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-26553

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 19 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have gained employment having completed (a) a custodial sentence and (b) community service in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-26551

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 19 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many prisoners under the age of 18 there were in each year since 1990, broken down by prison.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

The available information isgiven in the following table:

	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Barlinnie	552	484	493	313	200	238	302	295	78
Aberdeen	72	73	66	53	42	32	35	42	22
Cornton Vale	55	44	65	55	39	44	48	42	48
Dumfries	63	68	48	33	48	34	34	25	29
Edinburgh	253	241	230	189	151	153	148	139	106
Glenochil	208	214	176	173	94	30	61	11	0
Greenock	173	151	118	102	98	98	89	74	53
Inverness	45	43	45	34	53	48	48	49	50
Longriggend	506	532	525	331	29	0	0	0	0
Low Moss	0	0	0	1	0	1	1	1	0
Penninghame	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Perth	129	132	112	104	68	66	116	102	80
Polmont	616	612	516	447	363	361	418	509	498
Peterhead Unit	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Kilmarnock	0	0	0	114	75	83	49	59	45
Total number of individuals¹	1336	1240	1188	983	784	788	875	858	730

Note: 1. Asan individual can be held in more than one penal establishment in one year the sumof the number of individuals in each establishment is much greater than the totalnumber of individuals held in any one year.

Question reference: S2W-26538

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 05 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 19 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many hospital negligence cases have been (a) filed and (b) upheld in each of the last five years, broken down by hospital

Question reference: S2W-26588

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 19 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many traffickers of children have been (a) charged, (b) convicted in each of the last five years.

Trafficking of people for thepurpose of exploitation is an offence under Section 4 of the Asylum & Immigration(Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004. Trafficking of people for the purpose of sexualexploitation is an offence under Section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act2003.

These offences apply, whetherthe victims are adults or children. It is not possible to separately identify childtrafficking cases from the statistics held centrally.

To date, there have been no proceedingsunder the 2003 act or the 2004 act for trafficking offences.

Question reference: S2W-26593

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 19 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) elective hospital admissions, (b) first out-patient attendances following GP referral and (c) consultant-led first out-patient attendances there were in the NHS in each year since 1990, broken down by NHS board.

The information available isprovided in a document titled NHSScotland: Elective Inpatient Day Case Episodesand New Outpatient Attendances 1989-90 to 2005-06, a copy of which has been placedin the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib number 39861).

Please note that the out-patientinformation system (SMR00) started from 1 April 1991 sono earlier figures are available.

The data are brokendown by NHS board of residence. The elective hospital admissions are shown for acutespecialties only (defined as non-obstetric/non-psychiatric specialties). The newout-patient data covers consultant-led clinics and are shown separately for acutespecialties and for all specialties and for GP referrals and all referrals.

In interpreting thesedata, it should be noted that they reflect, amongst other things, changes in medicaltechnology, clinical practice, service redesign and the desire to provide care inthe most appropriate setting by whoever is the most appropriate health professional.Many procedures carried out on an in-patient/day case basis in 1990 are now providedin an out-patient setting and very often are done at a return appointment so arenot included in the figures provided. In addition to hospital premises, care isincreasingly provided in community settings, by General Practitioners (GPs), nursesand Allied Health Professionals (AHPs). The focus on health care redesign has alsomeant that more innovative ways of providing care have been introduced and, forexample, telephone consultations and/or the use of telemedicine for the follow-upof appropriate patients may provide a more responsive service to the patient butare not counted for national activity purposes.

It should also benoted that the out-patient information system (SMR00) has developed over time inthe terms of the specialties included.

Question reference: S2W-26589

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 19 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people illegally managing child prostitutes have been (a) charged, (b) convicted in each of the last five years.

There have been no prosecutionscompleted in relation to offences of controlling a child providing sexual servicesunder Section 11 of the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences(Scotland) Act 2005 since this act came into force in October 2005.

Prior to this time, there wasno specific offence of controlling or managing a child involved in prostitution,and consequently, statistics on charges and convictions are not held centrally.

Question reference: S2W-26590

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 19 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of police retirements were on grounds of ill-health in each year since 1990, broken down by police force area.

The available information isshown in the following tables. Data before 1991 is not available.

Ill-Health Retirements as a Percentageof Total Police Retirements

	Central		Dumfries and Galloway		Fife		Grampian
	Officers	% of Total Retirements	Officers	% of Total Retirements	Officers	% of Total Retirements	Officers	% of Total Retirements
1991	9	53%	6	46%	6	32%	8	28%
1992	6	55%	4	37%	12	53%	10	39%
1993	7	37%	8	53%	4	18%	4	19%
1994	5	38%	3	30%	3	16%	7	33%
1995-96	5	28%	0	0%	2	16%	14	33%
1996-97	6	43%	0	0%	9	29%	10	28%
1997-98	14	58%	1	14%	4	17%	10	24%
1998-99	10	50%	2	25%	8	35%	8	25%
1999-00	7	39%	3	27%	8	29%	8	20%
2000-01	6	26%	3	27%	7	26%	11	29%
2001-02	9	45%	1	10%	5	20%	10	37%
2002-03	5	29%	1	17%	10	42%	9	23%
2003-04	1	7%	4	50%	5	29%	8	32%
2004-05	7	35%	4	31%	6	26%	8	21%

