- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 June 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicol Stephen on 16 June 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in increasing cycle use in Scotland in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.
Answer
The Scottish Executive does not collect statistics of cycle use in each year for each local authorityarea.
Some statistics about cycle useby local authority area are available from the Scottish Household Survey (SHS).This is designed to provide estimates for most local authority areas for two-yearperiods, including (a) the percentage of households with one or more bicycles whichcan be used by adults; (b) the percentage of adults who made a trip of more thana quarter of a mile by bicycle for certain purposes on one or more of the previousseven days; (c) the percentage who usually cycle to work; (d) the percentage whousually cycle to school, and (e) the percentage of journeys reported by adults whichwere made by bicycle.
Such statistics for each localauthority area appear in the Scottish Executive's Transport Statistics bulletins of SHS results, whichare available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, such as: Transportacross Scotland in 2001 and 2002: some SHS results for parts of Scotland (Bib.number 30990) and SHS Travel Diary results for 2002 (Bib. number 32737).
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 June 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicol Stephen on 16 June 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress is being made in the provision of new cycling facilities by each local authority.
Answer
Cycling Scotland, whichis core funded by the Executive, published in March 2005 a national assessment oflocal authorities’ performance on cycling provision, which included summaries of the facilities provided by each authority. I have arranged for copies of the reportto be placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre(Bib. number 36748).
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 31 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is concerned about the increase in many childhood cancers, as recorded in Childhood Cancer in Scotland 1975-1999, published by the Information and Statistics Division of NHS Scotland.
Answer
Concerns about the increased incidence of cancer and the needs of those who suffer from it make cancer one of the top priorities for the Scottish Executive and for NHSScotland.
Cancer in Scotland, the Scottish cancer strategy, was put in place to tackle the issues raised across a broad front, through primary prevention, earlier detection and more rapid diagnosis and treatment.
There are some 120 children diagnosed with cancer each year which accounts for less than 1% of all cancers in Scotland. This figure remained fairly constant from 1975–99.
Deaths from cancers in children have decreased such that between 1975 and 1999 five year survival increased from 50% to 76%.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 31 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what research it funds into possible environmental causes of childhood cancer.
Answer
The Childhood Cancer Research Group is funded by the Scottish Executive and the Department of Health and carries out epidemiological research in this area.
The Scottish Executive also funds the Scottish Cancer Registry which carries out work on trends in childhood cancer and has contributed data to various international epidemiological studies.
Research will also be carried out at the new leukaemia research laboratory to be built at Gartnavel Hospital which is jointly funded by NHS Greater Glasgow, the University of Glasgow and the Leukaemia Research Fund.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 31 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what research is ongoing into childhood cancer incidence in Scotland.
Answer
Full information on current research into childhood cancer incidence in Scotland is not held centrally.
Information on some current and recently completed research projects can be found on the National Research Register (NRR) at http://www.nrr.nhs.uk/ The International Cancer Research Portfolio (ICRP) database of international cancer research can be accessed at:
http://www.ncri.org.uk/includes/icrp.htm.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Euan Robson on 26 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to develop a national strategy for play.
Answer
The Executive currently has no plans to develop a national strategy specifically for play.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Euan Robson on 26 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to implement the recommendations of Getting Serious About Play - A Review of Children's Play.
Answer
The Executive has no plans to implement the recommendations of Getting Serious About Play A Review of Childrens Play, which apply to England only.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Euan Robson on 26 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what funding it has made available to provide or improve local play facilities for children and young people and what proportion of this was actually spent on providing and improving play space in each year since 1999.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-16583 on 26 May 2005. 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. For the specific funding streams mentioned, the allocations are shown in the following table. No information is available on how much was actually spent on providing and improving play space.
| | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 | 2001-02 | 2002-03 | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 |
| Quality of Life Fund | | | | | £1.749million | £1.898million | £2.720million |
| Active Schools | | | | | £2million | £10million | £12million |
| Children Young People and Families Unified Voluntary Sector Fund | £405,000 | £388,000 | £396,000 | £406,000 | £447,000 | £474,000 | £474,000 |
| National Physical Activity Strategy | | | | | £59,000 | £22,000 | |
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 May 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Euan Robson on 26 May 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive which of its funding streams are able to support schemes to provide or improve local play facilities for children and young people.
Answer
There are many Scottish Executive funding streams which are able to support play facilities, including funding allocated to local authorities through revenue support grant via the Grant Aided Expenditure mechanism.
More specific funding streams include: the Quality of Life funding which supports increased opportunities for children and young people including the development of play provision and play areas; Active Schools funding which includes support for active play; the Children, Young People and Families Unified Voluntary Sector Fund which core funds a number of organisations to take forward play in Scotland, and Health Department’s Physical Activity Strategy which supports play.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 April 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 28 April 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what improvements can be made to manage the use of nursing banks more efficiently and reduce the need for agency nurses.
Answer
I issued a Report and Action Plan on Nationally Co-ordinated Nurse Bank Arrangements on 7 March. The report contains a number of recommendations to improve the efficiency of nurse banks and cut the cost of agency nursing which are being taken forward by NHSScotland, monitored by the Scottish Executive Health Department. Funding of £500,000 has been released to NHS boards to assist in the delivery of the recommendations.
