5 Standard LabourRequirements - smaller farms are excluded. The FAS does not cover horticulture,specialist pigs and poultry farm types.

Average Output (Farm Type)	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2005-06
LFA: Specialist Sheep	50,977	54,968	54,939	51,039	47
LFA: Specialist Beef	102,797	104,152	106,646	104,523	118
LFA: Cattle and Sheep	99,951	108,983	110,556	107,621	70
Cereals	106,361	135,274	120,037	128,005	59
General Cropping	157,565	166,838	160,296	151,580	40
Dairy	181,554	195,698	209,731	209,945	63
Lowground Cattle and Sheep*	83,380	84,845	78,622	84,754	12
Mixed	120,772	148,982	140,520	140,984	65
All	112,225	124,123	121,960	120,912	474

Note:*Results are not shown for farm types of less than five holdings, as theresults may not be reliable.

The FAS covers farms that areequal to or greater than 0.5 Standard Labour Requirements - smaller farms areexcluded. The FAS does not cover horticulture, specialist pigs and poultry farmtypes.

Question reference: S2W-32256

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what estimate it has made of the number of nursing vacancies in the NHS at the end of August 2007.

From analysis of NHS board workforce plans submitted inApril 2006, the number of qualified nursing and midwifery vacancies at the endof August 2007 is expected to range from 593.6 to 766.6 whole-time equivalent,or 1.5% to 2.0% of the expected establishment in August 2007.

For comparison, the vacancy rate as a percentage ofestablishment was 4.5% at the 31 of March 2005 and 3.6% at the 31 of March2006.

Question reference: S2W-32284

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what change there has been in the number of (a) NHS beds, (b) general and acute beds, (c) intermediate care beds, (d) non-residential intermediate care places and (e) adult critical care beds in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS hospital.

Information on average available staffed beds for each NHShospital and the yearly change in bed numbers for the years ending 31 March1999 to 2006 is contained in a document NHSScotland Average Available StaffedBeds (1999-2006) a copy of which has been placed in the Scottish Parliament InformationCentre (Bib. number 42272).

Table 1 shows information for all average available staffedbeds.

Table 2 provides information for beds in acute specialties.

Table 3 shows the number of critical care beds (beds inintensive care, high dependency and cardiac care units) excluding beds inchildrens hospitals.

Information on intermediate care beds and non-residentialintermediate care places is not held centrally.

Question reference: S2W-32285

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many and what percentage of outpatient operations were cancelled in each NHS hospital in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-32223

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many dentists have exhausted their 2006-07 NHS budgets.

Question reference: S2W-32253

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 March 2007
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 15 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) men and (b) women are diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder, broken down by age.

Question reference: S2W-32109

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 14 March 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive when the First Minister will reply to Alex Salmond MP’s letter dated 17 January 2007 regarding Government Expenditure and Revenues in Scotland (GERS) calculation data, which was passed to the First Minister by HM Treasury.