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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-09973

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 9 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many police stations were closed in each of the last five years, broken down by police force area.

Information on the number of police stations closed in each of the last five years is not held centrally. The total number of stations closed in seven out of the eight police force areas over the past five years are shown in the following table. The figure for Strathclyde is the total over the past seven years.

Force	No. of Stations Closed
Central Scotland Police	0
Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary	1
Fife Constabulary	1
Grampian Police	11
Lothian and Borders Police	0
Northern Constabulary	7
Strathclyde Police	38
Tayside Police	4

Source: Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland.

Question reference: S2W-09976

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many staff work for ministers in their private offices and what the annual cost is of employing these staff.

Sixty-four staff currently work in ministerial private offices at an estimated annual staff cost of £1,990,000. This figure includes ERNIC and overtime.

There are a further three Scottish Executive staff who are assigned to the Crown Office and one Crown Office employee who provide support to the Law Officers at an approximate annual cost of £98,638. This figure also includes ERNIC and overtime and is based on average staff costs.

Question reference: S2W-09966

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 7 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the latest response figures are for ambulances responding to emergencies (a) in total and (b) broken down by NHS board area.

The figures requested, which represent the performance of the Scottish Ambulance Service in July 2004, are listed in the following tables:

Boards where Priority Based Dispatch is in operation (the Ambulance Service is working towards reaching the Category A target by March 2008):

NHS Boards	Category A	Category B	Doctor’s Urgent
Achievement against 75% in 8 mins	Achievement against 95% in either 14/19/21 mins (dependant on population density)	Achievement against 95% within 15 mins of agreed time
Argyll and Clyde	49.1%	93.9%	92.0%
Ayrshire and Arran	55.0%	95.6%	88.5%
Borders	60.5%	93.7%	94.8%
Dumfries and Galloway	48.5%	89.5%	89.1%
Fife	62.4%	95.6%	97.9%
Forth Valley	54.0%	95.2%	98.7%
Grampian	70.5%	96.6%	99.7%
Greater Glasgow	51.7%	87.3%	79.8%
Highland	61.7%	91.8%	99.9%
Lanarkshire	41.8%	95.7%	90.3%
Lothian	60.6%	98.0%	95.9%
Tayside	65.6%	95.3%	95.4%
Scotland (PBD)	56.3%	93.8%	92.5%

Non-Priority Based Dispatch Boards:

Health Board	Emergency	Emergency	Doctor’s Urgent
Achievement against 50% in 8 mins	Achievement against 95% in 21 mins	Achievement against 95% within 15 mins of agreed time
Orkney	40.9%	86.4%	100.0%
Shetland	50.0%	81.8%	100.0%
Western Isles	54.8%	91.7%	100.0%
Scotland (non PBD)	51.7%	89.1%	100.0%

Question reference: S2W-09941

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 7 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what national guidelines have been issued regarding the restraint of children when a party is acting in loco parentis; what duty there is on local authorities or other agencies to issue such guidelines; which local authorities and agencies have done so, and what monitoring is done in relation to the implementation of such guidelines.

The Executive has commissioned guidance on restraint from the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care, which is due to be published before the end of the year. Currently all residential care services children are required to have a written restraint policy according to the National Care Standards, and the Care Commission inspect twice yearly inspection against those standards. Monitoring is through that regular inspection process.

Question reference: S2W-09961

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 7 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients have to travel outwith their own NHS board area for renal dialysis, broken down by NHS board.

The information is set out in the following table.

NHS Board Area	Total no. of Patients on Hospital Haemodialysis	Patients Treated Outwith own NHS Board Area
Argyll and Clyde	105	42
Ayrshire and Arran	95	12
Borders	18	8
Dumfries and Galloway	47	*
Fife	87	11
Forth Valley	69	13
Glasgow	280	*
Grampian	141	*
Highland	70	*
Lanarkshire	166	28
Lothian	202	*
Tayside	108	*
No NHS Board reported **	37	-
Scotland	1,425	114

Source: Scottish Renal Registry.

Notes:

*Indicates figure of five or fewer. Also on grounds of patient confidentiality, the Island NHS Boards have not been included because of the very small patient numbers.

**NHS board of residence is derived from the patient’s postcode. The postcodes of 37 patients were missing. It is not possible to determine if these patients are receiving haemodialysis in their own NHS board area.

Patients may dialyse in a unit outwith their board of residence either for reasons of capacity or because they have chosen, for work or personal reasons, to attend such a unit.

Question reference: S2W-09965

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people under 21 received a custodial sentence in each of the last five years (a) in total and (b) broken down by sheriff court district.

The available information is given in the table.

