- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 25 October 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 5 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what the costs were of organising the local government elections in (a) 1999, (b) 2003 and (c) 2007.
Answer
The Scottish Governmentfunds specific elements of the costs involved with local government elections (suchas the national publicity campaign and in 2007 the additional costs associated withe-counting). However, the majority of the expenditure associated with running anelection is met by local authorities from within their own budgets, and specificinformation on this is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 1 November 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how many prosecutions have taken place as a result of evidence gathered by police searches using stop and search powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 since the granting of these powers.
Answer
This information isnot held.
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 September 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Maxwell on 22 October 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-3653 by Stewart Maxwell on 12 September 2007, how many wheelchair users are estimated to be living in social rented accommodation.
Answer
NHS Scotland wheelchairservices are provided from five regional centres and independent report
Movingforward: Review of NHS wheelchair and seating services in Scotland publishedin 2006 reports some 96,000 users registered with these centres in 2005:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/127201/0030495.pdf.This will includeusers living in communal establishments, such as nursing homes, and people withdiffering levels of use, from complete dependency to very occasional use. However,there is wide variation between the figures reported by individual centres in thenumber of registered users per head of population. This is in part due to regionaldifferences in identifying and recording the more “active” users as distinct from“registered” users. In addition, a number of users obtain services from privateproviders rather than the NHS. Such users will not be included in the figures providedby the regional centres.
There is no directestimate of the number of wheelchair users living in social rented accommodation.The Scottish Household Survey gives an indication of the tenure of respondents inprivate households who use wheelchairs. The most recent data available for 2005and 2006 show some 46% of wheelchair users were living in social rented accommodation,representing about 2% of respondents in the sector (data from two years have beencombined due to small base numbers).
Changes in buildingregulations over the past few years have lead to increased accessibility of themore recent mainstream new build, particularly in the social sector, resulting inhigher levels of barrier-free housing which can more readily be adapted to meetthe particular needs of wheelchair users.
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 23 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 2 October 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how many playing fields have been used for housing and what hectarage they have covered in each year since 1990.
Answer
This information isnot held centrally. However, sportscotland prepares an annual monitoring reportlisting all planning applications on which they have been consulted. This identifiesthe site, what has been lost due to the development and what facility if any hasbeen put in place either on site or elsewhere as compensation. It does not identifywhat form of development has prompted the planning application or the hectarage,and it only covers applications on which sportscotland have been consulted. Thefigures do not include any new pitches that may have been created without a formalplanning consultation or any that might have been lost due to neglect or lack ofuse.The sportscotland monitoring reports for 2005and 2006 are available on their website
http://www.sportscotland.org.uk/ChannelNavigation/Resource+Library/Publications/Planning+applications+affecting+playing+fields.htm.
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 September 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 1 October 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is aware of whether agencies operating park-and-ride sites actively monitor how heavily these sites are used.
Answer
First ScotRail, aspart of its franchise obligations, has to carry out annual car park counts, includingblue badge holder usage of railway car parks. These surveys are reported to TransportScotland.
Bus park-and-rideprojects typically have been delivered through local authorities, who thereforeare responsible for any monitoring arrangements.
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 September 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 1 October 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what it considers the role of park-and-ride facilities to be.
Answer
The role of park-and-ride facilities is to permit people to complete part of a journeyby public transport. They encourage modal shift away from car usage, thus reducingemissions from transport, and congestion on urban road networks.
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 September 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 1 October 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what the total expenditure is estimated to be on the (a) Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine, (b) Waverley and (c) Airdrie to Bathgate rail lines.
Answer
(a) Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine
The cost for the constructionof the project is currently estimated to be up to £85 million.
(b) Waverley
Transport Scotland is continuing a due-diligence review of the Borders railwayas it prepares to take on the role of Authorised Undertaker for the railway, a rolethat it is assuming at the behest of the previous Administration. This exercise,amongst other things, shall assess what the total expenditure is estimated to be.Therefore, until this exercise is complete, it is not prudent to speculate whatthe final outturn cost of the project is likely to be.
(c) Airdrie to Bathgate Rail Lines
The total expenditureon Airdrie to Bathgate is estimated at £299.7 million in Q1 2006 prices.
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 September 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 1 October 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how many railway stations are designated as park-and-ride sites and where these stations are located.
Answer
Two hundred andtwenty Scottish stations have parking facilities which allow passengers topark-and-ride. The car parks are managed, maintained and operated by various partiesincluding First ScotRail, Network Rail, local authorities, Regional Transport Partnershipsand commercial car park operators. One hundred and fifty-three are under the directcontrol of the franchisee, First ScotRail.
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 September 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 1 October 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how much interest on borrowings Scottish Water has paid in each year since its creation.
Answer
A breakdown of theinterest paid by Scottish Water on its borrowings for each year may be found inits Annual Accounts. These are available in the Scottish Parliament InformationCentre under the following reference numbers:
| Year | Bib. Number |
| 2002-03 | 28754 |
| 2003-04 | 33541 |
| 2004-05 | 36848 |
| 2005-06 | 39906 |
| 2006-07 | 43566 |
- Asked by: Jamie Hepburn, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 September 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 27 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what its block grant has been in each year since devolution and what proportion of total known public expenditure in Scotland this represents.
Answer
HM Treasurypublish an annual statistics publication called Public Expenditure StatisticalAnalyses (PESA) which sets out a range of statistical information, includingthe total identifiable public expenditure for each region/country within the United Kingdom (table 9.3). The latest version of this document waspublished in April 2007 and provides data up to and including 2006-07
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./media/E/B/pesa07_complete.pdf.The following tableshows the total identifiable expenditure in Scotland (taken from PESA 2007), the total Scottish block and the percentage of the total that the Scottish Block represents, for each year between 1999-2000and 2005-06.
| £ Million | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 | 2001-02 | 2002-03 | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 |
| Total Scottish Identifiable Public Expenditure | 27,274 | 28,777 | 31,770 | 33,500 | 36,817 | 38,486 | 41,761 | 44,050 |
| Total Scottish Budget | 17,433 | 18,554 | 19,893 | 21,479 | 23,644 | 25,520 | 27,390 | 29,748 |
| Total Scottish Budget as % of Total Identifiable Expenditure | 63.9% | 64.5% | 62.6% | 64.1% | 64.2% | 66.3% | 65.6% | 67.5% |
