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-00663

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what assistance it provides for the early identification of, and how it raises awareness of and supports people with dyslexia.

Question reference: S4O-00650

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive when it last met the Scottish Retail Consortium.

Question reference: S4W-04702

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Bruce Crawford on 16 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many consultations it has carried out in each year since 2007, broken down by policy area.

Information classifying each consultation by policy area is not held centrally.

Open, closed and forthcoming consultations are listed on the Scottish Government website at this web address: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Consultations/Current.

Published reports on some individual consultations are also posted on the Scottish Government website and can be found at this web address:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/Recent.

Question reference: S4W-04639

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how it has set the non-domestic rates targets in relation to the business rates incentivisation scheme, broken down by local authority.

The provisional non-domestic rates targets were issued for consultation on 22 December 2011. The targets were based on the Scottish Government’s best estimate of non-domestic rate income to be raised in 2012-13 allocated pro-rata to individual local authorities based on their most recent full year returns to the Scottish Government.

The all-Scotland estimate takes into account total rateable values including projected buoyancy and appeals losses; the revised poundage rate for the year in question; estimated income from the Large Business Supplement; lost income through business reliefs, bad debts, appeals and late deductions to the roll and the addition or subtraction of any other changes in policy that might impact on the total projected income.

Individual local authority provisional targets for 2012-13 are available on the Scottish Government’s website via the following web link:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/local-government/17999/11203/LGFC12-2011.

Question reference: S4W-04638

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how it calculated the extra £493.5 million income from non-domestic rates over the spending review period.

More than half of the estimated increase in non-domestic rate income over the spending review period is due to normal estimated inflationary increases in the poundage rate. The Scottish Government has committed to maintain the same poundage rate as in England, which is tied to September RPI.

Aside from the normal inflationary rises, the income from non domestic rates will be impacted by a range of factors in the next three years. These include economic assumptions, such as appeals losses and buoyancy, and an additional £110 million in income from the proposed public health supplement and savings of £36 million from reform of empty property relief.

Question reference: S4W-04550

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 20 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many contracts were signed by 1 December 2009 under the Mixed Plastics Capital Grant Programme and how much has been paid to each project at the agreed milestones.

Question reference: S4O-00482

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 December 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what it is doing to improve the early identification of adults who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Question reference: S4W-04009

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 25 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of the plastic from Scotland that was sent for reprocessing has been reprocessed outside the country in each year since 2008.

Question reference: S4W-04001

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 25 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how much money from its Zero Waste Fund has been allocated to each local authority in each year since 2008 and how much will be allocated in 2012-13.

The Zero Waste Fund is not allocated to local authorities directly.

The vast majority of local authority funding, including funding for environmental services, is provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities having first fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government’s key strategic objectives.

The Scottish Government uses the Zero Waste Fund to finance Zero Waste Scotland which works with individuals, businesses and communities to reduce waste, recycle more and use resources sustainably. Zero Waste Scotland works with local authorities on activities and projects which span the whole of its resources management remit, including supporting them to develop their services to meet our zero waste objectives.

Question reference: S4W-04003

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 11 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 24 November 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on (a) recycling infrastructure, (b) biomass and (c) waste incineration projects in each of the last five years.

The Scottish Government does not have the information requested broken down by year. However, it has spent the following on (A) recycling infrastructure and (B) biomass. We do not directly support incineration plants.

(A) Recycling Infrastructure – Funded through Zero Waste Scotland

Support	Amount	Year(s)
MRF Infrastructure	£1.27 million	2010-2011
Grant support for anaerobic digestion and organic treatment infrastructure	£6 million	2008-2011
Collection infrastructure for food waste	Circa £2 million	2011

(B) Biomass

Support	Amount	Year(s)	Projects Funded
Scottish Biomass Heat Scheme	£3 million	2009 - 2011	Heat only biomass boilers and district heating for SMES
Scottish Biomass Support Scheme	£7.5 million	2007 – 2008	Biomass Installations and Infrastructure
Regional Selective Assistance grant	£8.1 million	2008	RWE npower Cogen biomass CHP plant at Markinch
Regional Selective Assistance grant	£10 million	2006 - 2007	Biomass CHP plant at UPM Caledonian in Irvine

In addition the Scotland Rural Development Programme, the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) and the CARES Loan Fund, and its predecessor Scottish Communities and Householders Renewables Incentive also provided support for renewables technologies, including biomass boilers. Yearly breakdowns for biomass boilers under each of these schemes are not held.