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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: S1O-04392

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 January 2002
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 10 January 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive why no-one in north east Scotland has been nominated to sit on the board of Scottish Water.

Question reference: S1W-19989

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 November 2001
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 7 January 2002

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the post of Inspector of Salmon Fisheries still exists and, if so, whether the post has undergone any material changes in the last 12 months.

Question reference: S1W-20909

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 25 December 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any impact studies have been carried out on the effects on the voluntary sector of withdrawal of water and sewerage charges relief.

The water authorities have estimated that it would cost the generality of their customers just over £11 million a year at today's prices were they to continue to provide reliefs on water charges for the voluntary and charitable sectors. It follows that the phased withdrawal of reliefs will ultimately result in these sectors paying increased charges of just over £11 million a year at current charge prices.

Question reference: S1W-20838

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 24 December 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many physiotherapists were employed in each quarter from 1 April 1998 to the most recent quarter for which figures are available and what the average (a) waiting time and (b) si'e of waiting list was for appointments with physiotherapists in each quarter, broken down by health board area.

The table shows the headcount and whole time equivalent of physiotherapists in post at 30 September in each of the years 1998, 1999 and 2000. Staff in post data on a quarterly basis are not available centrally, nor is information relating to physiotherapists regarding waiting times or waiting lists.Physyiotherapists directly employed by NHSScotland by NHS BoardHeadcount and Whole Time Equivalent at 30 September

	Headcount			Whole Time Equivalent
	1998	1999	2000^P	1998	1999	2000^P
Scotland	2,065	2,142	2,160	1,659.9	1,737.1	1,748.6
Argyll & Clyde	134	136	134	108.1	111.3	110.3
Ayrshire & Arran	159	160	172	128.8	132.4	140.9
Borders	48	49	50	33.0	38.3	38.1
Dumfries & Galloway	51	52	51	38.7	41.0	40.7
Fife	124	148	147	96.4	113.6	112.3
Forth Valley	110	111	115	96.1	95.5	99.7
Grampian	194	210	216	148.7	159.9	162.6
Greater Glasgow	422	443	436	350.4	369.4	364.5
Highland	85	85	84	68.4	70.3	71.5
Lanarkshire	170	176	173	136.9	141.6	138.2
Lothian	357	373	383	292.1	306.0	315.9
Orkney	9	11	11	7.3	8.2	6.7
Shetland	10	11	11	8.2	8.5	8.4
Tayside	179	166	164	134.8	130.7	126.8
Western Isles	13	11	13	12.1	10.6	12.1

Source: National Manpower Statistics from payroll, ISD Scotland.^P provisional.

Question reference: S1W-20839

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 24 December 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many diabetes nurses were employed in each quarter from 1 April 1998 to the most recent quarter for which figures are available and what the average (a) waiting time and (b) si'e of waiting list was for appointments with diabetes nurses in each quarter, broken down by health board area.

Question reference: S1W-20840

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 24 December 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many general practitioner (GP) vacancies currently exist in each health board area, what percentage of GP posts this represents in each area and how many GP posts there are in each area per capita.

The information requested is shown in the following table, which should be read in conjunction with the notes.Number of GP Posts¹ by Health Board AreaInformation as at 1 October 2001^p

	Number of GP posts²	Number of GPs "in post"	Vacated posts³		Posts per 100,000 population⁴
			Number	As percentage of all GP posts
			Number	As percentage of all GP posts
Scotland	3 804	3 762	42	1.1	74
Argyll & Clyde	325	322	3	0.9	77
Ayrshire & Arran	264	263	1	0.4	71
Borders	86	86	-	-	80
Dumfries & Galloway	135	134	1	0.7	93
Fife	248	247	1	0.4	71
Forth Valley	212	205	7	3.3	76
Grampian	382	377	5	1.3	73
Greater Glasgow	639	633	6	0.9	71
Highland	216	213	3	1.4	104
Lanarkshire	354	349	5	1.4	63
Lothian	577	572	5	0.9	74
Orkney	27	27	-	-	139
Shetland	20	19	1	5.0	89
Tayside	289	287	2	0.7	75
Western Isles	30	28	2	6.7	110

Source: ISD Scotland.

p. Information at October 2001 is provisional.Notes:1. Comprises unrestricted principals in GMS practices, their equivalents in PMS practices and restricted principals.2. Includes vacated posts.3. Includes posts which have been vacated only. Excludes "additional" posts which have been approved, but not filled, by 1 October 2001.4. Estimated population at 30 June 2000. Source: General Register Office for Scotland.

Question reference: S1W-20836

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 24 December 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many district nurses were employed in each quarter from 1 April 1996 to the most recent quarter for which figures are available.

The table shows the whole time equivalent of district nurses in post at 30 September in each of the years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. Staff in post data on a quarterly basis is not available centrally. Data for the year 2000 are the latest available.District Nurses directly employed by NHSScotlandWhole time equivalent

	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000^p
Scotland¹	1,780.0	1,800.0	1,853.0	1,941.0	1,935.8
Grade G and above	1,008.3	1,001.7	1,011.8	1,027.3	1,018.4
Below Grade G	771.7	798.0	840.7	913.4	917.4

^p provisionalNotes:1. includes health visiting and district nursing teaching staff working in the field without a DN qualification. The category "Grade G and above" gives a broad indication of those staff with a DN qualification.

Question reference: S1W-20786

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 21 December 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive, regarding its proposals for the regulation of the aquaculture industry announced on 6 December 2001, why the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development did not announce those proposals in his speech to the Aquaculture Strategy for Scotland conference on 5 December 2001.

At the time of my speech, a letter outlining how I propose to take forward the conclusions of the review of regulation was being sent to the Transport and the Environment Committee, whom I was due to meet on 12 December. This afforded Parliament the opportunity to be fully informed of my proposals in advance, and ahead of any other interests. Details were then published on the Executive website and publicised in a news release the following day.

Question reference: S1W-20202

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 November 2001
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 19 December 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether, for the period 7 to 9 November 2001, it will give details of the daily records of winter maintenance on trunk roads in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire that BEAR Scotland Ltd is required to keep under section 3.3 of Schedule 7, Part 2 of the Term Contract for Management and Maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network in respect of (a) treatment records, (b) trunk road blockages giving lengths and times, (c) ice detection records, (d) weather forecasts and actual weather experienced, (e) accidents resulting from winter conditions, (f) response times achieved, (g) complaints by members of the public and trunk road users and the action taken, (h) constructional plant and equipment downtime and software faults, (i) quantities of de-icing materials used in stock and on order for each depot, (j) constructional plant and equipment deployment records and driver/operator logs, (k) output from gritter on-board data loggers and (l) salting decisions.

Question reference: S1W-20701

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 December 2001
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 19 December 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the 20 day rule on livestock movement will lapse once Scotland ceases to be designated as a controlled area for foot-and-mouth disease purposes.

The current foot-and-mouth disease movement and other restrictions are under review. When Scotland ceases to be designated as a controlled area the existing movement control regime will be relaxed. However, veterinary advice is that some form of animal movement restriction will still be required in the short term. Discussions and negotiations are currently taking place with the industry on how this can be implemented and industry practices adapted.