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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S2W-26135

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 5 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost has been of its events at which entertainment was provided in each year from 1999, broken down into (a) food, (b) drink, (c) staffing and (d) other costs; what the purpose has been of each such event, and who attended.

Question reference: S2W-26587

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 3 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive which agencies it considers have failed to deliver their commitments in reducing the number of persistent young offenders in the last year.

All agencies who work with childrenhave a responsibility to contribute to the prevention and reduction of youth offending.

Key national partner agencieshave made clear public commitments about their determination to make the necessaryimprovements.

All local authority areas havelocal youth justice strategic groups who are responsible for identifying the natureand extent of youth crime in their area through youth crime audits, and for matchingthe range of local service provision to the evidence about service requirements.

Within that local structure,partner agencies will have their own responsibilities for delivering improvements.

Question reference: S2W-26582

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 3 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many local authorities achieved a decrease from 4% to 50% in the number of persistent young offenders between April 2005 and April 2006.

Question reference: S2W-26583

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 3 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish the latest performance figures on tackling persistent offending, broken down by local authority area, for each year since 2001.

The figures on persistent youthoffending in Scotland were first collated for 2003-04. The statement I madeto Parliament on 4 November 2004 made it clear that the 2003-04 youth justice report representedthe agreed baseline. Data gathered in previous years cannot be directly compared.

The 2003-04 report (Bib.number 34397) and 2004-05 report (Bib. number 37302) are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, and include data for every local authority area.

The 2005-06 performance figureswill be published in July 2006.

Question reference: S2W-26585

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 3 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether PA Consulting, previously employed by Scottish Ministers to validate persistent young offender data produced by the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, is being used to validate existing data and, if so, whether ministers are confident that the data produced gives a robust and accurate account of the number of persistent young offenders.

Question reference: S2W-26584

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 3 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and COSLA are now sharing resources, information and best practice to tackle persistent young offending, as outlined by the Minister for Justice in July 2005.

Question reference: S2W-26154

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 1 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to answers to questions S2W-25710 and S2W-25711 by Mr Tom McCabe on 17 May 2006 stating that the information on statutory performance indicators (SPIs) is not held centrally, whether the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform has been advised that information related to SPIs is held in the Executive’s briefing exchange (Brix) system and whether, in light of this, he is now in a position to provide the information requested.

I refer the member to the answersto questions S2W-25710 and S2W-25711 on 17 May 2006. As made clear, information on statutory performanceindicators is publicly available and can be found on the Audit Scotland websiteat www.audit-scotland.gov.uk.

PerformanceBrix notes previously included salient points from the statutory performance indicators.However, the approach to the performance Brix notes is currently underconsideration. In the meantime full performance information on localauthorities for 2004-05, and for previous years, can be accessed through Audit Scotland’swebsite.

All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility forwhich can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Question reference: S2W-26447

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 June 2006
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average time is for the Scottish Information Commissioner to consider and reach a decision on appeals made to him.

Question reference: S2W-26152

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Johann Lamont on 31 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many registered voluntary organisations have closed down in each year since 1999.

Voluntary organisations havenot been required to register with any regulatory body. Consequently, this informationis not collected centrally.

However, following the creationof the Office of the Scottish Charities Regulator (OSCR), voluntary organisationsseeking charitable status in Scotland are required to meet the new charity test set out inthe Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, in order to be awarded charitable status andbe placed on the Scottish Charity Register.

Charitable status was previouslygranted by the Inland Revenue (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) under the CharitiesAct 1993. Under section 3 (7) (b) trustees of charities were required to notifythe commissioners (Charity Commission) if their charities were winding up and thisinformation can be obtained from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

Question reference: S2W-25808

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 23 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-25267 by Cathy Jamieson on 8 May 2006, what plans it has to introduce a convention to prevent Special Branch carrying out covert surveillance operations against MSPs and to extend their protection and freedom in a similar way to that provided to MPs by the Wilson Doctrine.