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-10699

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 7 October 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what advice is given to ministers regarding acting as referees on behalf of applicants applying for public positions.

Question reference: S2W-10698

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 29 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what instructions are given to officials regarding the sifting of applications for judicial appointments prior to these applications being submitted to the Judicial Appointments Committee.

Question reference: S2W-10697

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 September 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 29 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) applications were received, (b) persons were interviewed and (c) appointments were made by the Judicial Appointments Committee on each of the last two occasions on which applications were invited for shrieval appointments.

The two most recent exercises carried out by the Judicial Appointments Board were to fill shrieval vacancies at Perth and Dundee and for all-Scotland floating sheriffs. The vacancies at Perth and Dundee were advertised together. The information on each of these two exercises is as follows:

Perth/Dundee

Sixty-four applications were received, the majority of applicants (55) expressing an interest in vacancies arising in both courts. Ten candidates were called for interview, although one later withdrew before being interviewed. Four applicants were subsequently appointed, one at Perth and three at Dundee.

All-Scotland Floating Sheriff

Ninety-one applications were received. Twenty-five applicants were interviewed. No appointments have yet been made.

Question reference: S2W-09226

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 12 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-8395 by Cathy Jamieson on 10 June 2004, how many warrants in respect of this category are included in the number of warrants outstanding given by Cathy Jamieson in the answer to question S2W-7167 on 22 April 2004.

Question reference: S2W-08395

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 May 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 10 June 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-8018 by Cathy Jamieson on 18 May 2004, how the decision of the High Court is intimated to the accused in such circumstances and what action is taken to take the accused into custody where the appeal is against a custodial sentence.

In applications to the High Courtfor leave to appeal, it is the responsibility of the Clerk of Justiciary to notifywithout delay the appellant or his solicitor and the Crown Agent of the High Court’sdecision and, where leave has been refused, the reasons for that decision.

Where leave is refused, and theappellant is on bail and the sentence imposed on his conviction was one of imprisonment,the High Court must grant a warrant to apprehend and imprison him. The enforcementof the warrant would be a matter for the police.

Question reference: S2W-08019

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 May 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 9 June 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-7167 by Cathy Jamieson on 22 April 2004, whether it will give a breakdown of the 5,627 outstanding warrants into those for (a) murder, (b) rape or serious sexual assault, (c) assault to severe injury, (d) other indictable offences and (e) summary criminal matters.

The answer given to question S2W-7167 on 22 April 2004, gave a figure of 5,327 outstanding apprehension warrants in relation to Strathclyde Police as at 14 April 2004. At end-May 2004, Strathclyde Police held the following number of warrants in relation to serious crime investigations:

Murder	12
Attempted murder	2
Culpable homicide	1
Serious assault	60
Rape	5
Gross indecency (including indecent assault)	18

Notes:

1. Other outstanding apprehension warrants relate, for example, to failure to appear in court, common assault and fraud. A detailed breakdown of such warrants would require an examination of each warrant and would only be available at disproportionate cost. In 2003-04, procurators fiscal passed 52,338 warrantsto the police.

2. The police must execute all warrants without undue delay. Following a protocol agreed between Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, forces prioritise the handling of the most serious warrants first. However, in some cases, because the individuals against whom the warrants are issued go to ground (including abroad), the police are not always able to execute a warrant quickly.

3. The number of warrants outstanding is greater than the number of individuals involved because some people have multiple warrants issued against them.

Question reference: S2W-08163

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 May 2004
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 25 May 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many injecting drug abusers there are in the Greater Glasgow NHS Board area.

Question reference: S2W-08128

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 May 2004
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 25 May 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many registered drug abusers there are in the Greater Glasgow NHS Board area.

There is no central registerwhich records details of individuals who have drug problems. However, the Universityof Glasgow study “Estimating the National and Local Prevalence of Problem Drug Misusein Scotland” (November 2001), estimated that there were 15,975 peoplein the Greater Glasgow NHS Board area who were misusing opiate drugs and benzodiazepines.An updated version of this study will be published in the autumn.

Question reference: S2W-08164

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 May 2004
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 25 May 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people are being supplied with methadone in the Greater Glasgow NHS Board area.

Question reference: S2W-08018

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 May 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 18 May 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the procedure is in circumstances where an accused person, having launched an appeal against sentence, has that appeal refused at the second sift stage.