- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Tricia Marwick on 18 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many freedom of information requests were made to the Parliament by (a) members of the public, (b) MSPs, (c) parliamentary researchers and (d) journalists in each year since the enactment of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
Answer
| | Requests from Members of the Public | Requests from MSPs | Requests from Parliamentary Researchers | Requests from Journalists |
| 2005 | | | | |
| January | 22 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
| February | 17 | 1 | 0 | 10 |
| March | 18 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| April | 4 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| May | 10 | 2 | 0 | 9 |
| June | 10 | 0 | 2 | 17 |
| July | 7 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| August | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| September | 7 | 2 | 0 | 9 |
| October | 12 | 0 | 1 | 20 |
| November | 13 | 0 | 1 | 12 |
| December | 9 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Total | 140 | 11 | 7 | 132 |
| 2006 | | | | |
| January | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| February | 7 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| March | 10 | 0 | 3 | 29 |
| April | 9 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| May | 14 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| June | 7 | 0 | 0 | 14 |
| July | 5 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| August | 12 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| September | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| October | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| November | 12 | 4 | 2 | 10 |
| December | 7 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Total | 91 | 6 | 8 | 107 |
| 2007 | | | | |
| January | 10 | 0 | 1 | 23 |
| February | 15 | 0 | 0 | 71 |
| March | 6 | 4 | 3 | 114 |
| April | 7 | 4 | 0 | 19 |
| May | 4 | 0 | 0 | 30 |
| June | 4 | 1 | 0 | 10 |
| July | 11 | 2 | 2 | 20 |
| August | 1 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| September | 6 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| October | 8 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| November | 3 | 1 | 0 | 11 |
| December | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 78 | 13 | 6 | 337 |
| January | 3 | 0 | | 4 |
| February | 12 | 1 | 1 | 53 |
| March | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Total | 16 | 1 | 2 | 62 |
| Grand Total | 325 | 31 | 23 | 638 |
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 06 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Tricia Marwick on 18 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body on which occasions it has had to employ additional staff to deal with freedom of information requests to the Parliament since the enactment of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and what total costs arose from such action.
Answer
On one occasion on receipt of 39 FOI Requests submitted within a period of 17 working days. The cost incurred to date has been £1,053.18.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 16 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there are standard operating practices and procedures in place in the First Minister’s private office for dealing with correspondence from constituents and others and, if so, whether it will publish these practices and procedures.
Answer
There are standard operating practices and procedures in place for management of the First Minister''s correspondence by his private office. These practices are in line with the Scottish Government ministerial correspondence administration guidance for staff and are unchanged from the previous administration. We have no current plans to publish this guidance.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 16 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive who in the First Minister’s (FM’s) private office decided not to bring to the FM’s attention correspondence from Mr Donald Macdonald and an enclosure of correspondence between HBOS and Highland Council stating that without the relevant planning consents the bank would have “no option but to take action to mitigate its financial position…. likely to involve closure of the company and the complete resort operation, including the retail, no later than the middle of January 2008”, which was received from the FM’s constituency office manager; how that decision was reached, and when.
Answer
The decision was taken by the Assistant Private Secretary with responsibility for correspondence on the basis of established protocol upon receipt of the correspondence to the First Minister''s private office.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 16 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the contents of the letter from HBOS to Highland Council dated 23 October 2007 and copied to the First Minister in which it was stated that without the relevant planning consents the bank would have “no option but to take action to mitigate its financial position.... likely to involve closure of the company and the complete resort operation, including the retail, no later than the middle of January 2008”, what the reasons were for the First Minister taking no action other than sending a formal response three weeks later and before personally intervening on 6 December 2007 to assist the consortium involved in the development.
Answer
The First Minister did not have sight of the correspondence and did not respond to it. A response was sent by an official in line with ministerial correspondence administration protocol.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 16 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether standard operating practices and procedures were applied by the First Minister’s (FM’s) private office in relation to the receipt of correspondence from Mr Donald Macdonald and an enclosure of correspondence between HBOS and Highland Council intimating the prospective closure of the Macdonald hotel company and the complete resort operation, received from the First Minister’s constituency office manager on 29 October 2007.
Answer
Yes.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 16 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Scottish Environment Protection Agency is under any statutory duty to give weight to the economic interests of developers in undertaking its statutory duties, beyond any general encouragement or guidance to act efficiently and as expeditiously as possible in conducting its affairs and dealing with planning applications.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-11032 on 16 April 2008 All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 16 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive which minister would have determined any appeal by the developers of Aviemore resort hotels against a decision by the Cairngorms National Park Authority to reject the master plan and any related planning applications
Answer
Where an application for planning permission has been made to the planning authority and has been refused, approved with conditions, or the authority has failed to make a decision on the application within the set period, the applicant may appeal to Scottish ministers. Appeals are handled by inquiry reporters in the Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals.
In most cases the inquiry reporter will prepare and issue the decision letter on behalf of Scottish ministers. In a small number of cases, however, the reporter will not issue the decision but will send a report with a recommendation to Scottish ministers. The decision on the appeal would be taken by the Planning Minister, Stewart Stevenson. If the Planning Minister were debarred from the decision-making process, e.g. by having a constituency interest or by having publicly expressed a view about the case, then another minister would make the decision on his behalf.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 16 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what the reasons were for the First Minister circulating a briefing note commissioned by the Minister for Community Safety, and prepared by building consultants on behalf of the developer of Aviemore resort hotels, to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change and the Minister for Environment.
Answer
The briefing note was forwarded by the First Minister''s private office to the ministers and a number of officials for background information following the approaches made by MSPs to the First Minister and others.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 14 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 16 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether standard operating practices and procedures were applied by the First Minister’s private office in relation to correspondence from Mr Donald Macdonald’s company and enclosures of further correspondence between Mr Macdonald’s company and the planning authorities, the Cairngorms National Park Authority and Highland Council, concerning the Aviemore resort hotels planning application as received by email from the First Minister’s constituency office manager on 9 and 13 November 2007.
Answer
Yes.
