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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: S3W-27610

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 1 October 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive on what grounds licensing applications have been rejected under the Licensing of Animal Dealers (Young Cats and Dogs) (Scotland) Regulations 2009.

Question reference: S3W-24697

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 17 June 2009

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many small and medium-sized enterprises (a) bid for contracts for services in the Parliament and (b) were successful in whole or part, also expressed as a percentage, in each year since 1999.

The information below shows how many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been successful in bidding for Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) contracts (goods and services) by number since April 2003.

This historical information is only available from 2003 in a percentage format as this was when procurement services commenced its Responsible Purchasing Initiative, part of which contained a commitment to actively remove barriers to SME participation in SPCB procurement.

To date, the number of SMEs that have bid for contracts has not been recorded. However, as part of the SPCB''s Responsible Purchasing Strategy, procurement services is currently developing a system to obtain this information, which will start to be published from 1 April 2010 (from this date we will also record and publish the same statistics for social enterprises)

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/corporate/procurement/docs/Strategy-FINAL.pdf.

Years	Total Number of Contracts Let to SMEs
2003-04	39%
2004-05	48%
2005-06	45%
2006-07	62%
2007-08	67%
2008-09	53%

Question reference: S3O-07367

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 June 2009
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 11 June 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what efforts are being made to support expanding businesses in the Scottish Borders during the economic downturn.

In the face of recession, we remain firmly committed to our overarching purpose of increasing sustainable economic growth. However, we are very aware that action is required now to protect the nation from the worst of the downturn and ensure Scotland is well placed to recover quickly. We will publish an updated Programme for Economic Recovery on 15 June.

This programme allows us to be dynamic and flexible in our response to the downturn yet remain within the overall direction of our Government Economic Strategy.

To this end we have charged Scottish Enterprise to assist growing companies in the Borders and throughout Scotland, to address particular areas of their business including: refocusing strategy; developing new market/customer opportunities; new product development and innovation; reducing operating costs and increasing efficiencies, and advice on access to funding where appropriate.

Question reference: S3W-23845

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 21 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what funding has been distributed to provide ophthalmic services, broken down by NHS board.

General Ophthalmic Services (GOS) is a demand led primary care service. The (GOS) budget is non-discretionary and NHS boards are funded to the level of their expenditure in meeting the costs in their area of providing the NHS eye examinations, optical vouchers issued and the fees for domiciliary visits. The GOS budget for 2008-09 was £83.9 million and is £87.4 million for 2009-10.

An additional £8 million of capital funding was made available to optical practices through NHS boards over the financial years 2007-08 and 2008-09, primarily for the provision of digital fundus cameras to further support the development of the NHS eye examinations.

NHS boards also received a further £2.6 million of pump priming funding over the financial years 2007-08 and 2008-09 to help implement the recommendations of the Review of Community Eyecare Services in Scotland.

Question reference: S3W-23359

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many Scottish Environment Protection Agency enforcement notices have been served against military facilities or installations in each year since 2003.

Question reference: S3W-23360

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any of its officials or agencies have undertaken an assessment of the potential environmental and health impacts of radioactive contamination from the Faslane nuclear submarine base.

Yes. Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) routinely monitors the levels of radioactive contamination around Faslane. The purpose of this monitoring is to examine the dispersion of radioactive discharges from the site and to confirm the safety of the food chain. The results of its assessment are published annually in the Radioactivity in Food and the Environment (RIFE) report. The report is published jointly by SEPA, the Food Standards Agency, Environment Agency and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.

A copy of the most recently published RIFE report covering 2007 (Bib. number 47127) and previous reports for 2003 to 2006 (Bib. numbers 34135, 37874, 40784 and 44134) are available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre and are publicly available on SEPA''s website at:

http://www.sepa.org.uk/radioactive_substances/rs_publications/rife_reports.aspx.

Question reference: S3W-23361

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 7 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider issuing guidance to police forces that pay for intelligence information from informants in relation to groups or organisations that are not criminal or violent in nature.