Persons Aged Under 21 Given a Custodial Sentence in Scottish Courts, by Court, 1998-2002

	Year of Sentence
	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002¹
High Court	149	155	159	134	110
Sheriff Courts:
Aberdeen	321	299	313	236	172
Airdrie	93	100	80	79	79
Alloa	56	29	35	37	30
Arbroath	93	54	39	78	46
Ayr	142	137	207	164	143
Banff	12	21	7	34	9
Campbeltown	7	3	-	7	-
Cupar	20	19	25	34	18
Dingwall	11	12	12	5	2
Dornoch	2	2	7	2	2
Dumbarton	128	142	122	125	51
Dumfries	65	49	53	87	92
Dundee	390	265	310	306	246
Dunfermline	105	75	95	121	59
Dunoon	12	4	4	-	6
Duns	7	1	5	6	7
Edinburgh	293	374	373	407	397
Elgin	18	33	44	58	71
Falkirk	84	92	97	81	128
Forfar	21	17	12	36	38
Fort William	6	4	22	10	10
Glasgow	560	671	644	508	549
Greenock	190	206	149	134	107
Haddington	36	20	25	21	23
Hamilton	145	124	147	146	150
Inverness	42	68	69	47	30
Jedburgh	34	18	32	41	26
Kilmarnock	305	367	296	332	212
Kirkcaldy	186	251	160	147	78
Kirkcudbright	13	12	19	20	15
Kirkwall	1	3	1	3	1
Lanark	31	31	34	27	21
Lerwick	18	12	9	10	-
Linlithgow	54	119	72	52	116
Lochmaddy	1	-	3	1	-
Not Known	-	-	4	-	-
Oban	7	7	7	11	13
Paisley	262	210	193	236	201
Peebles	7	21	5	-	1
Perth	39	33	47	81	67
Peterhead	60	36	38	15	27
Rothesay	3	-	2	2	13
Selkirk	22	6	6	26	37
Stirling	40	38	40	38	47
Stonehaven	11	5	7	7	3
Stornoway	17	11	5	4	6
Stranraer	67	49	53	83	37
Tain	5	4	16	20	40
Wick	14	6	2	9	1
Sub-total	4,056	4,060	3,947	3,934	3,427
District and stipendiary magistrates courts:
Aberdeen City	38	15	4	2	1
Aberdeenshire	5	3	4	-	3
Angus	8	1	3	4	2
Clackmannanshire	-	-	-	-	1
Dumfries and Galloway	2	2	-	-	-
Dundee City	41	20	38	15	27
East Ayrshire	10	8	2	6	3
East Dunbartonshire	-	1	-	-	1
East Renfrewshire	1	-	-	1	-
Edinburgh, City of	1	1	2	4	8
Eilian Siar	-	-	5	-	-
Fife	6	10	4	7	-
Glasgow City	161	212	139	102	75
Highland	2	9	15	1	2
Inverclyde	-	1	7	2	1
Moray	-	-	-	3	1
North Ayrshire	1	-	1	2	1
North Lanarkshire	1	3	3	5	2
Perth and Kinross	2	3	5	7	2
Renfrewshire	-	-	-	2	4
Scottish Borders	1	-	-	-	-
South Ayrshire	-	9	3	20	10
South Lanarkshire	-	1	3	-	3
Stirling	1	-	-	-	-
West Dunbartonshire	-	2	1	8	-
West Lothian	-	-	-	1	2
Sub-total	281	301	239	192	149
All courts	4,486	4,516	4,345	4,260	3,686

Note: 1. Figures may be underestimates due to time taken to record court disposals on SCRO system.

Question reference: S2W-09963

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many vacancies there are for nurses, broken down by NHS board and expressed also as a percentage of the whole-time equivalent complement of the workforce.

Information on vacancies in NHSScotland is published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under workforce statistics, at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.Information on vacancies for nursing staff is published in table 10 in SectionE (Nursing and Midwifery Staff) for each year since 2001. Figures are presentedas vacancy rates and whole-time equivalent number of vacancies. Whole-timeequivalent adjusts headcount staff figures to take account of part-time staff.Latest available figures are at 31 March 2004.

Question reference: S2W-10092

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many crimes were committed by people on bail in each of the last five years in each sheriff court district, broken down by main crime.

Question reference: S2W-09979

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many items of specialised medical equipment are (a) not being used and (b) underused because of a lack of trained staff to operate them, broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S2W-09974

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-9291 by Malcolm Chisholm on 10 August 2004, how many patients have had their planned admissions for in-patient and day-case treatment cancelled more than once in each of the last five years.

The information requested is not available. It is not possible to identify from centrally collected data, the number of patients who have had their planned admissions to hospitals for in-patient or day-case treatment cancelled on more than one occasion.

Information is collected centrally only on the number of cancellations of planned admissions to hospital for inpatient and day case treatment. Figures for the last five years were provided in my answer to S2W-9291 on 10 August 2004. 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/search_wa.