- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 15 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to improve the public transport links between Edinburgh and West Lothian.
Answer
The Scottish Executive supports public transport improvements through the Public Transport Fund. To access the fund, local authorities present projects to the Scottish Executive, individually or in partnership with other local authorities, for consideration.The provision of local bus services is a matter for individual bus operators and the relevant local authorities.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Margaret Curran on 10 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it plans to take to ensure that there is an adequate supply of good quality affordable housing in Edinburgh.
Answer
I refer the member to answer given to question S1W-20928 on 7 January 2002.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 27 December 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has issued good practice guidance common to all local authorities regarding the criteria for the exercise of local authority discretion over the provision of additional pre-school education for children born between September and December whose parents are considering deferral.
Answer
On 28 November the General Secretary of ADES issued guidance to all Directors of Education on local authorities' use of discretion over the provision of additional pre-school education for children born between September and December whose parents are considering deferral. This is in line with the recommendations of the Working Group on deferrals set up by ministers in July 2000.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 27 December 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to collect information on the number of (a) requests received from parents to defer entry to primary school and (b) the number of such requests which were granted from the school year 2000-01 to date, broken down by local authority area.
Answer
The Scottish Executive intends to collect information relating to deferral requests from local authorities as part of its annual survey of placing requests starting with school year 2001-02. The information will include the number of requests made to defer entry to primary P1, the numbers granted, refused, under consideration and withdrawn, and the reasons given for refusal. The results will be published in a statistical news release.Separate arrangements are being made to collect and publish information relating to school year 2000-01.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 27 December 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive how it intends to fund the recommendations of the Deferrals Working Group published in December 2000 and the announcement made by the then Deputy Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs on 12 June 2001 that children who become four in January or February and who have their entry to primary school deferred by their parents will be able to access an additional year of publicly funded pre-school education, given the subsequent announcement by the Minister for Finance and Public Services on 6 December 2001 that resources allocated to local authorities for pre-school education will no longer be ring-fenced.
Answer
The working group on the re-integration of pre-school education grant considered the recommendations of the Deferrals Working Group as part of their examination of the costs of re-integration. They agreed that the additional costs associated with children who become four in January or February and defer their entry into primary school would be affordable within the £137 million pre-school education grant to be reintegrated from April 2002.The reintegrated pre-school education grant forms part of the recently announced Local Government Settlement for 2002-03. Separate spending assessments for individual services are not identified nor subject to "ring fenced" conditions of grant.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Iain Gray on 27 December 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken in response to the report of the Social Justice Committee on the committee's response to petition PE242 by Action of Churches Together in Scotland, the Scottish Refugee Council and Amnesty International on asylum seekers.
Answer
Fieldwork for Scottish Executive commissioned research on the impact of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 will get under way early in 2002.Scottish Executive action in a number of areas includes improving access to specialist legal advice and assistance, provision of additional funding for English language support, community development and integration in Glasgow. We are also establishing the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum to take forward the devolved interests in refugee integration in partnership with the public, private and voluntary sectors.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 27 December 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether any waiting lists have been closed, including any which have been subsequently re-opened, in any hospital in the Lothian Health Board area in 2001.
Answer
It is unacceptable for patients who need treatment from an NHS consultant to be refused admission to the waiting list for consultation. I am assured by NHS Lothian that, other than the case in Lothian Primary Care Trust which was highlighted in early December, and which has now been addressed, there have been no instances of closed waiting lists in Lothian in 2001.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 26 December 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to support improvement to the railway infrastructure in West Lothian.
Answer
Railway infrastructure projects may qualify for financial assistance from either the Scottish Executive's Public Transport Fund (PTF) or Integrated Transport Fund (ITF). Bids under the PTF would have to satisfy eligibility criteria and compete with other bids, and those under the ITF would have to be considered by the Scottish Executive as being regionally or nationally strategic.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 26 December 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-19322, S1W-19323, S1W-19324, S1W-19325, S1W-19236, S1W-19327, S1W-19328, S1W-19329 and S1W-19330, by Ms Wendy Alexander on 6 November 2001, and to question S1W-5623 by Henry McLeish on 10 April 2000, at what date it ceased to collect and hold such information centrally.
Answer
The information provided in response to question S1W-5623 was collected from reports in the daily Scottish newspapers. In November 2001, we reviewed the robustness of this information and considered that as the Executive could not vouch for its accuracy or completeness it should not form the basis of the responses to questions S1W-19322 to 19330. But I apologise for not explaining that in the answers.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 26 December 2001
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-15941 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 May 2001, how many of the "initial expressions of interest" in the Motorola facility it has followed up, and what the current status of each of those expressions of interest is.
Answer
A small number of speculative enquiries have been received to date but there have been no firm offers acceptable to Motorola. Scottish Development International, in conjunction with Chesterton Blumenauer Binswanger, the property agents appointed by Motorola, continues to market the facility on a worldwide basis. It is for the company, not the Scottish Executive, to pursue expressions of interest in the first instance.
