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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: S1W-08072

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 13 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what government funding Northern Constabulary has received this year and in each of the previous five years.

Direct funding of Northern Constabulary by the Scottish Executive in the current financial year and by the Scottish Office in the previous five years is shown in the table below. Forces also meet a proportion of their costs from local authority funding.

Year	1995-96 £'000	1996-97 £'000	1997-98 £'000	1998-99 £'000	1999-2000 £'000	2000-01 (estimate) £'000
Police Grant	14,089	14,920	15,901	16,884	18,116	18,806
Loan Charges	1,379	1,357	1,310	1,365	1,690	1,636
Civil Defence Grant	52	54	55	55	55	55
Millennium Funding						409
Additional 100% Funding						523
SDEA Funding						100
DNA						91
TOTAL	15,520	16,331	17,266	18,304	19,861	21,520

Police Grant was cash limited from 1996-97 onwards. Loan charges depend on the capital projects within the force area at any given time.

Question reference: S1W-08402

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 13 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the database being compiled by Learndirect Scotland will be completed prior to the introduction of individual learning accounts.

Question reference: S1W-08401

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 13 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what the anticipated cost is of the marketing campaign for Learndirect Scotland.

Question reference: S1W-07717

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 12 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive which persons were considered for appointment to membership of sportscotland and which have been appointed; of these, which came from or are associated with the Highlands and Islands and what were the reasons if none did come from or are associated with the Highlands and Islands.

All applications for public appointments are made in confidence. The names of the individuals who applied therefore cannot be made public. Vacancies are publicised widely. All applications received are considered equally on merit under a fair, open and transparent assessment process.

I announced the new members on 26 June. They are Mrs Wai-Yin Hatton, Dr Nanette Mutrie and Dr Linda Leighton-Beck. None of these appointees live in the Highlands and Islands and we have no information on whether they have any association with the area.

Question reference: S1W-08342

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 12 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking in response to the findings in The Quality of Services in Rural Scotland that 20% of respondents were dissatisfied with primary schools, 29% dissatisfied with secondary schools and 33% with pre-school opportunities.

All our policies for schools are directed to ensuring that children benefit from education of the highest quality, and this objective is as important in rural areas as in other parts of Scotland. It is encouraging to note the report's findings that 91% of parents were satisfied with the primary school attended by their child and 88% were satisfied in the case of secondary schools. Since the data were collected, we have achieved universal provision of pre-school education for four year olds; and provision for three year olds in rural areas is growing rapidly.

Question reference: S1W-08345

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 12 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what further action it intends to take in relation to high fuel prices and the falling number of petrol stations and post offices in rural areas in response to the finding in The Quality of Services in Rural Scotland that "for those without reliable transport, the trend towards distant services represents a significant problem".

Service provision is of key importance for rural communities. The Executive has recently asked the Scottish National Rural Partnership to bring together service providers to look at how services might be provided in innovative and imaginative ways in rural areas, as well as identifying ways of helping local Communities to assess their realistic service needs and to work with providers to achieve these.

The Executive has also commissioned an evaluation of the effectiveness of the rural transport fund which is due to report in October 2000. This will inform decisions on future support for rural transport in this autumn's Scottish Spending Review. The Executive is working in close partnership with the UK Government to maintain the rural Post Office network. It welcomes the announcement made by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 28 June that the current size of that network will be maintained until 2006, except where it is impossible to find replacements for departing sub-postmasters.

Question reference: S1W-08343

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 12 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to in response to the findings in The Quality of Services in Rural Scotland that 62% of respondents to survey expressed dissatisfaction with activities for young children and 83% with activities for teenagers and in particular how it plans to increase the provision of activities for teenagers, given the role such activities can play in preventing teenagers becoming involved in drug taking and underage drinking.

Question reference: S1W-08008

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 12 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether those "relevant authorities" as defined in schedule 1 in the Transport (Scotland) Bill, which serve parts of Scotland which are rural or predominantly rural and which choose not to use the proposed powers to make road user charges or workplace parking levies, will receive no extra resources for investment in transport.

"Relevant authorities" as defined in schedule 1 in the Transport (Scotland) Bill are authorities which are party to a road user or workplace parking scheme made jointly with other authorities. As defined, "relevant authorities" would receive a share of the proceeds of such scheme. As any income received from a charging scheme will be additional to present levels, "relevant authorities" will receive extra resources for investment in transport from the scheme.

Question reference: S1W-08344

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 12 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to establish a broad consensus of what services should be available to communities in order to provide a benchmark against which local provision can be measured, as recommended in The Quality of Services in Rural Scotland, and when it expects to publish details of this benchmark level of service provision.

The Executive is considering the recommendations of the report The Quality of Services in Rural Scotland published on 26 June which included the provision of benchmarking. The Executive is committed to ensuring that rural communities are able to access a wide range of services. That is why I recently tasked the Scottish National Rural Partnership to bring together service providers to look at how services might be provided in innovative and imaginative ways in rural areas, as well as identifying ways of helping local communities to identify their realistic service needs and to work with providers to achieve these. I look forward to receiving the Group's recommendations at the end of November.

Question reference: S1W-08249

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 11 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether, under the Education (Student Loans) (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (SSI 2000/200), student loans are treated as income in the hands of the borrower for the purposes of sequestration of the borrower, and whether it will make representations to Her Majesty's Government on whether such loans are taken into account in the calculation of benefit payments.