Question reference: S3W-22074

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 2 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-3432 by Stewart Stevenson on 3 September 2007, how many Scottish national entitlement card holders have qualified for a concessionary travel companion card since August 2007, broken down by local authority area.

Information available to Transport Scotland indicates that as of 27 February 2009 there were 1,122,846 valid National Entitlement Cards in circulation giving access to Scotland-Wide Free Bus Travel for Older and Disabled People.

The following table shows the number of National Entitlement Card holders who qualify for the companion entitlement as of 27 February 2009, broken down by local authority. The total number currently in circulation is 104,277.

Local Authority	Category of Disabled Plus Companion	Eligibility Visually Impaired Plus Companion	Totals
Aberdeen City	2,282	583	2,865
Aberdeenshire	1,512	403	1,915
Angus	660	137	797
Argyll and Bute	1,272	202	1,474
City of Edinburgh	9,167	1,188	10,355
Clackmannanshire	547	58	605
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	149	20	169
Dumfries and Galloway	1,207	429	1,636
Dundee City	2,445	405	2,850
East Ayrshire	2,472	231	2,703
East Dunbartonshire	1,121	149	1,270
East Lothian	1,674	226	1,900
East Renfrewshire	955	110	1,065
Falkirk	1,391	290	1,681
Fife	12,810	881	13,691
Glasgow	17,618	1,475	19,093
Highland	1,915	562	2,477
Inverclyde	2,256	209	2,465
Midlothian	1,626	232	1,858
Moray	703	180	883
North Ayrshire	2,953	361	3,314
North Lanarkshire	6,665	536	7,201
Orkney Islands	213	19	232
Perth and Kinross	953	252	1,205
Renfrewshire	3,577	379	3,956
Scottish Borders	861	221	1,082
Shetland Islands	228	24	252
South Ayrshire	2,047	265	2,312
South Lanarkshire	5,794	601	6,395
Stirling	611	133	744
West Dunbartonshire	2,292	242	2,534
West Lothian	3,029	269	3,298
Totals	93,005	11,272	104,277

Question reference: S3W-22034

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many referrals sportscotland made to ministers upholding objections to development on playing fields and in how many cases the objections were upheld in each year since 1999.

Sportscotland has no powers to notify planning applications to Scottish ministers. Where sportscotland lodges and maintains an objection it is the responsibility of the planning authority, if minded to grant planning consent, to decide whether the planning application requires to be notified to Scottish ministers. However, the following represents the number of planning applications notified by planning authorities since 1999:

Year	Cases Referred to Scottish Ministers due to Sportscotland Objections	Cases Called in by Scottish Ministers for Determination
1999-2000	1	1
2000-01	2	1
2001-02	0	0
2002-03	4	1
2003-04	2	0
2004-05	2	1
2005-06	3	1
2006-07	0	0
2007-08	2	1
2008-09	2	0

Question reference: S3W-21935

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 25 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will make representations to The National Archives in Surrey for the permanent return to Scotland of the William Wallace safe conduct letter.

I have asked George MacKenzie, Keeper of the Records of Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

The Scottish Government has no plans to request The National Archives (TNA) to transfer the William Wallace document it possesses to The National Archives of Scotland (NAS). To make a successful claim, NAS would need to demonstrate that the document belonged to Wallace in an official capacity and was therefore a record of the early Scottish state. Experts in NAS do not believe that it is a safe conduct, nor is there clear evidence that it was taken from Wallace on his capture. It does not follow the form of a safe conduct, it does not say what a safe conduct of that time would have said, and it does not have an authenticating seal.

Any request for return of a document to Scotland must be based on clear evidence about its provenance. The 1297 Lubeck letter was created in Scotland but was addressed to the city of Lubeck and it is correct that it remains there. In the case of the Wallace document in TNA, NAS genuinely does not have enough evidence to substantiate a claim that it should be returned to Scotland.

The Wallace document is well looked after in TNA and there is a digital image on their website for anyone to view. NAS will shortly launch a website feature on documents which are of significant interest to Scottish history, but which, for good reason, have ended up outside the country, including the Lubeck letter, the Poppleton manuscript and this Wallace document.