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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.

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Question reference: S2W-13636

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 31 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive when it intends to publish the Social Justice Indicators of Progress for 2004.

Our new Closing the Opportunity Gap approach has refocused our social justice strategy, and set out new objectives and targets, and action to deliver those targets. The targets were announced in the Scottish Parliament on 9 December 2004 and are referred to in the answer given to question S2W-12888 (answered on 9 December 2004), and more information can be found at www.scotland.gov.uk/closingtheopportunitygap.Data on the social justice milestones continue to be available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Social-Inclusion/17415/milestones#top.

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/wa.search.

Question reference: S2W-13228

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Euan Robson on 31 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will introduce a policy of continuously monitoring morale among members of children's panels to ensure that retention levels do not fall below current levels.

Question reference: S2O-05082

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 27 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether an announcement will be made in February 2005 on the funding of the Borders Railway.

Question reference: S2W-13019

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 26 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding was allocated to Disclosure Scotland in each year since its establishment and what targets Disclosure Scotland has in respect of staff recruitment in 2005.

Disclosure Scotland is financed by the share of income Scottish ministers receive from the sale of certificates and through additional support from ministers as necessary. Disclosure Scotland began operations in April 2002, and the income from the sale of certificates and support from ministers is set out below. The support from ministers includes expenditure to cover the cost of free checks for volunteers in Scotland.

Year	Gross Support from Ministers	Income from Certificates	Net Support from Ministers
2002‑03	£3,554,080	£802,000	£2,752,080
2003‑04	£3,647,918	£1,779,662	£1,868,256
2004‑05 (projected)	£3,615,000	£2,106,000	£1,509,000

The staffing complement at Disclosure Scotland is kept under review to ensure that there are sufficient resources to respond to demand. This is informed by daily measurement of processing capacity and applications received. In the event that the volume of applications shows signs of outstripping processing capacity, immediate action will be taken to address this including recruiting additional staff if necessary.

Question reference: S2W-13018

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 December 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 26 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many will be retained as volunteers following implementation of the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003, in light of possible delays in processing Disclosure Scotland forms.

Over the past five months, all correctly completed applications have been issued in under 14 working days from the time of receipt at Disclosure Scotland.

At 11 January 2005, the Central Registered Body Scotland (CRBS) (which handles applications from the voluntary sector in Scotland) was dealing with applications received on 5 January 2005.

Disclosure Scotland, CRBS and the Scottish Executive will closely monitor the impact of the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003 on application volume to ensure that applications continue to be processed timeously.

Question reference: S2W-13324

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 25 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive which divisions within Lothian and Borders Police have implemented an overtime ban in the last 12 months and what plans there are for extending, or implementing, a ban on overtime for the next 12 months.

Question reference: S2W-13410

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 24 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-12428 by Rhona Brankin on 24 December 2004 and given that the Scottish Borders accounts for 2% of the Scottish population, why 22% of all NHS dental patients deregistered in 2002-03 and 37% deregistered in 2003-04 were from the Scottish Borders; what inquiries it has made to determine the reasons for these percentages and what additional information it has gathered as a result; what measures it has taken to address this situation; what interim guidance it has issued to deregistered patients in respect of obtaining NHS dental treatment; whether travel costs will be available for patients who are required to seek treatment furth of the Scottish Borders, and what its statutory duties are in respect of the accessible provision of NHS dental services.

Responsibility for the overall provision of NHS dental services in the area rests with NHS Borders. NHS Borders has advised that the increase in the number of de-registrations in 2002-03 and 2003-04 was due to dental practices in Duns, Eyemouth, Peebles and Hawick reducing their commitment to NHS general dental services.

NHS Borders has established an advice line, staffed by a dental nurse who is able to offer advice on pain relief, advice on access issues and make arrangements for unregistered patients who require urgent treatment.