Ill-Health Retirements as a Percentageof Total Police Retirements

	Lothian And Borders		Northern		Strathclyde		Tayside
	Officers	% of Total Retirements	Officers	% of Total Retirements	Officers	% of Total Retirements	Officers	% of Total Retirements
1991	44	54%	7	44%	69	39%	8	38%
1992	46	49%	11	39%	111	47%	7	28%
1993	35	40%	5	50%	140	55%	16	37%
1994	40	54%	7	30%	103	56%	18	55%
1995-96	38	44%	7	33%	128	47%	16	36%
1996-97	32	40%	8	40%	119	55%	12	38%
1997-98	22	33%	3	16%	104	47%	15	43%
1998-99	32	43%	5	38%	96	47%	8	29%
1999-2000	32	44%	6	23%	104	45%	19	50%
2000-01	35	49%	12	50%	110	47%	14	41%
2001-02	55	54%	5	24%	100	41%	12	28%
2002-03	42	48%	1	5%	55	25%	12	40%
2003-04	22	29%	6	22%	77	34%	8	25%
2004-05	18	22%	8	36%	54	22%	2	6%

Source: Annual Statistical Returnssubmitted to forces to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Notes:

1991–94 - calendar years.

1995-96 onwards – financial years.

Question reference: S2W-26556

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 16 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children waited for an initial paediatric cardiology assessment in each year since 1997, broken down by NHS board and hospital.

Data on the number of patientswaiting for a first outpatient appointment has only been collected since 30 September 2004. Thisinformation is collected at specialty level only. Paediatric Cardiology may be recordedunder the specialities of Cardiology, Paediatrics or General Medicine. It is notpossible from the outpatient waiting list dataset to explicitly identify the numberof patients waiting for paediatric cardiology.

Question reference: S2W-26557

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 16 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many missed hospital appointments there were in each NHS board in each of the last 10 years.

Information is collected centrallyonly on numbers of patients who did not attend their first outpatient appointmentwith a consultant.

The number of patients who didnot attend their first out-patient appointment at a consultant-led clinic, followingreferral by a general medical or dental practitioner, by NHS board area of residence,in each of the last 10 years, is given in the following table.

NHSScotland: Number of Patientsthat did not Attend Their First Out-Patient Appointment at a Consultant-Led Clinic,by NHS Board of Residence. Years Ended 31 March 1997–2006^P

NHS Board	Year Ended 31 March 1997	Year Ended 31 March 1998	Year Ended 31 March 1999	Year Ended 31 March 2000	Year Ended 31 March 2001
Argyll and Clyde	13,002	13,895	13,830	14,025	13,935
Ayrshire and Arran	9,408	10,114	9,986	10,786	10,711
Borders	1,639	1,550	1,492	1,734	1,666
Dumfries and Galloway	2,079	2,178	2,191	2,222	2,343
Fife	8,959	9,522	9,679	9,817	9,970
Forth Valley	6,572	6,635	7,178	6,771	6,930
Grampian	8,826	8,129	8,510	9,264	9,900
Greater Glasgow	43,849	44,260	45,109	45,866	42,515
Highland	3,336	3,516	3,570	3,966	3,859
Lanarkshire	17,511	19,544	19,155	20,108	19,276
Lothian	20,084	20,773	21,975	22,948	23,001
Orkney Islands	77	88	110	129	148
Shetland Islands	238	214	275	210	243
Tayside	10,949	12,465	13,025	13,970	13,739
Western Isles	424	465	472	497	558
NHSScotland	146,953	153,348	156,557	162,313	158,794

NHS Board	Year Ended 31 March 2002	Year Ended 31 March 2003	Year Ended 31 March 2004	Year Ended 31 March 2005	Year Ended 31 March 2006^P
Argyll and Clyde	14,458	14,885	15,017	13,486	12,224
Ayrshire and Arran	11,853	12,297	12,018	11,885	10,689
Borders	1,705	1,895	2,046	1,989	1,693
Dumfries and Galloway	2,410	2,362	2,332	2,231	1,807
Fife	10,069	9,894	10,500	10,690	9,706
Forth Valley	7,301	6,811	7,287	7,004	3,973
Grampian	10,335	9,858	9,443	8,775	8,618
Greater Glasgow	47,839	49,275	45,862	39,731	38,795
Highland	3,756	3,877	4,177	3,898	4,154
Lanarkshire	19,770	21,777	19,816	17,673	15,254
Lothian	22,513	21,993	21,674	21,179	19,654
Orkney Islands	171	180	175	153	188
Shetland Islands	197	275	339	393	359
Tayside	13,974	13,215	12,816	13,295	8,791
Western Isles	573	674	564	717	695
NHSScotland	166,924	169,268	164,066	153,099	136,600

^PProvisional.

Source: ISD Scotland SMR00 –All specialities excluding accident and emergency and genito-urinary medicine.

Question reference: S2W-26555

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 16 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average waiting time was for an initial paediatric cardiology assessment in each year since 1997, broken down by NHS board and hospital.