- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Jackie Baillie on 24 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, as part of its social inclusion policy, it will make representations to all banks in Scotland to seek changes in the rules on verification framework and regarding the production of original bank books, building society accounts and other documents, in particular in relation to older people.
Answer
Regulation of financial services is a reserved matter. The Scottish Executive is working with the Scottish financial institutions to encourage the promotion of more inclusive products and practices.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 23 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive which local authorities have vired monies from this year's budget for older people and home care in order to meet other demands, what the amounts involved were and where the money was re-allocated.
Answer
The vast majority of Scottish Executive grant support to local government for expenditure on services, including home care and other social work provision for older people, is not ring-fenced or hypothecated. It is for each local authority to establish its priorities and set its budget consistent with meeting its statutory requirements and Scottish Executive policy. Following from the 2000 Spending Review, substantial additional resources have been provided for the next three years to enhance and improve care services for older people. We are discussing with local authorities what we expect to be achieved from these extra funds and shall issue detailed guidance early this year.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 23 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) ministerial and (b) non-ministerial letters providing information requested in parliamentary questions have been lodged in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre since the inception of the Parliament and whether there has been an increase in this practice.
Answer
The information requested is not held by the Scottish Executive.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 23 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications by elderly people for day care centre places have been refused in the last 12 months, broken down by local authority.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 January 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 23 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will review its current procedure of providing information requested in parliamentary questions by letter and lodging a copy of the letter in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre where currently the time of lodging the letter is not intimated to members and the response is not in the public domain, in order to ensure that all ministerial responses to questions are accessible and open to both parliamentary and public scrutiny.
Answer
The Executive has no plans to review its current procedure of providing information requested in certain parliamentary questions by letter and lodging a copy of the letter in the Parliament's Reference Centre. However, in consultation with the parliamentary authorities, we will give consideration to whether, and if so how, these responses might be placed in the wider domain.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 December 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 19 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what response it has made or will make to the conclusion of the 1997 report by the Scottish Ambulance Service Association Pensions and Retirement Age Working Group that "the proportion of front-line staff who are retiring on ill-health grounds is unacceptably high".
Answer
The report concerned was produced by the Ambulance Service Association and is based on statistical evidence from Ambulance Services in England and Wales between 1991-92 and 1994-95. In Scotland the occupational health and safety service strategy Towards a Safer Healthier Workplace, which was published in December 1999, makes clear that NHS in Scotland organisations must develop policies aimed at reducing costs associated with OHSS issues, including, sickness absence, injury benefits claims, and early retirement costs due to illness, accidents and injury.Our aim is to provide security of employment and to retain experienced officers in useful employment within the service.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 December 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Sam Galbraith on 16 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what the percentage increases were in (a) water and (b) sewerage charges in (i) 1996-97, (ii) 1997-98, (iii) 1998-99, (iv) 1999-2000 and (v) 2000-01, using 1995-96 as the base figure and broken down by water authority.
Answer
The percentage increases in water charges are shown in the following table, for each former regional council area. The results vary within water authority areas as the charges were progressively harmonised from the different levels charged by the former regional councils.
| Band D Water Charges, year on year percentage change |
| 1996-97 | 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 |
East of Scotland Water Area |
| Borders | -4% | 5% | 8% | 0% | 20% |
| Forth Valley | 4% | 13% | 40% | 21% | 37% |
| Fife | 5% | 12% | 25% | 2% | 30% |
| Lothian | -1% | 5% | 8% | 0% | 20% |
North of Scotland Water Area |
| Grampian | 4% | 7% | 11% | 8% | 39% |
| Highland | 2% | 7% | 11% | 8% | 39% |
| Tayside | 4% | 10% | 16% | 16% | 45% |
| Orkney | -5% | -4% | -1% | 8% | 39% |
| Shetland | -2% | -4% | -1% | 8% | 39% |
| Western Isles | -38% | -4% | -1% | 8% | 39% |
West of Scotland Water Area |
| Dumfries and Galloway | 8% | 6% | 8% | 4% | 12% |
| Strathclyde | 3% | 6% | 8% | 4% | 12% |
Sewerage charges were not separately levied by the former regional councils, but were included in the council tax. There is therefore no meaningful comparison with 1996-97. Domestic Sewerage Relief Grant offset most of the domestic sewerage charge in 1996-97, and a decreasing proportion thereafter until 1998-99. The figures shown in the table below show the change in the gross amount levied by the water authority, before the deduction of the grant.
| Band D Sewerage Charges, year on year percentage change |
| 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 |
| East of Scotland Water Area | 8% | 12% | 18% | 25% |
| North of Scotland Water Area | 7% | 14% | 13% | 48% |
| West of Scotland Water Area | 6% | 17% | 20% | 27% |
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 22 December 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 12 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of (a) people receiving Council Tax Benefit but not 100% benefit and (b) people not in receipt of Council Tax Benefit were in payment arrears in (i) 1996-97, (ii) 1997-98, (iii) 1998-99, (iv) 1999-2000 and to date in the current financial year.
Answer
This information is not held centrally. Social security benefits including Council Tax Benefit are reserved matters and are the responsibility of the Department of Social Security.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jackie Baillie on 10 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive how many households where the householder is a pensioner currently (a) have central heating and (b) do not have central heating and what criteria it uses to determine whether a household is a household where the householder is a pensioner.
Answer
The 1996 Scottish House Condition Survey estimated that 477,000 pensioner households had central heating and 88,000 did not. We estimate that in the four years since the survey was carried out the number without central heating will have fallen to around 70,000. For the purpose of the survey a pensioner household is one which contains one or more adults of pensionable age and no children.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 23 November 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 10 January 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to Clive Fairweather's evidence to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee on 11 September 1999 that the reported average (net present value) #11,000 cost per prisoner place (CPPP) at Kilmarnock Prison was not directly comparable with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) average CPPP of #28,000 (Official Report, col. 1666), whether, if the average CPPP at Kilmarnock was calculated on the same basis as the SPS figure, it would be #26,000 and, if not, what it would be.
Answer
I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:
The total cost of HMP Kilmarnock over the 25-year period of the contract is approximately £130 million in Net Present Value terms. This equates to an annual cost per prisoner place of around £11,000 in Net Present Value terms.Using the same methodology, the annual cost per prisoner place for the Scottish Prison Service designing, constructing, financing and operating HMP Kilmarnock over 25 years would be around £21,000 in Net Present Value terms.