The Executive continues to support NHS Borders by approving salaried general dental practitioner posts where required. Approval was given to NHS Borders in August 2004 to appoint a further two whole-time equivalent salaried dentists for Hawick and in January 2005 for a senior salaried dentist with a special interest in oral surgery. I understand these posts are currently vacant but that one of the Hawick posts will be filled in March 2005.

NHS Borders has not issued any formal interim guidance to deregistered patients in respect of obtaining NHS dental treatment. However, general dental practitioners, GP out-of-hours, NHS24 and hospitals are aware of the Borders advice line and are able to direct patients to this.

NHS board can apply to Scottish ministers for approval of schemes to assist eligible patients with travel expenses to access primary care NHS dental treatment. The funding for such schemes comes from within the board’s unified budget.

It is a duty of Scottish ministers to secure the provision of general dental services in accordance with Part II of the NHS (Scotland) act 1978. It is a duty, under section 25 of Part II of the NHS (Scotland) Act 1978, of every health board, in accordance with regulations, to make as respect their area arrangements with dental practitioners under which any person for whom a dental practitioner undertakes in accordance with the arrangements to provide dental treatment and appliances shall receive such treatment and appliances.

Question reference: S2W-13409

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 24 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-12428 by Rhona Brankin on 24 December 2004, how many dental practices in the Scottish Borders provided NHS treatment in (a) 1999-2000, (b) 2000-01, (c) 2001-02, (d) 2002-03 and (e) 2003-04, expressed also as a percentage of all practices for each year.

The number of dental practices in the Scottish Borders providing NHS treatment at 31 March in the relevant years is shown in the table.

It is not possible to express this number as a percentage of all practices in the Scottish Borders, as information on non-NHS dental practices is not held centrally.

Number of General Dental Practices in NHS Borders Providing NHS Treatment¹; at 31 March

2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
17	17	19	19	20

Source: MIDAS (Management Information and Dental Accounting System).

Note: 1. Dental practices with at least one dentist within the practice providing NHS general dental services.

Question reference: S2W-13460

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 21 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what resources (a) were allocated to improve adult literacy and numeracy in 2004 and (b) have been allocated to improve adult literacy and numeracy in (i) 2005 and (ii) 2006.

Question reference: S2W-13463

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 21 January 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to its news release of 8 September 2004 on the Scottish Adult Literacy and Numeracy Strategy and given its target of helping 150,000 people by March 2006, how many people will be helped in each local authority area in (a) 2005 and (b) 2006.

The following table shows forecast figures for 2004-06 provided by the partnerships. There are currently no forecast figures available for the period after March 2006.

Local Authority	Forecast	Forecast	Total
2004-05	2005-06	2004-06
Aberdeen City	1,000	1,000	2,000
Aberdeenshire	1,100	898	1,998
Angus	880	605	1,485
Argyll and Bute	350	546	896
Borders	409	406	815
Clackmannanshire	327	346	673
Dumfries and Galloway	630	902	1,532
Dundee	1,237	1,607	2,844
East Ayrshire	367	258	625
East Dunbartonshire	291	355	646
East Lothian	780	626	1,406
East Renfrewshire	86	103	189
Edinburgh	5,100	4,397	9,497
Falkirk	560	662	1,222
Fife	2,398	2,433	4,831
Glasgow	4,746	5,250	9,996
Highland	760	891	1,651
Inverclyde	760	947	1,707
Midlothian	589	557	1,146
Moray	175	128	303
North Ayrshire	1,032	875	1,907
North Lanarkshire	3,000	3,000	6,000
Orkney	60	60	120
Perth and Kinross	353	367	720
Renfrewshire	950	1,000	1,950
Shetland	170	167	337
South Ayrshire	1,290	1,200	2,490
South Lanarkshire	1,755	1,969	3,724
Stirling	354	463	817
West Dunbartonshire	749	1,045	1,794
West Lothian	551	694	1,245
Western Isles	185	125	310
Totals	32,994	33,882	66,876