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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S4W-01427

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 21 July 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the fees charged to students from the rest of the United Kingdom studying at universities in Scotland will be indexed in line with inflation.

Question reference: S4W-01433

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 21 July 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether Scottish universities will keep the entire sum of tuition fees charged to students from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Question reference: S4W-01116

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 20 July 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive when it plans to award scholarships for children of military personnel who have been killed on active duty and what level of funding it will allocate.

The First Minister announced further and higher education bursaries for the children of fallen Scottish service personnel at the Armed Forces day in Edinburgh on Saturday 25 June 2011.

Bursaries between £1,500 and £8,240 a year per person are intended to help young people who have lost parents in action to attend college or university.

The scheme has been introduced retrospectively to all eligible applicants from academic year 2010-11 onwards.

Question reference: S4W-01120

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 18 July 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive which hospitals have provided emergency operations on weekends in the last four years, broken down by NHS board.

Information on operations/interventions undertaken during emergency hospital admission episodes are recorded on central data returns. It is not possible to easily indentify those which are operative or non-operative (for example, imaging, injections and x-rays). Information on the number of emergency admission episodes where a main operation/intervention was recorded on either a Saturday or Sunday by hospital in the calendar years 2007 to 2010 inclusive has been placed in the Scottish Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib number 53053).

Question reference: S4W-01119

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 14 July 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average waiting time has been to receive a hearing aid over the last 12 months, broken down by NHS board.

Audiology Services have being included in the Scottish Government’s challenging target that no patient should wait more than 18 weeks from a GP referral to start of treatment. This target is due for delivery by the end of 2011.

Information on Audiology services is collected on a aggregated form. Consequently, it is not possible to provide the information requested. However, information on the median wait from assessment to fitting of a hearing aid in each quarter from April 2010 to 31 March 2011, by NHS board is provided in the following table.

Nationally collected waiting times information for Audiology services is relatively new data and is currently still under development. As information collection system are fairly new there are data quality issues around this information and figures should be treated with caution. ISD are working with NHS Boards to improve data quality.

MEDIAN WAITING TIME FROM ASSESSMENT TO FITTING OF HEARING AID IN EACH QUARTER OF 2010-11

NHS Board	April-June (Weeks)	July - Sept (Weeks)	Oct – Dec (Weeks)	Dec – Mar (Weeks)
Ayrshire & Arran	x	x	x	x
Borders^f	6	5	5	5
Dumfries & Galloway	12	6	6	0¹
Fife^f	0¹	7	9	8
Forth Valley	x	1	0¹	0¹
Grampian	8	9	9	8
Greater Glasgow & Clyde^a	5	5	5	5
Highland^b	6	6	5	7
Lanarkshire^c	2	4	4	3
Lothian	x	x	17	16
Orkney	3	3	3	3
Shetland	4	7	8	7
Tayside^{d f}	6	5	4	6
Western Isles^e	x	0^e	0^e	0^e

Source: ISD Scotland

xData not available

¹ Median waits of less than a week.

^aClyde data not available for July to December 2010.

^bData cleansing ongoing, please treat with caution

^cData cleansing is ongoing, please treat with caution. Adult figures not available for the months April and May 2010.

^dPaediatric figures not available for the month of April 2011.

^eProvides Audiology services for adults only – no patients had hearing aid fitted during July 2010 – 2011.

^fSince 1 January some Boards have submitted waiting times for one-stop clinics separately from the normal audiology stage of treatment waiting time returns. Other NHS Boards report one stop patients in the ‘first assessment’ or assessment to treatment stages.

Question reference: S4W-01431

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 11 July 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will introduce any mechanisms to widen access amongst those universities in Scotland which charge students from the rest of the United Kingdom the full £9,000 tuition fee.

Question reference: S4W-00934

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 27 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive how its outdoor learning policy will be delivered and what agencies will be responsible for taking it forward.

Education Scotland, the new agency bringing together the work of HM Inspectorate of Education and Learning and Teaching Scotland from 1 July 2011, is responsible for leading and supporting the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence. This includes support for the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence through outdoor learning. Education Scotland will work with partners to support the Outdoor Learning Implementation Group and the Outdoor Learning National Network which have been established to provide advice and support to local authorities and partners involved in outdoor learning.

Question reference: S4W-00453

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 03 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 24 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the level of proposed tuition fees in England being set at an approximate average of £8,500, whether it will revise its estimate of the funding gap facing universities in Scotland.

The work done by joint group set up by the Scottish Government and Universities Scotland which reported before the election indicated the size of any funding gap. The Scottish Government fully intends to meet the funding commitments we made to the sector in our manifesto. We will continue to work with universities to maintain and enhance the excellence of Scottish higher education ensuring the access remains free.

Question reference: S4W-00454

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 03 June 2011
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 15 June 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what the impact will be on the number of students attending universities in Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom of its proposal to increase their tuition fees by up to 250%.

Question reference: S3O-13296

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 March 2011
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 17 March 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it will take following reports that cases of rickets in children and adults have increased since 2006.