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: S4O-00227

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what its plans are for rolling out the No Knives, Better Lives initiative across the country.

Question reference: S4W-02720

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 21 September 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-02244 by Michael Matheson on 26 August 2011, whether the British Association of Perinatal Medicine nurse staffing standards will be included in the Scottish Service Standards for Neonatal Care.

Question reference: S4W-02244

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 26 August 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Neonatal Expert Advisory Group will publish its report and recommendations.

The Neonatal Expert Advisory Group is currently working with Regional Planning Groups, the Managed Clinical Networks for neonatal services and NHS boards to align the draft standards document with the Healthcare Quality Strategy and to ensure that implementation is practicable and sustainable. The report will be published once this work has been completed and ministers have been able to consider the group’s findings and recommendations in full.

Question reference: S4O-00093

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to warn parents about the measles outbreak on mainland Europe and the dangers of taking abroad children who have not had two doses of the MMR vaccine.

Question reference: S4O-00049

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the impact of the changes in the national minimum wage in October 2010 has been for employment in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is using all available levers to aid economic recovery and reduce unemployment in Scotland. As a consequence, between July to September 2010 and February to April 2011 headline employment level for the population aged 16 and over increased by 9,000. Headline unemployment level for the same age group fell by 22,000 over the same period.

The national minimum wage is a reserved issue, and the independent Low Pay Commission’s report of 2011 confirms that changes in 2010 have yet to produce evidence of an impact on employment.

Question reference: S3W-40013

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 February 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 11 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many prisoners in each prison have been granted home leave in each year since December 2006, broken down by number of days granted.

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

Home leave is generally granted as part of the preparation of prisoners for release. The vast majority of home leaves are therefore granted from HMP Cornton Vale, HMP Open Estate and HMYOI Polmont. There are occasional home leaves granted from other parts of the prison estate, but these are not recorded separately.

The table below shows how many prisoners in each of these prisons have been granted home leave in each calendar year since December 2006 broken down by the number of days granted. Individual prisoners may have been granted home leave on more than one occasion during this period.

		Home Leave 1 Day	Home Leave 2 Days	Home Leave 3 Days	Home Leave 4 Days	Home Leave 5 Days	Home Leave 6 Days	Home Leave 7 Days	Totals
Cornton Vale	2007		12	37		32			81
	2008		2	4		2		47	55
	2009		3	1	2	2		41	49
	2010	5	7	8	3	4	1	28	56
Open Estate	2007		336	298		213	369	716	1932
	2008		53	19		53		731	856
	2009	19	31	55	40	41	5	551	742
	2010	20	21	93	145	57	9	497	842
Polmont	2007		6			2			8
	2008			2					2
	2009	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
	2010		1	4	4	1			10
Totals		44	472	521	194	407	384	2611	4,633

Question reference: S3W-39613

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 February 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 10 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many stop and search procedures have been carried out in each financial year since 1999, broken down by police board.

The information requested is not held centrally. The responsibility for carrying out and recording stop and search procedures is a matter for individual chief constables.

Strathclyde Police records and publishes figures from 1 April 2004, as part of the Chief Constable''s Annual Report. An extract of the published figures on searches is as follows.

Year	Total Searches	Positive Searches	Percentage Positive
2004-05	87,190	7,513	8.6
2005-06	91,336	6,794	7.4
2006-07	133,806	9,603	7.2
2007-08	162,914	11,385	7.0
2008-09	237,845	15,433	6.5
2009-10	321,302	23,534	7.3

Source: Strathclyde Police - Chief Constable''s Annual Report 2009-10 - Statistical Supplement.

Question reference: S3W-39614

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 14 February 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 10 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding has been committed to tackling knife crime in each financial year since 1999.

Since 1999, there has been significant levels of investment from many different agencies in order to tackle violence, including knife crime, in Scotland. The Scottish Government works with the national police-led Violence Reduction Unit, the Association of Chief Police Officers, local Community Safety Partnerships, education, social work and other partners to tackle violence in Scotland. A broad range of Scottish Government activities work together to address violent behaviour and offending through various government policy areas such as policing, alcohol, early years, youth justice. Due to the fact that funding emanates from so many different sources it is impossible to disaggregate total expenditure on the issue of knife crime as a whole.

The Scottish Government is doing more than ever to tackle knife crime and has already committed a record £500,000 investment in it''s award-winning No Knives Better Lives campaign between April 2009 and March 2011, with a further £500,000 recently announced for 2011-12; record funding of £1.6 million in the national Violence Reduction Unit over two years to tackle gang violence, and over £30 million in diversionary activities for young people through the CashBack for Communities campaign.

Question reference: S3W-39993

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 February 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 1 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what it expects police officer numbers to be in the first two quarters of 2011.

Our official projections are that there will be 17,270 police officers (full-time equivalent) on 31 March 2011 and 17,292 on 30 June 2011, 1,036 and 1,058 respectively above the baseline figure of 16,234 at 31 March 2007.

A new study setting out official projected police officer numbers on 31 March and 30 June 2011 was published on the Scottish Government website on 1 March 2011 at:

http://scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/public-safety/Police/facts/PoliceOfficerNumbers.

Question reference: S3W-39737

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 February 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 22 February 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made by the Children’s Services National Commissioning Steering Group.

The remit of the Children''s Services National Commissioning Steering Group resulted from the National Residential Child Care Initiative and the Securing Our Future Initiative reports. The reports recommended the strategic commissioning of specialist residential services for children and young people on a national basis, with an initial focus on secure care. Over the past 12 months the group has developed a draft contract which for the first time puts outcomes for children at the heart of commissioning secure care. In the light of the need to achieve decommissioning the last meeting of the steering group on 15 December 2010 heard that Scotland Excel would issue the contract on behalf of the Scottish Government and local authorities by way of a competitive tender process. The advert for the contract appeared on the Public Contracts Scotland website on 18 February 2011 and can be accessed at:

http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=FEB088370.