- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 February 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 28 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what representations ministers will make to the relevant authorities to introduce the “sco” abbreviation as standard for official email addresses for all Scottish public bodies in place of “gov.uk” or “scottish.parliament.uk”.
Answer
We are giving careful consideration to the issues that would be raised by the introduction of the sco abbreviation so that, should the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) call for proposals for new generic top-level domain names, the Scottish Government will be able to make an informed decision about whether to support an sco abbreviation.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Elish Angiolini on 28 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of fraud were referred to the Procurator Fiscal by police forces in each year since 1999, broken down by constabulary.
Answer
The numbers of charges of fraud reported to Procurators Fiscal by police forces in each financial year since 2002-03 are shown in the following table. A further 2,161 such charges were reported to Procurators Fiscal by Specialist Reporting Agencies.
Charges: Fraud etc
| Police Force | 2002-03 | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | Total |
| Central Scotland Police | 931 | 866 | 981 | 909 | 633 | 4,320 |
| Dumfries and Galloway Police | 442 | 343 | 540 | 97 | 122 | 1,544 |
| Fife Constabulary | 802 | 901 | 819 | 702 | 571 | 3,795 |
| Grampian Police | 919 | 660 | 709 | 554 | 354 | 3,196 |
| Lothian and Borders | 2,800 | 2,010 | 3,069 | 2,096 | 1,300 | 11,275 |
| Northern Constabulary | 853 | 487 | 697 | 645 | 341 | 3,023 |
| Strathclyde Police | 3,546 | 3,319 | 2,733 | 2,573 | 2,040 | 14,211 |
| Tayside Police | 879 | 845 | 1,175 | 845 | 739 | 4,483 |
| British Transport Police | 176 | 215 | 51 | 49 | 23 | 514 |
| Ministry of Defence Police | 26 | 69 | 53 | 16 | 88 | 252 |
| Total | 11,374 | 9,715 | 10,827 | 8,486 | 6,211 | 46,613 |
Notes:
1. The information in the table has been extracted from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service's case management database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency, the database will record details only of the amended charge.
2. The database is charge-based. The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.
3. The information in the table is restricted to charges involving fraud, attempted fraud, fraud (board and lodging), fraud (credit/debit card), fraud (electronic means), fraud (taxi fare/vehicle/vessel etc fare) and fraudulent schemes.
4. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service completed an upgrade of its electronic case management system in April 2002. Only case records created after that date contain complete data which is capable of electronic analysis.
5. The table reflects the position at 20 March 2008.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Johnstone on 25 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many IT incidents have been recorded where parliamentary account users have been unable to log on remotely from home or constituency offices due to problems associated with lack of capacity on parliamentary servers.
Answer
IT incidents have been categorised since December 2005. The table below shows the number of IT incidents logged with the Helpdesk per month where the user has been unable to connect to the Parliament remotely due to capacity issues.
| | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
| January | | 8 | 3 | 7 |
| February | | 17 | 5 | 35 |
| March | | 29 | 20 | 102 |
| April | | 1 | 0 | |
| May | | 0 | 0 | |
| June | | 48 | 1 | |
| July | | 2 | 0 | |
| August | | 10 | 1 | |
| September | | 2 | 0 | |
| October | | 6 | 7 | |
| November | | 1 | 4 | |
| December | 4 | 0 | 6 | |
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-7395 by Richard Lochhead on 5 December 2007, when regulations in respect of the transportation of puppies pursuant to the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 will be laid and whether they will be subject to affirmative or negative procedure.
Answer
Draft regulations which will require puppy and kitten dealers to be licensed by local authorities will be laid in Parliament shortly after the Easter recess. These draft regulations will need to be approved by resolution of the Parliament before they can be made (the affirmative procedure).
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Johnstone on 11 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many interns have been allocated parliamentary IT accounts in each year since 2003.
Answer
All IT accounts created for interns are sponsored by a member and categorised on the IT systems as MSP staff. The total number of interns commencing employment at the Parliament in each year since 2003 is detailed in the table below:
| Year | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
| Number of Interns | 53 | 66 | 102 | 94 | 61 | 23 |
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Johnstone on 11 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many parliamentary account users reported problems to the IT Helpdesk while logging on remotely from home or constituency office via the citrix log-on service from (a) 1 January to 29 February 2008 and (b) 1 January to 28 February 2007.
Answer
During the period 1 January to 29 February 2008, 185 parliamentary IT account users contacted the IT Helpdesk regarding the remote access service. During the period 1 January 2007 to 28 February 2007, 213 parliamentary IT account users contacted the Helpdesk regarding the remote access service.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Johnstone on 11 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body why the current IT service operated by Logica CMG is not a stable platform for remote users of parliamentary IT accounts and when the service will become stable and reliable.
Answer
The remote access service offered by the SPCB to provide access to key IT systems from locations other then the Holyrood building has recently been experiencing intermittent problems. The problems have led to some users of the service being unable to log on to the Parliament network remotely, or even when logon was possible, users have experienced performance issues.
An interim solution was brought online on Friday 7 March to alleviate the problems and it is expected that the final solution will be in place by Monday 17 March.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Johnstone on 11 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how it monitors the performance of the Parliament’s IT contract managed by Logica CMG.
Answer
The contract with Logica is managed under the Scottish Parliament's Contractor Performance Management (CPM) scheme, as was the contract with the previous supplier. The CPM model used enables the Scottish Parliament and Logica to meet their obligations under the contract. Full details on the CPM process can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/corporate/procurement/cpmm.htm.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Johnstone on 11 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether the rate of reported IT problems by parliamentary account users has increased or decreased since Logica CMG was awarded the contract for managing the Parliament’s IT service and, if so, how this compares in percentage terms with the same period for the previous year.
Answer
On 1 January 2008, Logica CMG took over contractual responsibility for the running of the IT Services defined by the IT Infrastructure and Support Services Contract.
The IT Helpdesk receive calls relating to all IT services offered by the Business Information Technology Office. The total number of calls logged by the IT Helpdesk during January and February 2008 was 4,477. The total number of calls logged for the same period in 2007 was 3,574. There has been a 25% increase in the total number of calls logged by the IT helpdesk when comparing the two periods.
- Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Johnstone on 11 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body when the issues associated with lack of IT capacity, specifically the service related to remote access, will be resolved.
Answer
The remote access service offered by the SPCB to facilitate connection from locations other than the Holyrood building has recently been experiencing intermittent problems. An interim solution was brought online on Friday 7 March to alleviate the problems and it is expected that the final solution will be in place by Monday 17 March.
