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-08835

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on the establishment of websites by schools since 2002.

Setting up and operating schoolwebsites is a matter for local authorities and schools. From 2004 to 2006 Learningand Teaching Scotland ran the “Scottish Schools Get Online” project to support schoolsacross Scotland in developing high quality websites which offer appropriate informationfor parents and others. In future it is likely that some schools will take advantageof the facilities offered by Glow to maintain a public web presence.

Question reference: S3W-08834

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many schools have their own websites in (a) Scotland and (b) the Kilmarnock and Loudoun parliamentary constituency, broken down into (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools and giving the number of websites being updated.

Question reference: S3W-08837

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 5 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been diagnosed with autism-related conditions in each year since 1980.

Question reference: S3W-08838

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 5 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been registered on a methadone programme in (a) Scotland and (b) the Kilmarnock and Loudoun parliamentary constituency in each year since 2002.

There is nonational information that reports on the number of people registered on amethadone programme in Scotland who are receiving methadone hydrochloridemixture for opiate dependence. However, the links below provide estimates of the number of people receiving methadone as part of their treatment for illicitdrug misuse. This information is available by Scotland and by NHS boards only.

1. In July 2005,National Services Scotland published estimates of the number of peoplereceiving methadone as part of their treatment for illicit drug misuse inJune-July 2002, 2003 and 2004, copies of which are available in the Scottish ParliamentInformation Centre (Bib. number 44592):

http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/local/isd_methadone.pdf.

2. In 2006, the ScottishGovernment conducted a review of the place of methadone in drug treatment. Aspart of this review, information was collected from NHS boards and others onthe number of people receiving methadone treatment for drug misuse. Thefindings were published by the Scottish Government in July 2007, copies ofwhich are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number43242) http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/06/22094632.

Question reference: S3W-08839

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 4 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many manufacturing jobs have been lost in (a) Scotland and (b) the Kilmarnock and Loudoun parliamentary constituency in each of the last eight years.

There is no informationheld centrally on the number of jobs lost or created in Scotland. However, information on the number of jobs by industryis collected each year from the Annual Business Inquiry (ABI). Table 1 shows thenumber of manufacturing jobs in Scotland and the Kilmarnock and Loudon parliamentaryconstituency from 1999 to 2006. Please note the Kilmarnock and Loudon parliamentaryconstituency is based on the 1995 definition to allow a complete time series from1999.

The reference datefor the ABI in the most recent year was changed from December to September so datafor 2006 is not directly comparable with data from previous years.

Table 1: EmployeeJobs in Manufacturing, Scotland and the Kilmarnock and Loudon ParliamentaryConstituency

	Scotland	Kilmarnock and Loudon
1999	315,000	5,900
2000	302,000	5,500
2001	285,000	5,200
2002	263,400	4,800
2003	243,300	4,700
2004	235,900	3,700
2005	229,700	3,500
2006	224,000	3,700

Source: Annual BusinessInquiry.

Notes:

1. Data for 2006 isnot consistent with previous years.

2. Kilmarnock andLoudon is defined using the 1995 parliamentary constituency revisions.

3. The data are roundedto the nearest hundred.

4. ABI data are workplacebased.

Question reference: S3W-08840

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 31 January 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much compensation has been paid to patients by the NHS in each of the last 10 years, broken down by (a) NHS board and (b) basis of the claim.

No records are held centrally on compensation payments made to patients by NHSScotland other than inthe case of clinical negligence. The following sums were paid from 1997-98 to 2006-07in respect of clinical negligence claims made against health boards and specialhealth boards.

Health Board	1997-98 (£)	1998-99 (£)	1999-2000 (£)	2000-01 (£)
Argyll and Clyde	681,945	777,997	92,628	91,550
Ayrshire and Arran	25,000	191,630	40,000	158,263
Borders	0	45,000	69,500	12,500
Dumfries and Galloway	63,000	103,622	133,614	407,500
Fife	106,313	71,588	45,900	280,647
Forth Valley	204,750	27,300	27,865	434,007
Grampian	67,400	59,281	405,383	186,061
Greater Glasgow	1,272,360	327,700	498,733	981,944
Highland	415,200	55,500	269,745	40,600
Lanarkshire	78,650	84,300	99,698	746,336
Lothian	337,109	1,412,009	906,627	252,962
Orkney	0	0	0	0
Shetland	57,702	0	2,664	2,550
Tayside	210,770	147,782	251,000	225,552
Western Isles	0	0	30,000	104,990
State Hospital	1,000	0	0	0
Common Services Agency	0	0	82,000	0
Scottish Ambulance Service	0	0	0	0
Totals	3,521,199	3,303,709	2,955,357	3,925,462

