- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 15 September 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 28 September 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how many electoral arrangement orders for the 2007 elections have been referred back to the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland for review.
Answer
I have not referred anyreviews back to the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 15 September 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 28 September 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how many electoral arrangement orders it has approved for the 2007 local government election.
Answer
As at 22 September, 20 ElectoralArrangement Orders have been made.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 15 September 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 28 September 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive how many electoral arrangement orders have been submitted to it by the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland for the 2007 election.
Answer
The Local GovernmentBoundary Commission for Scotland has submitted 32 reports.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 15 September 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 28 September 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive which local authorities it has met to discuss the recommendations of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland in respect of the 2007 election.
Answer
I have not met anyauthorities to discuss the Commission’s recommendations. As indicated in myanswer to question S2W-27919 on 13 September 2006, I met West LothianCouncil to better understand their proposals submitted during the six week periodfollowing publication of the Commission’s recommendations.All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliaments website, the search facility forwhich can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 01 September 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Hugh Henry on 27 September 2006
To ask the Scottish Executives how many bankruptcies there have been in each of the last five years and, of these, how many were student borrowers.
Answer
The Accountant in Bankruptcymaintains the Register of Insolvencies in Scotland. Details of bankruptcies are compiled by financial year.The following table gives the number of bankruptcies for the financial years 2001-02to 2005-06. Statistics on how many debtors were student borrowers is not held onthe register.
| Financial Year | Number of Sequestrations in Scotland |
| 2001-02 | 3,193 |
| 2002-03 | 3,228 |
| 2003-04 | 3,309 |
| 2004-05 | 3,521 |
| 2005-06 | 5,423 |
Source: Accountant in Bankruptcy.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Monday, 21 August 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 13 September 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform has held any meetings with West Lothian Labour councillors about the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland's final recommendations submitted on 8 June 2006.
Answer
I met the West Lothian CouncilLeader and officials on 14 August. I requested this meeting to better understandthe council’s proposals submitted during the six week period following publicationof the commission’s recommendations.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 23 June 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 6 September 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of teachers have obtained permanent posts in the year after completing probation in each of the last three years.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-18887 on 28 September 2005. All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facilityfor which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 23 June 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 8 August 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has received any representations from post-probation teachers regarding difficulties in obtaining permanent employment.
Answer
The Scottish Executive hasreceived 18 representations about 2005-06 probationers having difficulties inobtaining permanent employment. There are around 2,700 post-probationerteachers from this year’s Teacher Induction Scheme.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 23 June 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Robert Brown on 14 July 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is aware of any problems with the recruitment of teaching staff to meet class reduction and McCrone-related non-contact time targets.
Answer
The recruitment of teachersis a matter for local authorities.
Overall sufficient teachershave been trained to meet the reduction in class contact time to 22.5 hours inAugust 2006. There are no interim targets for the delivery of the commitment toreduce class sizes by August 2007, but very good progress continues to be madein training the teachers required to meet our target.
We are providing additionalfunds of £18 million to £44 million in 2006 and 2007 for authorities to employadditional teachers. In addition, we will be fully funding around 1,000probationer teachers each year in 2006 and 2007 who can also be used to meetclass contact and class size reductions.
In addition, we recentlydecided that a further £14.5 million of central resources would also bedistributed through the National Priorities Action Fund for the employment ofadditional teachers this year over and above previously set employment levels. Thisbrings total additional resources for 2006-07 to £32.5 million.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Friday, 23 June 2006
-
Current Status:
Answered by Robert Brown on 14 July 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has received any representations from local education authorities in respect of any difficulties of placing probationer teachers in schools.
Answer
No such representations havebeen received. The teacher induction scheme, which is administered jointly bythe Scottish Executive and the General Teaching Council for Scotland,only allocates probationers to local authorities in such numbers that they haveindicated they can accommodate.
