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-30156

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many Airwave base stations will have been installed by 31 December 2006 and how many will be installed (a) in 2007, (b) in 2008 and (c) after 2008 in Scotland for use by police and other public services.

Question reference: S2W-30075

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 5 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration it has given to commercial sponsorship of the International Corrections and Prisons Association, or events organised by it, in the period during which the Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service has been its chairperson.

Question reference: S2W-30076

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 5 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what involvement the Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service had in awarding the contract for HM Prison Addiewell.

Question reference: S2W-30077

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 5 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the criteria for determining a home detention curfew order have been altered since the introduction of the programme in July 2006.

Question reference: S2W-30136

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 23 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on organising and hosting press conferences in each year since 1999.

Information in the form requestedis not held.

The vast majority of news conferencesare held within St Andrew’s House, making use of the existing facilities in themedia centre. In addition, the daily briefings by the First Minister’s OfficialSpokesperson are usually conducted in a room at the Parliament.

Organising news conferences isa fundamental part of the day-to-day work done by staff in Media and Communications.Specific costs over and above staff time are limited to the occasional provisionof tea, coffee and biscuits.

Question reference: S2W-30086

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been (a) cautioned for, (b) prosecuted for and (c) convicted of soliciting in each year since 1999, broken down by age and gender.

Formal police cautions do notapply in Scotland. The available information on prosecutions and convictionsis given in the following table.

Persons Proceeded against inScottish Courts for Offences Related to Prostitution¹, by Age andGender, 1999-2000 to 2004-05

Gender and Age	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Total number	297	194	133	105	134	232
Males	1	2	3	-	-	-
Females
Aged under 21	32	34	18	14	9	13
Aged 21-30	181	102	71	65	80	146
Aged over 30	83	56	41	26	45	73
Number of persons with a charge proved	287	160	110	99	126	223
Males	1	2	2	-	-	-
Females
Aged under 21	30	26	15	14	9	12
Aged 21-30	174	86	60	60	75	140
Aged over 30	82	46	33	25	42	71

Note: 1. Wheremain offence under section 46 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.

Question reference: S2W-30087

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people seeking to purchase sex have been (a) cautioned for, (b) prosecuted for and (c) convicted of causing nuisance or offence in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S2W-30088

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been convicted of living off immoral earnings in each year since 1999.

The available information isgiven in the following table.

Persons with a Charge Provedin Scottish Courts for Living off Immoral Earnings, 1999-2000 to 2004-05

Year	Number
1999-2000	1
2000-01	-
2001-02	2
2002-03	3
2003-04	3
2004-05	2

Note: 1. Where main offence isunder section 11 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act1995.

Question reference: S2W-30085

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average waiting time for (a) routine and (b) urgent bone scans is in each NHS board.

Question reference: S2W-30018

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many refunds were processed by the Student Loans Company in each year between 2000 and 2005 and what proportion of these resulted from overpayment of student loans.

Numberof Refunds Processed in each Financial Year, for Scottish Domicile Loans in theRetained Portfolio - All Loan Products:

Financial Year	Number of Refunds[1]	Number with Income Contingent Credit Balance	Proportion of Refunds from Overpayment of Income Contingent Loans
2000-01	1,486	0	0%
2001-02	2,507	27	1%
2002-03	3,228	196	6%
2003-04	3,462	522	15%
2004-05	3,808	1,099	29%
2005-06	5,020	2,028	40%

Source: Student LoansCompany (SLC).

Note: 1. MortgageStyle and Income Contingent style Loans.