Health Board	2001-02 (£)	2002-03 (£)	2003-04 (£)	2004-05 (£)
Argyll and Clyde	265,519	2,558,831	270,041	1,219,640
Ayrshire and Arran	828,865	671,398	230,560	234,702
Borders	5,000	20,111	13,650	157,580
Dumfries and Galloway	701,116	362,018	219,096	65,927
Fife	51,693	125,346	492,449	320,806
Forth Valley	292,525	112,954	2,518,400	553,359
Grampian	175,375	77,250	199,313	912,877
Greater Glasgow	2,894,856	2,078,799	1,419,508	1,441,834
Highland	220,276	197,581	1,324,739	159,490
Lanarkshire	51,480	406,282	569,846	275,250
Lothian	815,557	1,933,644	879,506	437,323
Orkney	5,500	0	0	29,120
Shetland	7,700	78,345	10,200	2,000
Tayside	138,353	98,150	105,163	2,460,004
Western Isles	5,500	0	0	1,500
State Hospital	0	0	0	0
Common Services Agency	0	0	55,000	49,000
Scottish Ambulance Service	3,000	0	0	0
Totals	6,462,315	8,720,709	8,307,471	8,320,412

Health Board	2005-06 (£)	2006-07 (£)
Argyll and Clyde	1,274,634	27,500
Ayrshire and Arran	289,876	31,750
Borders	98,042	315,739
Dumfries and Galloway	318,079	104,353
Fife	210,623	1,724,014
Forth Valley	328,027	4,504,683
Grampian	600,359	195,238
Greater Glasgow (and Clyde)	3,133,521	5,382,415
Highland	1,814,121	2,459,120
Lanarkshire	359,219	504,762
Lothian	412,758	7,211,474
Orkney	22,792	0
Shetland	0	29,000
Tayside	742,911	692,234
Western Isles	6,000	0
State Hospital	27,488	0
Common Services Agency	126,651	375
Scottish Ambulance Service	92,166	4,000
Total	9,857,267	23,186,657

Although the tablesshow a rising trend in compensation payments, the number of claims is steady witharound 150 reaching settlement each year. The large increase in 2006-07 is consideredto be exceptional and caused by a larger than normal number of high-value settlements– mostly birth related cases which often take several years to settle.

Based on a populationcount, proportionally the amount of money paid out in Scotland on clinical negligence claims is far less than that in the rest of the UK.

Question reference: S3W-06680

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 19 November 2007
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 4 December 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive .

I do not foreseeany detrimental effect. Wewill continue to work in partnership with local government and NHS board partnersto drive forward all our mental health priorities including reducing thedefined daily dose of antidepressants.

That element offunding now to be included within the overall local government financesettlement will ensure continuity of approach and investment. It will continueto be the responsibility of each agency to work in partnership and to allocatefunds from the total financial resources available to them on the basis oflocal needs, priorities and agreed targets including the Scottish Government’skey strategic objectives and commitments.

Further detailson the new arrangements can be found in the Scottish Budget Report and relatedConcordat with local government, copies are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. numbers 44076 and 44077 respectively).

Question reference: S3W-10455

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 6 March 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what advice it has received regarding the implications of the murder of Michael Cameron in HM Prison Kilmarnock on 16 June 2006; when that advice was received, and what steps were taken as a result of that advice in respect of (a) the operation of HM Prison Kilmarnock and (b) the rest of the prison estate.

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

Immediately following the incident the Kilmarnock Prison Senior Management Team carried out an incident review to see whether there were any immediate lessons to be learned.

Serco also carried out a full investigation which was completed in August 2006. This suggested improvements to the cell sharing risk assessment protocol.

The SPS has emphasised the importance of such measures across all prisons.