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-25813

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business will reply to my letter of 4 April 2006 regarding my constituent, Mr H Garner of Banff.

Question reference: S2W-25749

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 22 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what alternatives to methadone are used by the NHS.

Question reference: S2W-25748

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 18 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) full-time and (b) retained firefighters have (i) been employed and (ii) taken early retirement in each year since 1997, broken down by fire brigade area.

Question reference: S2W-25641

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 18 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding has been awarded to (a) each police force, (b) each fire service and (c) the ambulance service in each year since 1999, expressed as an amount per head of population.

The funding allocated from the Scottish Executive (grant aided expenditure and capital) in respect of the police,fire and ambulance service is set out as follows.

The figures for the ambulanceservice are only available on a national basis.

For the fire service, grant aidedexpenditure allocations are included as part of a larger distribution process coveringother local authority services and it is for each local authorities to determinethe actual level of funding that is allocated.

Fire Service

	Central Scotland	Dumfries and Galloway	Fife	Grampian	Highland and Islands	Lothian and Borders	Strathclyde	Tayside
1999-2000	35.85	38.52	40.71	31.29	39.49	32.33	36.59	43.43
2000-01	37.62	41.14	43.82	34.51	44.07	34.79	40.13	47.45
2001-02	41.95	43.01	47.89	37.51	48.76	38.63	43.97	51.10
2002-03	46.01	46.59	49.97	37.75	51.12	41.18	47.77	54.67
2003-04	47.38	51.04	57.96	44.86	54.16	42.45	52.16	58.63
2004-05	50.37	56.60	64.25	47.97	57.13	44.13	53.97	63.79
2005-06	55.97	60.03	67.32	46.35	58.07	47.28	57.34	66.89
2006-07	57.41	66.29	63.66	53.48	78.78	51.34	59.90	69.61

Police Forces

	Central	Dumfries and Galloway	Fife	Grampian	Northern	Lothian and Borders	Strathclyde	Tayside
1999-2000	118.56	141.77	111.56	116.29	133.54	146.33	149.55	141.68
2000-01	120.39	146.21	118.87	120.24	140.49	150.20	155.61	149.41
2001-02	127.21	153.27	125.83	130.21	153.86	159.00	167.86	158.06
2002-03	131.86	157.45	126.52	138.37	157.97	168.19	176.54	163.84
2003-04	143.96	167.54	140.53	149.94	168.88	179.87	191.08	176.75
2004-05	150.15	177.08	149.28	160.91	175.39	188.17	201.32	183.92
2005-06	161.51	188.52	163.15	169.91	178.98	198.19	216.02	196.01
2006-07	169.24	196.37	167.44	178.11	190.26	205.46	225.04	203.24

Ambulance Service

1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
17.72	18.87	20.25	22.18	23.91	28.25	30.47	32.09

Question reference: S2W-25223

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many dogs worked in the prison estate in each year since 1999, broken down by the specific duties that they undertook, and at what cost.

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

The SPS only employs dogs fordrug detection and prevention. In the financial years specified, the breakdown forpublic sector prisons is as follows:

Financial Year	No. of Dogs	Total Budget (inc Staff)
1999-2000	2	£48,919
2000-01	8	£142,794
2001-02	12	£286,840
2002-03	12	£288,799
2003-04	12	£264,603
2004-05	10	£209,910
2005-06	8	£180,245

Any reporting on costs is a matterfor HM Prison Kilmarnock. In addition, HM Prison Kilmarnock reportthe following:

Financial Year	No. of Dogs
1999-2000	1
2000-01	2
2001-02	2
2002-03	2
2003-04	2
2004-05	2
2005-06	1

Question reference: S2W-25755

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Minister for Environment and Rural Development will reply to my letter dated 5 April 2006 regarding the Local Capital Grants Scheme.

Question reference: S2W-25640

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of crime has been drug-related in each year since 1999, broken down by police force area.

The percentage of crimes recordedby the police which are specifically drug crimes (possession, supply, manufactureor trafficking) are given in the table below.

Number of Drug Crimes EachYear as a Percentage of Crimes Recorded, by Police Force Area, 1999-2000 to 2004-05

Force	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Central	8.5	6.5	9.0	10.8	11.0	10.6	9.8
Dumfries and Galloway	10.3	7.4	6.5	7.2	7.6	9.6	8.8
Fife	9.0	4.4	5.1	6.1	6.6	5.9	5.8
Grampian	6.3	4.8	4.8	6.4	8.2	7.2	7.4
Lothian and Borders	5.5	5.8	6.7	7.1	8.1	7.2	7.0
Northern	10.1	11.3	8.8	11.9	11.7	13.5	11.0
Strathclyde	8.2	8.3	9.2	9.9	11.4	12.6	11.4
Tayside	6.5	5.4	5.9	7.2	8.3	10.2	10.8
Scotland	7.6	7.0	7.7	8.6	9.8	10.2	9.5

Question reference: S2W-25812

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Minister for Justice will reply to my letter of 5 April 2006 regarding the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003.

Question reference: S2W-25527

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 16 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will provide a substantive answer to parliamentary question S2W-24617 which received a holding reply on 24 April 2006.

Question reference: S2W-25225

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 12 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive for what average length of time prisoners have been locked in their cell (a) during the week and (b) at weekends in each year since 1999.

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

It is not possible to providethis data on a historical basis as the prisoner population has fluctuated over timeand prisons have had the flexibility to vary staff shift times, subject to localnegotiation. However, as a snapshot at the time of writing, the length of time prisonersare locked in their cell at night during the week ranges from nine hours to 10.5hours, with an average per prison of 9.5 hours.

The length of time prisonersare locked in their cell at night at weekends ranges from nine hours to 15 hours,with an average per prison of 13.5 hours.