- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 22 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it is taking to ensure that the medical profession as a whole recognises that myalgic encephalomyelitis, which has been classed as a neurological disease by the World Health Organisation, is an actual disease and not a psychosomatic condition.
Answer
The report of the working group set up by the Chief Medical Officer in England is expected to give guidance on how best the medical and other professions can respond to CFS/ME. The Executive will be considering how the report can be carried into practice in Scotland.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 22 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has made recommendations to the UK Working Group on myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and, if so, what these are and whether separate guidance on ME will be issued for Scotland.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-5502 on 5 April 2001.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 22 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will undertake a national audit of the services which are available to those who have myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Answer
There are no plans for such an audit, but the Executive is committed to working towards improving services for people with chronic enduring conditions. The forthcoming report of the working group, set up by the Chief Medical Officer in England, will help inform this process.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by David Steel on 18 May 2001
To ask the Presiding Officer why the official reports for meetings of committees of the Parliament are not published within seven days of a committee's last meeting and how the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body will ensure that committee members and interested parties have the Official Report before a committee's next meeting to allow all evidence to be considered.
Answer
The Official Report makes every effort to meet its target of publishing committee
Official Reports as quickly as possible and to agreed deadlines. The date of the next meeting is the first determinant of priority.The importance of timely publication is appreciated, but there are periods of more intense committee activity when the number, frequency and/or duration of meetings exceed the capacity to produce the
Official Report in time for a committee's next meeting. To address such situations, the following order of prioritisation was devised by the directorate of clerking and reporting and endorsed by the conveners group in April:
- Stage 2: non-Executive bills (including committee bills and members' bills)
- Consideration stage: private bills
- Major inquiry (eg SQA)
- Evidence at stage 1: Executive bills
- Evidence at stage 1: non-Executive bills (including committee bills and members' bills)
- Preliminary stage: private bills
- Other evidence
Details of publication dates are in the official report's production schedule, which is available on SPEIR and updated daily.There were 120 committee meetings in the 12 weeks between the Christmas and Easter recesses: the
Official Reports of all 120 were produced in time for the next meeting of the committee. There have been 59 meetings in the four weeks from 23 April to 18 May, during which time there was a heavy schedule of stage 2 meetings. The public holidays on 7 and 28 May cause significant delays in publication, but some Official Report staff will be working on the privilege holiday on 25 May to reduce the backlog.The SPCB addressed official report resourcing in February 2000. The consequential recruitment and training processes are on target to be completed by September.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 17 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will outline the Scottish Legal Aid Board's salary structure, for both staff and board members, indicating what the various salary bands are and how many people receive salaries in each band.
Answer
The figures are shown in the table.
Grade | Salary Band | No of posts in each band as at 31 March 2001 |
1 | £8,755 - £12,300 | 74 |
2 | £10,815 - £15,375 | 135 |
3 | £12,670 - £19,960 | 36 |
4 | £15,760 - £24,165 | 32 |
5 | £18,910 - £28,365 | 13 |
6 | £23,115 - £42,025 | 28 |
7 | £36,770 - £52,530 | 4 |
8 | £74,200 | 1 |
Board members | £7,409 for 24.5 hours per month | 10+1 unpaid |
Chairman | £25,123 for 56 hours per month | 1 |
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 17 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it discussed its proposals to free'e the Legal Aid Fund for the next three years with the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) prior to publishing its budget proposals and, if so, what SLAB's response was.
Answer
The Legal Aid Fund is not cash limited and therefore Scottish Ministers are required to provide whatever monies are necessary to meet the legal aid granted by the Scottish Legal Aid Board. There is therefore no question of a freeze on legal aid.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 May 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 17 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive how many employees in each salary band left the Scottish Legal Aid Board in each of the last five years and what each of these figures represents as a percentage of the total number of posts in the board in each salary band in each year.
Answer
The figures are shown in the following table and exclude temporary staff.
| 1996-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 |
Salary Band | No. of leavers | % of no of posts in band | No. of leavers | % of no of posts in band | No. of leavers | % of no of posts in band | No. of leavers | % of no of posts in band | No. of leavers | % of no of posts in band |
1 | 26 | 33 | 27 | 34 | 24 | 32 | 25 | 29 | 23 | 31 |
2 | 5 | 4 | 19 | 16 | 23 | 20 | 24 | 21 | 23 | 17 |
3 | 5 | 11 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 16 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 11 |
4 | 3 | 33 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 21 | 2 | 13 | 1 | 3 |
5 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 17 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 8 |
6 | 2 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 |
7 | 1 | 14 | 1 | 17 | 2 | 33 | 2 | 50 | 0 | 0 |
8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total leavers | 43 | 14 | 51 | 18 | 67 | 24 | 58 | 20 | 54 | 17 |
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 16 February 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Sarah Boyack on 15 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the statement by the First Minister on 15 February 2001 (Official Report, col. 1302) regarding the possibility that the trunk road maintenance contracts could be suspended or retendered after investigation by the Transport and the Environment Committee, what the cost implications would be in penalties and/or compensation of such courses of action.
Answer
The First Minister addressed the hypothetical situation where the report of Audit Scotland or the committee convinced ministers that there are serious difficulties with the contract. He further stated that there is no evidence whatever at this stage to justify such a course of action.The situation envisaged is clearly hypothetical and it is not possible to quantify possible penalties and/or compensation at this time.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicol Stephen on 14 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what funding was allocated specifically to child protection measures in (a) 1997-98, (b) 1998-99 and (c) 1999-2000.
Answer
I refer the Member to the answer given to question S1W-12814.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicol Stephen on 14 May 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it specifies to which child protection measures funding should be directed and, if not, how the use of funding is monitored.
Answer
Funding for child protection is part of the general budgets of the many agencies involved such as Social Work Departments, health boards and the police, who have discretion to determine their own spending priorities. Expenditure specific to child protection is not therefore separately identified or monitored.