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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.

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Question reference: S2W-26359

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 30 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 13 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any funding changes are proposed for the Caledonian Virtual Practice Development College.

Question reference: S2W-25994

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 8 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many manufacturing jobs were lost in (a) Scotland, (b) Aberdeen, (c) Edinburgh, (d) Dundee, (e) Glasgow and (f) Stirling in each year since 2000.

There is no information held centrally on the number of jobs lost in industries. However it is possible to lookat the net change in jobs over time. The following table shows the net change inthe number of manufacturing employee jobs in Scotland, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow and Stirling since2000. Due to changes in the data between 2002 and 2003 there is a discontinuitywith the data therefore the changes between 2002 and 2003 are not included.

Table 1 Annual Change in theLevel of Manufacturing Employee Jobs, 2000-04

	2000-01	2001-02	2003-04
Scotland	-17,000	-21,600	-7,300
Aberdeen City	+400	-700	+200
Dundee City	0	-1,900	+300
Edinburgh City	-2,600	-900	-400
Glasgow City	+300	-2,700	-2,100
Stirling	-100	-700	+500

Source: Annual Business Inquiry(ABI).

Notes:

1. The data are rounded to thenearest 100.

2. Data for 2000–02 are basedon 1991 census wards. Data for 2003-2004 are based on 2003 CAS wards.

3. ABI data are workplace based.

Question reference: S2W-25995

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 8 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the level of manufacturing employment was in (a) Scotland, (b) Aberdeen, (c) Edinburgh, (d) Dundee, (e) Glasgow and (f) Stirling in each year since 2000.

Question reference: S2W-25993

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 8 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people were employed in manufacturing industry in (a) Scotland, (b) Aberdeen, (c) Edinburgh, (d) Dundee, (e) Glasgow and (f) Stirling in each year since 2000, also expressed as a percentage of the workforce in each of these locations.

Table 1 shows the number of employeejobs in the manufacturing industry for Scotland, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow and Stirling in each year since 2000. Table 2 shows manufacturingjobs as a proportion of all employee jobs in these areas since 2000. These dataare sourced from the Annual Business Inquiry (ABI). Due to changes in the ABI between2002 and 2003 there is a discontinuity with the data therefore figures from 2003onwards are not directly comparable with data prior to 2003.

Table 1 Number of EmployeeJobs within Manufacturing, 2000-04

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Scotland	302,000	285,000	263,400	243,300	236,000
Aberdeen City	14,800	15,200	14,500	11,600	11,800
Dundee City	11,100	11,100	9,200	9,900	10,200
Edinburgh City	20,600	17,900	17,000	14,700	14,300
Glasgow City	30,000	30,300	27,600	25,800	23,700
Stirling	3,000	2,900	2,300	2,100	2,600

Source: Annual Business Inquiry(ABI).

Notes:

1. The data are rounded to thenearest 100.

2. Data for 2000–02 are basedon 1991 census wards. Data for 2003-04 are based on 2003 CAS wards.

3. ABI data are workplace based.

Table 2 ManufacturingEmployee Jobs as a Proportion of All Employee Jobs, 2000-04

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Scotland	13.5%	12.4%	11.6%	10.5%	10.1%
Aberdeen City	8.8%	9.2%	9.0%	7.2%	7.0%
Dundee City	15.6%	15.3%	12.9%	13.5%	13.5%
Edinburgh City	7.0%	6.0%	5.5%	4.7%	4.6%
Glasgow City	8.2%	7.8%	7.1%	6.7%	6.0%
Stirling	7.5%	7.0%	5.5%	5.2%	6.1%

Source: Annual Business Inquiry(ABI).

Notes:

1. The data are rounded to thenearest 100.

2. Data for 2000-02 are basedon 1991 census wards. Data for 2003-04 are based on 2003 CAS wards.

3. ABI data are workplace based.

Question reference: S2W-26002

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 8 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has about what lottery funding was received by (a) Glasgow City, (b) Renfrewshire, (c) North Lanarkshire, (d) South Lanarkshire, (e) South Ayrshire, (f) Dundee City, (g) East Dunbartonshire and (h) West Dunbartonshire councils in each of the last five years.

The distribution of NationalLottery funds is a matter for the Lottery Distribution Bodies: Scottish ArtsCouncil, Scottish Screen, sportscotland, the Big Lottery Fund and theHeritage Lottery Fund. The information requested is not held centrally by theExecutive.

The Department for Culture,Media and Sport maintains an electronic database of National Lottery awards.Details of the total awarded to each constituency area and each local authorityarea for each lottery good cause can be obtained through the DCMS website at:

http://www.lottery.culture.gov.uk/search.asp.

Question reference: S2W-25997

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 8 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) start-up and (b) failure rates were for small businesses in (i) Glasgow, (ii) Edinburgh, (iii) Dundee, (iv) Aberdeen, (v) Stirling and (vi) Inverness in each year since 2000.

Data on the number of VAT registrationsand de-registrations are released annuallyby the Small Business Service, an agency of the Department for Trade and Industry.These figures are used to monitor the number of business start-ups and closures;they are not available by business size.

The number of business de-registrationsis not a direct measure for the number of business “failures”. Businesses can de-registerfor VAT for a number of reasons, for example de-registration could be associatedwith a merger with another firm to form a new business.

These figures do not accountfor all UK business activity as only companies with a turnover above the VAT thresholdare required to register.

The table below shows the rateof VAT registrations and de-registrations per 10,000 resident adults in selectedlocal authorities from 2000 to 2004:

Local Authority	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Registrations
Glasgow City	35	33	31	32	32
City of Edinburgh	39	37	34	37	37
Dundee City	24	21	20	20	23
Aberdeen City	33	30	35	32	30
Stirling	36	34	37	44	39
Highland*	31	30	34	35	38
De-registrations
Glasgow City	34	32	34	35	34
City of Edinburgh	32	32	33	37	34
Dundee City	20	21	20	19	22
Aberdeen City	36	39	35	36	36
Stirling	29	30	27	34	38
Highland*	34	32	30	34	41

Source: Small Business Service,DTI

Note: *Data for Inverness is notavailable separately.

Question reference: S2W-26008

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 6 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the level of child poverty was in Dundee and what funding was allocated to address this issue in (a) 2000-01, (b) 2001-02, (c) 2002-03, (d) 2003-04, (e) 2004-05 and (f) 2005-06, broken down by local authority ward area.

This information requestedis not available. Child poverty is tackled in a cross-cutting manner throughinvestment across a range of portfolios. Information on expenditure under theseprogrammes is not available at a ward area level and official information onlevels of child poverty is taken from UK datasets which do not provide breakdowns at localauthority level.

Across Scotland as a whole,since 1996-97 we have lifted 130,000 children out of relative low income(370,000 to 240,000 – after housing costs) and nearly two thirds of childrenfrom absolute low income (from 370,000 to 130,000 after housing costs).

The official source of lowincome data for Scotland is the Households Below Average Income (HBAI)dataset available from 1994-95. This is derived from the Family ResourcesSurvey (FRS). The sample size of the FRS in Scotland is relatively smalland can only be used to provide information for Scotland as a whole.

Question reference: S2W-26101

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 19 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 6 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive why it waited until May 2006 to announce details of its bridge tolls study after giving an initial indication in March 2006 that it would undertake this work.

Question reference: S2W-26094

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 19 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 6 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how it will fund its bridge toll impact study.

Question reference: S2W-26096

Asked by: Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 19 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 6 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will abolish the tolls on the Forth and Tay road bridges should that be the recommendation of its bridge toll impact study.