- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 September 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicol Stephen on 17 September 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive when it expects to announce the findings of the M74 public local inquiry.
Answer
The full report of the public local inquiry has recently been received from the Scottish Executive Inquiry Reporters Unit. The reporter’s findings are now being assessed and every effort will be made to reach an early decision on the M74 proposals.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Frank McAveety on 24 June 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether rising fuel prices may impact adversely on the tourism industry and, if so, what measures it proposes in the tourism industry to address this issue.
Answer
Fuel prices are one factor that people will take into account when deciding where to go on holiday. VisitScotland and the Area Tourist Boards continue to successfully promote all parts of Scotland within our important UK and near European markets, with all areas reporting a very good start to the current year.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 June 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 17 June 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how it plans to encourage schools to allow it to manage StarOffice licences on their behalf.
Answer
The recently signed agreement with SUN will allow schools access to the Star Office software under a national licence agreement. Information has already beenpassed to local authorities and further publicity has been planned throughLearning and Teaching Scotland.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 April 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Mary Mulligan on 22 April 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to ensure a full and varied response to its consultation on rights of appeal in planning.
Answer
We areconsulting widely. The initial distribution of the consultation paper sentcopies to a wide range of interested organisations and individuals. Theconsultation has been well publicised and we are continuing to provide copiesof the paper to anyone who requests them.
Inaddition, the consultation paper is available on the Executive’s website.
Consultationwill be an active process. We will meet our stakeholders during theconsultation period, which ends on 30 July.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 April 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Hugh Henry on 22 April 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will evaluate the use of intermediaries to facilitate evidence giving by vulnerable witnesses.
Answer
We will carryout a detailed assessment of the evaluation of the piloting of intermediariesin England and Wales and compare it with those carried out on other schemes usedelsewhere in the world.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Margaret Curran on 12 February 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it has taken to ensure that the interests of objectors in the planning system are taken account of in its preparations for consulting on rights of appeal in planning.
Answer
We receiveregular correspondence on the issue and views previously expressed to the Executive have been taken into account as work on the forthcoming consultationhas progressed.
We set up astakeholder group to assist us in identifying the issues to be covered in ourconsultation paper. The group is made up of people from local authorities,industry bodies, trade unions, community and environmental groups, and otherplanning experts. Several members on the group have experience of raisingobjections on planning matters and have shared their views and experienceswithin the group.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 January 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 22 January 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how many of the jobs created, or relocated, as a result of the M74 extension will be taken by currently unemployed residents in the Glasgow area.
Answer
Twenty-five thousand jobsare expected to be created following completion of the M74. It is not possibleto say how these jobs will be filled but the local authorities and localenterprise companies are taking steps to ensure that local residents areequipped with the skills to allow them to compete.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 January 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Allan Wilson on 15 January 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what the current annual cost of flood damage, caused by climate change, is to property and business.
Answer
It is not possible to say if any single instance of flooding is attributableto climate change directly, and we do not collect separate data on any marginalincrease in annual flood damage cost it may cause.
The Executive is about to publish updated research entitledClimate Change: Review of levels of protection offered by flood preventionschemes. This research will allow a better understanding of the impacts ofclimate change on flood risk.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 01 December 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Margaret Curran on 18 December 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress it has made towards achieving its target that no one should have to sleep rough.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has made great strides towards ending the need to sleep rough. The rough sleepingcount for May and October 2003 showed a significant drop in the extent of roughsleeping during that period. Five local authorities had a small shortfall intheir direct-access accommodation at the time of the October count. We areworking in partnership with these and other local authorities to continue toexpand the level of accommodation and support services available.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 07 August 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 29 September 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on Microsoft software licenses in each of the last three financial years.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has in place two licensing agreementswith Microsoft which provide significant levels of discount on published list pricesfor Microsoft software.
We havea Select Agreement which offers participating organisations volume discount on Microsoftlist prices for their software licences. In addition, we have signed, in February2003, a three-year Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft which entitles us to receiveall upgrades for a defined list of software products (mainly MS Office) issued inthe agreement period. The terms of both agreements were negotiated by the Officeof Government Commerce on behalf of all government departments.
Expenditureon Microsoft software licenses in each of the past three financial years has been:
| Year | 2000-01 | 2001-02 | 2002-03 |
| Select Licences | £191,368 | £428,812 | £489,956 |
| Enterprise Agreement | - | - | £911,518 |
| Total | £191,368 | £428,812 | £1,401,474 |
The figuresnoted include Value Added Tax at 17.5% and reflect the discounts the Scottish Executive receives from the licensing agreements.The costs in 2000-01 and 2001-02 do not include any elements of technology refreshupgrades.
