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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S3W-11826

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 14 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 23 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether ministers consider it their role to expedite planning applications under active consideration by planning authorities and independent statutory consultees to the planning process and, if so, what criteria they use to assess which applications to assist.

Scottish Government ministers at all times discharge their planning functions fairly and responsibly, having regard to all relevant planning legislation and the Scottish Ministerial Code.

Paragraphs 6.7 “ 6.12 of the code are particularly relevant to the handling of a planning application. The code is available on the Scottish Government website:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/08/17996/25267

Question reference: S3W-11707

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executivewhat guidance is available to people with learning disabilities to help them to opt out of the local authority tendering process for community care services and seek a direct payment to purchase their own services instead.

Question reference: S3W-11706

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what rights people with learning disabilities have to opt out of the local authority tendering process for community care services and request a direct payment to purchase their own services instead.

Question reference: S3W-11705

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether people with learning disabilities are able to opt out of the local authority tendering process for community care services and request a direct payment to purchase their own services instead.

Since June 2003, every Scottish local authority has had a duty to offer people with learning disabilities and other disabled and elderly people who meet local authority eligibility criteria for community care, the opportunity to receive self-directed support (direct payments). They can receive the practical help that they need to enable them to manage the care package day-to-day. The flexibility achieved is such that those with complex needs can also have self-directed support using the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 to safeguard their interests. The Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability has produced An easy guide to direct payments (2005) for people with learning disabilities which is available at http://www.scld.org.uk/library-publications/scld-publications.xhtml.

Question reference: S3W-11855

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 22 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will ensure that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde replies to my letter dated 8 October 2007, and subsequent reminders dated 28 January and 29 February 2008, in relation to Agenda for Change.

It is the responsibility of NHS boards to deal with any correspondence sent to them and ensure that appropriate responses are issued. Since receiving your question my officials have been in touch with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. I understand that a preliminary response was sent on 26 February confirming that the matter you had raised was being looked into and that a final reply will be issued once further information is available.

Question reference: S3W-11717

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 22 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will commence consultation on the use of funds from dormant bank accounts, as promised during the parliamentary debate on 24 January 2008 (Official Report c. 5388).

Question reference: S3W-10741

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Tricia Marwick on 18 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many freedom of information requests have been made to the Parliament by journalists since the enactment of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, broken down by (a) newspaper and (b) cost of processing.

Question reference: S3W-10740

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Tricia Marwick on 18 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the cost has been of processing freedom of information requests made to the Parliament by (a) members of the public, (b) MSPs, (c) parliamentary researchers and (d) journalists in each month since the enactment of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

The enclosed tables set out the cost of processing freedom of information requests for the specified categories of requesters based on the time recorded by Freedom of Information Action Officers and Decision Takers who have prepared replies to FOI requests up until 6 March 2008. The time recorded does not include input by staff in SPICe (The Information Centre), the Directorate of Legal Services and the Media Relations Office because expertise in these areas is overarching and not necessarily specific to individual requests. The cost has been calculated at £35.39 per hour, the current hourly rate of a grade 5 member of staff.

2005	Requests by Members of the Public (£)	Requests by MSPs	Requests by Parliamentary Researchers	Requests by Journalists
January	1,481	0	0	10,328
February	336	150	0	4,675
March	941	1,593	0	531
April	1,010	0	725	1,324
May	510	62	0	1,478
June	2,777	0	823	9,632
July	1,796	306	18	9,373
August	73	71	396	3,551
September	2,179	0	0	1,123
October	1,577	0	0	8,679
November	437	0	18	6,781
December	888	0	0	1,331
Total	14,005	2,183	1,980	58,822
2006
January	184	0	0	2,353
February	1,074	71	0	2,663
March	2,552	0	593	7,458
April	754	0	0	1,340
May	5,452	0	0	3,304
June	1,046	0	0	717
July	2,207	0	0	1,770
August	1,067	00	0	796
September	600	1,476	1,239	191
October	110	0	0	727
November	2,821	340	115	3,082
December	2,374	0	106	549
Total	20,239	1,886	2,053	24,950
2007
January	876	0	71	2,858
February	2,601	0	00	5,404
March	379	138	65	3,948
April	889	248	0	2,986
May	156	0	0	2,535
June	230	1,299	0	687
July	1,109	239	328	2,638
August	177	0	0	1,194
September	672	53	0	775
October	274	0	0	1,059
November	18	53	0	1,200
December	257	0	0	159
Total	7,639	2,030	464	25,444
2008
January	319	0	88	53
February	487	35	0	710
March	0	0	0	9
Total	805	0	88	772
Grand Total	42,688	6,134	4,585	109,988

Question reference: S3W-10743

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Tricia Marwick on 18 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether the cost of processing freedom of information requests to the Parliament has risen in the last year.

Question reference: S3W-10739

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2008
Current Status: Answered by Tricia Marwick on 18 April 2008

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the cost has been of processing freedom of information requests to the Parliament in each month since the enactment of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

The enclosed table sets out the cost of replying to freedom of information requests based on the time recorded by Freedom of Information Action Officers and Decision Takers who have prepared replies to FOI requests up until 6 March 2008. The time recorded does not include input by staff in SPICe (The Information Centre), the Directorate of Legal Services or the Media Relations Office because input in these areas is overarching and not necessarily specific to individual requests. The cost has been calculated at £35.39 per hour, the current hourly rate of a grade 5 member of staff.

Year	Month	Total (£)
2005	1	14,242
	2	10,033
	3	4,569
	4	3,617
	5	3,979
	6	13,246
	7	11,530
	8	4,192
	9	3,302
	10	10,291
	11	7,660
	12	2,219
2005 Total		88,880
2006	1	2,714
	2	5,124
	3	13,514
	4	2,571
	5	8,977
	6	2,155
	7	3,976
	8	1,991
	9	3,744
	10	1,977
	11	6,358
	12	3,319
2006 Total		56,420
2007	1	3,929
	2	8,005
	3	4,645
	4	4,749
	5	2,715
	6	2,216
	7	4,358
	8	1,690
	9	1,501
	10	1,483
	11	1,280
	12	416
2007 Total		36,986
2008	1	655
	2	1,232
	3	9
2008 Total		1,895
Grand Total		184,181