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-12669

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 May 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 14 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive why non-geographical terms such as “The Land of Milk and Honey” have been accepted as a location for responses on the National Conversation website.

The response to S3W-11333, answered on 23 April 2008, set out the criteria for moderating the National Conversation website. The criteria makes clear that no registration is required for submitting comments but contributors are asked to provide a name, location and e-mail address. Name and location are optional and will be displayed. E-mail addresses will not be displayed but failure to provide an e-mail address may result in rejection.

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.

Question reference: S3W-12151

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-10428 by John Swinney on 11 March 2008, when the Cabinet Secretary will write to me and whether the information on the hospitality budget for the First Minister’s private office will be published.

Question reference: S3W-12150

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-10429 by John Swinney on 11 March 2008, when the Cabinet Secretary will write to me and whether the information on expenditure on hospitality by the First Minister’s private office will be published.

Question reference: S3W-12152

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 21 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 12 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-10424 by John Swinney on 11 March 2008, when the Cabinet Secretary will write to me and whether the information on travel by the First Minister will be published.

Question reference: S3W-12921

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 12 May 2008
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Executive how much money the British Transport Police in Scotland has allocated for anti-terrorist measures in 2008-09 and how that compares with each of the preceding four years.

Question reference: S3W-11297

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 9 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any meetings between ministers and representatives of Morston Assets included the Joint Founder of Morston.

Question reference: S3W-11296

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 9 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what meetings have taken place between ministers and representatives of Morston Assets regarding the planning application for a sustainable community in Whitecross and the alteration of the Falkirk Structure Plan.

Question reference: S3W-11298

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 9 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what meetings have taken place between ministers and representatives of Morton Assets at (a) Straiton Business Park, (b) Manuel Works, Linlithgow and (c) Mortonhall, Edinburgh and who represented Morston Assets at each of these meetings.

Question reference: S3W-11295

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 9 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether approval has been given to the alteration of the Falkirk Structure Plan to allow the new Whitecross sustainable community to go ahead.

Question reference: S3W-12302

Asked by: George Foulkes, MSP for Lothians, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by Bruce Crawford on 9 May 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many freedom of information requests made to the Minister of Parliamentary Business were (a) answered (i) within 20 days, (ii) within 40 days, (iii) within 60 days and (iv) after 60 days, (b) not answered and (c) answered citing an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act 2002 as a reason not to provide the requested information since May 2007.

The Scottish Government inherited a system from the previous administration the did not uniformly record requests centrally. As a result we inherited a review of the system as of 1 January 2008, the Scottish Government put in place a new database to improve the data held by us regarding the handling of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

In respect of the period January 2008 to 23 April 2008, we have collated the information requested and that information is set out in table A below. We do not record the number of FOI requests made to specific ministers, but we have set out the information according to particular topic areas as this is possible from the information held on the new database. We have provided information on cases which are still in progress where clarification of the information requested has been sought and not yet received or where a response has not yet been issued.

Prior to January 2008, information collated in relation to our handling of FOI requests was not uniformly recorded centrally. We have collated the information requested from the limited information available from the previous centrally held records in respect of the period from 3 May 2007 to 31 December 2007 and that information is set out in table B. We do not hold information on the number of FOI requests made to specific ministers, but we have set out the information according to particular topic areas. We have provided information on cases which are still in progress where clarification of the information requested has been sought and not yet received, where a response has not yet been issued and where there is no information centrally held on whether a response has been issued.

Table A

1 January 2008 to 23 April 2008

	Answered within			Answered After 60 Days	Cases Still in Progress		Answered Citing Exemption Under FOISA
	20 Days	40 Days	60 Days	Answered After 60 Days	Cases Still in Progress		Answered Citing Exemption Under FOISA
Permanent Secretary	23	6	0	0		10	13
Justice and Communities	30	2	0	0		2	18
Health	18	0	0	0		0	8
Economy	60	10	0	0		9	36
Education	31	3	0	0		3	18
Environment	15	27	0	0		3	27

Table B

3 May 2007 to 31 December 2007

	Answered Within			Answered After 60 Days	Cases Still in Progress	Answered Citing Exemption Under FOISA
	20 Days	40 Days	60 Days	Answered After 60 Days	Cases Still in Progress	Answered Citing Exemption Under FOISA
Permanent Secretary	52	1	0	0	62	15
Justice and Communities	38	0	0	0	45	18
Health	38	1	0	0	28	16
Economy	65	3	0	0	19	14
Education	35	0	0	0	37	23
Environment	61	2	0	0	41	17