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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: S2O-11075

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 16 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the outcome has been of any representations it has made about the future of the post office network and what assessment it has made of how any decision to close local post offices is likely to impact on community development priorities.

Question reference: S2W-29182

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 15 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what level of support was provided for Bookstart in each of the last three years and is projected for each of the next three years, broken down where appropriate by local authority and giving the number of books issued in each case, broken down by age group.

The Scottish Executive allocated£190,000 to Bookstart in Scotland in 2003-04, £190,000 in 2004-05 and £250,000 in 2005-06.Bookstart in Scotland will receive £500,000 over the next two financial years- £250,000 in 2006-07 and £250,000 in 2007-08. Decisions regarding funding beyond2007-08 will be a matter for the next spending review. Scottish Executive fundingis allocated through a single contact with Bookstart and is not disaggregated bylocal authority area. This year, 51,830 Bookstart Baby Packs have been ordered bylocal authorities which is anticipated to provide 96% of babies in Scotland underthe age of 12 months with a bag of free books.

Question reference: S2W-29185

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 15 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many fishermen are employed, and were employed in each of the last 10 years, showing year on year percentage changes, also broken down by local authority or nearest alternative geographical area.

Information on the numbers ofsea fishermen employed by district is published for each year in the statisticalbulletin Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics, copies of which are availablein the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. numbers 40822, 21751, 7712,8711, 21758, 24413, 29536, 34027, 37595, 40437). The figures are given in table35 for 1996; table 39 for 1997; table 40 for 1998 to 1999; table 37 for 2000; table36 for 2001 to 2002, and table 14 for 2003 to 2005.

The information on year on yearpercentage changes is given in the following table.

Year-on-Year Percentage Changesin the Total Number of Fishermen Employed in Scotland, by District

District	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Eyemouth	-17.6	-25.0	7.0	0.0	-14.5	-27.5	0.0	-3.4	-2.9
Pittenweem	1.3	-16.3	-9.5	-9.9	11.0	-19.8	-12.3	10.9	0.0
Arbroath	-10.3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Aberdeen	3.2	80.9	-15.7	-11.3	-2.7	-13.1	-17.3	2.6	3.8
Peterhead	-4.6	-13.9	35.6	-26.2	4.4	-13.1	-28.5	0.7	-34.5
Fraserburgh	10.3	3.5	-22.7	-3.7	-6.7	-14.2	-17.1	-10.3	5.4
Buckie	-11.7	-22.3	-18.1	2.3	5.8	-16.6	-24.7	10.6	-15.4
Wick	-1.8	19.9	-4.8	-17.1	-12.2	-13.0	-5.5	13.2	-26.6
Orkney	-2.0	-9.2	-6.3	9.9	-8.2	-4.6	2.1	2.1	-2.3
Shetland	36.1	-12.3	4.0	2.2	-6.1	-27.6	6.2	-2.8	0.9
Stornoway	0.0	6.8	-12.4	-1.6	4.0	-25.6	5.6	-5.7	0.8
Lochinver	-38.3	56.0	0.0	-21.8	14.8	-21.4	-21.8	7.0	-2.2
Kinlochbervie	17.9	-10.9	-22.0	3.1	18.2	5.1	0.0	-2.4	7.5
Ullapool	2.7	-19.8	1.1	-8.5	2.3	-5.7	26.5	-29.5	8.1
Mallaig	-2.0	-0.6	-10.4	-51.7	-9.0	10.9	-11.2	-11.6	1.2
Oban	2.2	-12.2	0.4	1.4	1.1	4.2	2.3	-10.1	-11.6
Campbeltown	-0.3	-10.2	5.9	-18.2	2.6	5.1	-0.6	0.3	-1.2
Ayr	2.3	-1.0	-2.6	0.5	-12.6	-19.2	-4.5	28.8	-13.0
Portree	-	-	-	-	-12.4	8.7	12.5	-18.2	14.7
Total	1.4	-5.2	-5.7	-5.8	-3.8	-14.0	-7.6	0.0	-5.8

Notes:

1. Arbroath district became partof Aberdeen district during 1998.

2. Portree district was partof Mallaig district until 2000.

Question reference: S2W-29184

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how much expenditure was incurred operating the Scottish Land Court in each of the last three years and is projected for the current year, giving the number of hearings considered each year and showing the number of successful and unsuccessful appeals in each case.

The salaries for the membersand staff of the Scottish Land Court for the years 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06 are givenbelow. During the years in question, the Land Court shared accommodation and otherrunning costs with the Lands Tribunal for Scotland so no separate figures are available.Figures for the combined costs are given below.

Estimated salary costs for 2006-07are given below.

The Scottish Land Court now shareaccommodation and other running costs with five other organisations in a new buildingin Edinburgh so separate running cost figures are not available.

The number of hearings from eachyear and the number of appeals by way of Stated Case to the Court of Session aregiven below.

	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07(estimated)
*Chair’s Salary	59,580	61,070	62,902	65,000
Member Salaries	126,682	139,915	154,891	158,050
Staff Salaries	310,546	321,685	345,661	353,000
Combined net running costs for Court and Tribunal	298,791	322,656	384,445	N/A
Number of Hearings	37	41	50
Number of Appeals to Court of Session. None was successful	2	-	1	N/A

Note: *Chair is also Presidentof the Lands Tribunal for Scotland and figures represent 50% of total salary.

