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: S4W-00745

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of police recruits in each police force was previously special constables.

Question reference: S4W-00743

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many special constables there have been in each police force, broken down by (a) ethnicity, (b) gender and (c) age group in each year since 1999.

The information requested on the number of special constables broken down by ethnicity, gender and age group is not held centrally. We can provide the number of special constables in each force as at 31 March from 1999 to 2010. The 2011 data are not yet available.

Special Constables in Scotland, as at 31 March from 1999 to 2010

Year	Central	Dumfries and Galloway	Fife	Grampian	Lothian and Borders	Northern	Strathclyde	Tayside	Scotland
1999	62	187	102	121	198	482	310	189	1,651
2000	60	153	97	120	207	413	322	156	1,528
2001	59	135	110	116	151	406	336	136	1,449
2002	73	96	99	115	112	340	314	122	1,271
2003	79	95	101	93	107	310	240	111	1,136
2004	76	105	119	108	87	267	265	108	1,135
2005	100	95	119	141	106	246	257	122	1,186
2006	129	106	128	144	130	242	306	159	1,344
2007	131	115	143	159	160	240	342	173	1,463
2008	118	95	136	152	171	237	323	176	1,408
2009	100	105	137	181	182	219	455	199	1,578
2010	97	122	135	179	166	174	573	199	1,645

Question reference: S4W-00744

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many special constables in each police force were previously serving officers in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S4W-00858

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive which of its funding steams are available to help community groups make the transition from single to multi-sport facilities in order to broaden their eligibility for such funding.

Question reference: S4W-00856

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will commission a mapping exercise on low pay.

Question reference: S4W-00857

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive which of its funding streams are available to community groups to support local (a) single and (b) multi-sport facilities.

Question reference: S4W-00664

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide details of each meeting that ministers have had with UK Government ministers since May 2010 at which Scottish ministers have raised the issue of (a) child poverty or (b) welfare reform, showing the (i) minister involved, (ii) other attendees and (iii) location.

Scottish ministers have regular meetings with UK minsters on a range of matters including welfare reform and child poverty. The then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing met with the Secretary of State for Works and Pensions on 22 September 2010. On 28 October 2010, the then Minister for Housing and Communities and the Minister for Schools and Skills met with Chris Grayling MP, the UK Minister for Employment, accompanied by the Convenor of COSLA in Edinburgh. Ministers have also had discussions by phone and there has also been regular engagement between officials on these matters.

Question reference: S4W-00666

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 23 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) 16 and (b) 17-year-olds are in full-time education, broken down by local authority.

The information requested is contained in the following table.

16 and 17-Year-Olds in Full-Time Education by Local Authority: 2009-10

Local Authority

Age¹

Total

Aberdeen City	2,870	1,540	1,335
Aberdeenshire	4,635	2,540	2,095
Angus	2,085	1,095	990
Argyll and Bute	1,780	915	860
Clackmannanshire	850	445	405
Dumfries and Galloway	2,740	1,540	1,205
Dundee City	2,200	1,240	960
East Ayrshire	2,215	1,240	975
East Dunbartonshire	2,710	1,330	1,380
East Lothian	1,750	900	850
East Renfrewshire	2,755	1,370	1,385
Edinburgh City	5,970	3,170	2,800
Eilean Siar	520	280	240
Falkirk	2,735	1,490	1,245
Fife	6,155	3,345	2,810
Glasgow City	7,975	4,450	3,525
Highland	4,555	2,480	2,070
Inverclyde	1,595	795	800
Midlothian	1,530	870	660
Moray	1,655	925	730
North Ayrshire	2,430	1,345	1,085
North Lanarkshire	6,410	3,575	2,840
Orkney Islands	375	200	175
Perth and Kinross	2,340	1,235	1,105
Renfrewshire	3,460	1,875	1,585
Scottish Borders	1,955	1,055	900
Shetland Islands	460	255	205
South Ayrshire	2,215	1,200	1,015
South Lanarkshire	6,180	3,390	2,785
Stirling	1,885	970	915
West Dunbartonshire	1,760	950	810
West Lothian	3,235	1,840	1,395
Scotland	91,975	49,835	42,140

Source: Pupil Census, Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

Note:

1. Age for the publicly funded pupils is at 28 February 2010. Age for students at colleges and higher education institutions is at 31 August 2009.

In addition to the above there are 3,130 and 2,575 pupils aged 16 and 17 years old (respectively) in the independent sector (age as at 31 December).

Figures in this table (and the associated footnotes) have been rounded to the nearest 5. 0, 1, 2 have been rounded to 0.

Figures may not sum to totals due to rounding.

Question reference: S4W-00670

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 23 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what meetings or discussions it has had with COSLA on the living wage and its roll-out across local authorities.

Local authorities are independent autonomous bodies and set the terms and conditions under which their staff are employed. The Scottish Government has had a number of discussions with COSLA on pay issues and welcomes the fact that a number of local authorities have already introduced a living wage. The Scottish Government will continue to press all public sector employers to introduce the Scottish living wage.

Question reference: S4W-00748

Asked by: Kezia Dugdale, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 22 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-0455 by John Swinney on 10 June 2011, whether there were polls that included questions on the constitutional future of Scotland and, if so, (a) which polls , (b) on what dates they were conducted, (c) what sample was used and (d) what the principle outcome of each was.

(a) The Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS) Core Module (funded by the Office of the Chief Researcher) contains a question on which institution, the Scottish Government, the UK Government, local councils or the European Union, they think has most influence over the way Scotland is run. This is followed by a question on which institution ought to have most influence.

(b) These two questions have been included in the core module every year from 1999 to 2010 (excepting 2002 and 2008). The core module contains around 40 questions each year on attitudes to government and public services.

(c) Fieldwork for the 2009 SSAS took place between April and September 2009. Around 1,500 face-to-face interviews are carried out annually (1,482 in 2009) with a representative sample of the Scottish population.

(d) There has been a consistent increase in the proportion who say the Scottish Parliament/Government has most influence over how Scotland is run, from 13% in 2000 to 33% in 2009, although a higher percentage 39% (in 2009) say this is the UK Government at Westminster. Although more people think the UK Government has most influence over the way Scotland is run, the majority, 72% in 2009, think that the Scottish Government ought to have most influence over the way Scotland is run. Although there was a slight dip in levels of support for the Scottish Government having most influence to around two-thirds between 2003 and 2006, since 2007 over 7 in 10 have said this, in line with the high levels recorded between 1999 and 2001. 2010 results are due to be published shortly.