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: S3W-11310

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 23 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive when the public local inquiry into the route of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route will begin.

Question reference: S3W-11309

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 23 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will announce the timescale for the public local inquiry into the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route.

Question reference: S3W-11827

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 23 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many random drug tests were carried out by police officers in Grampian and Tayside from 2002 to 2007 as a result of existing policy and, of those, how many showed a positive result.

Question reference: S3W-11172

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Maxwell on 21 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what it is doing to protect disabled groups in Aberdeen whose funding will be reduced or lost as a result of local authority proposals.

Aberdeen spent almost £50 million more than it had budgeted for during 2002-07. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth is due to meet the leader and deputy leader of the council on Wednesday 23 April 2008 to discuss Aberdeen''s financial position.

In the short term we are working with the council and the third sector to put in place new arrangements which will provide sustainable opportunities for those with learning disabilities in Aberdeen. The Minister for Enterprise announced on 16 April 2008 that the Aye Can project in Aberdeen will move to operate in the third sector under these new arrangements. We expect others to make that transition once their business plans have been examined. In the medium term we will await the outcome of the Account''s Commission''s public hearing which is scheduled to start on 13 May 2008. In the longer term, we are already committed to a review of the local government finance funding formula in time for the next three year settlement in 2011-12.

Question reference: S3W-11180

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Elish Angiolini on 17 April 2008

The following table shows the number of charges of underage driving prosecuted in each police force area in each of the last five years. In addition, a total of 911 charges (or 35 per cent of those reported) were referred by Procurators Fiscal to the Children''s Reporter.

Driving While Underage (Contrary to Section 87 of the Road Traffic Act 1988) Charges Prosecuted

Police Force Area	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	Total
Central Scotland	33	6	6	11	0	56
Dumfries and Galloway	34	23	11	15	4	87
Fife	72	59	22	9	21	183
Grampian	50	28	31	35	26	170
Lothian and Borders	103	46	46	39	55	289
Northern	7	3	14	8	13	45
Strathclyde	110	102	89	59	56	416
Tayside	49	47	28	22	9	155
Total	458	314	247	198	184	1,401

Notes:

1. The information in this table has been extracted from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service''s Case Management Database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency the database will record details only of the amended charge.

2. The database is charge-based. The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.

3. The table reflects the position at 25 March 2008.

Question reference: S3W-11105

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish its response to the submissions received to its consultation on the proposed Scottish Futures Trust.

Question reference: S3W-11181

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 15 April 2008

In local authority areas where decriminalised parking enforcement (DPE) has been introduced, any income accrued from penalty charge notices in respect of parking offences is retained by the council.

DPE was introduced in the City of Edinburgh, Glasgow City, Perth and Kinross, Aberdeen City, Dundee City and South Lanarkshire council areas as from October 1998, October 1999, October 2002, March 2003, April 2004 and February 2005 respectively.

The information requested is given in the following publications:

Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts, 2002 in section 9.6, on page 18. Published by the Scottish Executive in 2004.

Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts, 2003 in table 26, on page 45. Published by the Scottish Executive in 2005.

Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts, 2004-05 in table 26, on page 46. Published by the Scottish Executive in 2006.

Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts, 2005-06 in table 31, on page 53. Published by the Scottish Executive in 2007.

Copies of which are available are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. numbers 31304, 36012, 39481, 42387 respectively).

In all other Scottish local authority areas, any income collected by the police and traffic wardens accrues to the Exchequer as these are criminal offences.

Question reference: S3W-11173

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Adam Ingram on 15 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding has been set aside in the current spending review to fund nursery teachers.

For the spending review period 2008-11, most of the funding provided to local authorities will be absorbed into the local government finance settlement to give local authorities more freedom and more flexibility to meet both local needs and the national outcomes as agreed in the concordat and in our single outcome agreement with each local authority. This includes all funding for nursery teachers.

Question reference: S3W-11174

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 15 April 2008

The Audit Scotland website stores this information centrally at:

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/performance/police/.

The following table shows the breakdown of complaints against the police by year and force.

	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Central Scotland Police Board	157	160	125	132	148
Dumfries and Galloway Police Board	31	83	81	60	59
Fife Police Board	215	232	204	164	132
Grampian Police Board	254	272	207	209	288
Lothian and Borders Police Board	633	516	472	436	505
Northern Joint Police Board	133	118	145	190	141
Strathclyde Police Board	970	1,144	1,235	1,223	1,379
Tayside Police Board	281	305	228	291	352

Data for 2007-08 is not yet available.

Question reference: S3W-11177

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 15 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many complaints against the NHS resulted in compensation being claimed in (a) 2002, (b) 2003, (c) 2004, (d) 2005, (e) 2006 and (f) 2007, broken down by NHS board and also showing the amounts of compensation paid.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-11176 on 14 April 2008, in relation to annual statistical information on complaints made under the NHS Complaints Procedure.

Information on the number of complaints which resulted in compensation is not held centrally.

The member may wish to refer to the answer to question S3W-8840 on 31 January 2008, which provides information on sums paid by the NHS to patients in the years 1997-98 to 2006-07 in respect of medical negligence claims made against health boards and special health boards.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.