Question reference: S2W-29186

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 15 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people are employed in the fish processing sector, and were employed in each of the last 10 years, showing year-on-year percentage changes, also broken down by local authority or nearest alternative geographical area.

The number of peopleemployed in Scotland in the processing and preserving of fish and fishproducts over the period 1998-2004 (latest data available) is as follows. Year-on-yearchanges is shown in brackets.

Year	Number of People
1998	10,216
1999	10,506 (+ 2.8%)
2000	10,337 (- 1.2%)
2001	9,556 (-7.5%)
2002	8,817 (-7.7%)
2003	9,624 (+8.3%)
2004	9,025 (-6.6%)

Itis not possible to provide a breakdown of employment in fish processing bylocal authority in Scotland due to commercial confidentiality reasons.

However,internal analysis of the 2003 Annual Business Inquiry data showed that in thecase of the processing of both wild caught and farmed fish, the largest concentrationof such employment is found in the Annan area, with 17% of all Scottish fishprocessing jobs in this area. The Fraserburgh and Peterhead travel to workareas (TTWAs) each have more than 1,000 jobs and together account for a further23% of the processing employment.

Four other TTWAs(Berwickshire, Aberdeen, Inverness, Motherwell and Lanark) have between 570-800 jobs infish processing and jointly account for a further 28% of Scottish processing jobs.The neighbouring TTWAS of Newton Stewart (152 jobs) and Kirkcudbright (318jobs) together account for a further 5% of Scottish processing employment.

Question reference: S2W-29137

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 14 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps are being taken to increase the volume of malting barley available for the whisky distilling sector.

Following the decoupling ofprice support under the 2003 CAP reforms, farmers are free to decide what cropsto grow. These decisions will be informed by their view of the market returnsagainst other crops or activities. Ultimately, the market is best placed todetermine supply issues, and the strong presence in Scotland ofmalting plants and distilleries should ensure that sufficient spring maltingbarley is grown in Scotland to meet this requirement.

Question reference: S2W-29340

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 10 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications have been received for the Rural Stewardship Scheme 2006, broken down by local authority area or nearest geographical equivalent and showing the number and percentage of successful applications in each case.

The number of applications receivedfor the Rural Stewardship Scheme 2006, broken down by local authority area, andthe number and percentage of successful applications, are as follows:

Authority	Applications	Successful	Percentage of Scottish Total	Percentage of Local Area Total
Aberdeen City	5	0	0	0
Aberdeenshire	453	32	6.14	7.06
Angus	81	3	0.58	3.70
Argyll and Bute	78	31	5.95	39.74
Clackmannan	7	1	0.19	14.29
Dumfries and Galloway	118	13	2.50	11.02
Dundee City	0	0	0	0
East Ayrshire	49	3	0.58	6.12
East Dumbartonshire	7	0	0	0
East Lothian	37	1	0.19	2.70
East Renfrewshire	10	0	0	0
Edinburgh, City of	4	0	0	0
Eilean Siar	169	88	16.89	52.07
Falkirk	7	0	0	0
Fife	75	14	2.69	18.67
Glasgow, City of	0	0	0	0
Highland	339	94	18.04	27.73
Inverclyde	5	0	0	0
Midlothian	7	0	0	0
Moray	74	7	1.34	9.46
North Ayrshire	24	4	0.77	16.67
North Lanarkshire	6	0	0	0
Orkney	116	90	17.27	77.59
Perth and Kinross	157	28	5.37	17.83
Renfrewshire	10	3	0.58	30.00
Scottish Borders	282	40	7.68	14.18
Shetland	90	55	10.56	61.11
South Ayrshire	35	3	0.58	8.57
South Lanarkshire	65	4	0.77	6.15
Stirling	30	6	1.15	20.00
West Dumbartonshire	3	1	0.19	33.33
West Lothian	10	0	0	0
Total	2,353	521

Question reference: S2W-29342

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 8 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has on whether there are any proposals to transfer from the UK Government to the Executive further powers over the marine environment.

It is recognised that the proposedUK Marine Bill does raise some complex issues around the mix of devolved and reservedmatters. The Executive is working closely with the UK Government to ensure thatthe bill is progressed while fully respecting the devolution settlement. Recognisingthe complexities, discussions are on-going on how responsibilities might be clarified.No conclusions have yet been reached.

Question reference: S2W-29265

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 8 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps are being taken to improve the level of youth facilities in communities and what national audit has been carried out to identify the extent of need for such facilities.

The Scottish Executive is committedto improving facilities and opportunities for young people and provides financialsupport each year to local authorities and to voluntary organisations. In addition,we have committed £2.5 million for a Youth Work Capital Fund for this financialyear. Two hundred and fifty-nine local and national youth organisations have bidsuccessfully for awards of between £1,000 and £50,000 to improve facilities andbuy new equipment.

Local authorities and their partnersidentify and address local need as part of the Community Planning process. Thereare no plans for a national audit.

Question reference: S2W-29261

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for Moray, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 October 2006
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 7 November 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has considered reviewing the cut-off age for awarding student loans, in light of the recent legislation on age discrimination.