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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: S2W-10098

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of dangerous driving had a charge proved in each sheriff court district in each of the last five years.

The available information is given in the table.

Persons with a Charge Proved for Dangerous Driving¹ in Scottish Courts, by Court, 1998-2002

	Year of Sentence
	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002⁴
Sheriff Courts:
Aberdeen	47	47	25	38	51
Airdrie	5	10	11	13	32
Alloa	1	2	3	2	4
Arbroath	17	4	5	3	12
Ayr	20	24	23	24	17
Banff	4	4	5	1	4
Campbeltown	-	-	1	3	3
Cupar	14	9	7	10	13
Dingwall	14	9	2	14	6
Dornoch	3	1	1	-	-
Dumbarton	13	12	13	14	7
Dumfries	33	41	34	25	51
Dundee	21	23	9	18	20
Dunfermline	17	19	16	14	19
Dunoon	-	3	7	4	4
Duns	-	1	2	3	3
Edinburgh	68	60	44	61	65
Elgin	13	15	9	15	16
Falkirk	6	6	7	12	13
Forfar	14	16	8	11	27
Fort William	1	6	1	5	4
Glasgow	82	87	96	104	109
Greenock	8	12	12	9	5
Haddington	7	5	3	6	9
Hamilton	46	27	27	43	58
Inverness	14	18	11	14	21
Jedburgh	3	1	2	5	4
Kilmarnock	50	49	39	41	40
Kirkcaldy	25	24	19	42	32
Kirkcudbright	2	4	3	2	2
Kirkwall	5	3	1	3	2
Lanark	34	31	47	33	26
Lerwick	2	-	1	2	1
Linlithgow	14	21	21	22	39
Lochmaddy	-	-	-	-	1
Oban	4	1	3	1	1
Paisley	47	42	26	29	31
Peebles	2	2	-	1	2
Perth	17	12	10	20	18
Peterhead	12	7	1	4	8
Rothesay	1	-	2	-	-
Selkirk	7	2	2	3	6
Stirling	11	7	4	7	8
Stonehaven	6	14	6	12	10
Stornoway	2	3	-	3	2
Stranraer	4	6	4	7	11
Tain	2	8	1	4	9
Wick	3	6	2	9	7
Sub-total	721	704	620³	716	833
All courts²	740	711	624	718	837

Notes:

1. Where mainoffence.

2. Includesa small number of cases in High Court and district courts.

3. Includes44 cases where sheriff court unknown.

4. Figures may be underestimates due totime taken to record details of some court proceedings in SCRO system.

Question reference: S2W-10094

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many police officers are currently working in the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency.

Question reference: S2W-10097

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of dangerous driving were proceeded with in each sheriff court district in each of the last five years.

The available information is given in the table.

Persons Proceeded Against for Dangerous Driving¹ in Scottish Courts, by Court, 1998-2002

	Year of Sentence
	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002⁴
Sheriff Courts:
Aberdeen	49	52	26	42	51
Airdrie	10	17	16	18	39
Alloa	1	2	3	2	4
Arbroath	18	5	6	3	15
Ayr	22	28	23	24	18
Banff	4	5	5	1	5
Campbeltown	-	-	1	3	3
Cupar	14	10	7	10	13
Dingwall	14	10	2	14	6
Dornoch	3	1	1	-	-
Dumbarton	14	14	14	16	7
Dumfries	36	43	38	27	51
Dundee	25	27	9	22	26
Dunfermline	17	20	16	14	20
Dunoon	-	3	7	4	4
Duns	-	1	2	3	3
Edinburgh	70	63	47	64	70
Elgin	15	15	9	15	18
Falkirk	6	8	8	13	14
Forfar	15	17	9	12	28
Fort William	1	6	1	5	4
Glasgow	88	100	106	112	112
Greenock	8	13	13	10	5
Haddington	7	5	4	7	10
Hamilton	51	38	35	51	65
Inverness	15	18	11	14	22
Jedburgh	4	1	2	6	4
Kilmarnock	53	53	42	44	42
Kirkcaldy	25	27	20	43	33
Kirkcudbright	2	4	3	3	2
Kirkwall	7	4	1	3	2
Lanark	35	36	49	37	40
Lerwick	2	1	1	2	1
Linlithgow	16	21	23	23	41
Lochmaddy	-	-	-	-	2
Oban	5	2	3	1	1
Paisley	47	57	29	32	33
Peebles	2	2	-	1	2
Perth	19	18	10	25	25
Peterhead	13	7	2	4	8
Rothesay	1	-	2	-	-
Selkirk	7	3	2	3	6
Stirling	11	8	7	8	9
Stonehaven	6	14	7	12	10
Stornoway	2	3	1	3	2
Stranraer	8	6	5	7	14
Tain	2	9	1	4	9
Wick	3	6	2	10	7
Sub-total	773	803	680³	777	906
All courts²	794	811	687	781	910

Notes:

1. Where mainoffence.

2. Includesa small number of cases in High Court and district courts.

3. Includes49 cases where sheriff court unknown.

4. Figures may be underestimates due totime taken to record details of some court proceedings in SCRO system.

Question reference: S2W-10092

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many crimes were committed by people on bail in each of the last five years in each sheriff court district, broken down by main crime.

Question reference: S2W-09895

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 06 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 3 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children left school with no qualifications in each of the last five years, broken down by local authority area.

Due to the volume of information requested, the table “Number and percentage of school pupils with no qualifications at Standard Grade (or equivalent) or better on leaving school” has been placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 33501). The data used in this table relates to publicly funded schools only, including special schools.

An updated version of the table “Number and percentage of school pupils who have not attained English or Mathematics Standard Grades (or equivalent) on leaving school”, which was previously supplied in answer to S2W-9631 on 10 August 2004, has been placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre to allow direct comparison. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

The new methodology includes the small number of pupils with no candidate numbers who are assumed to have no qualifications.

Question reference: S2W-09898

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 06 August 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 1 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many locum consultant (a) doctors and (b) surgeons are working in the NHS, broken down by NHS board area and expressed also as a working-time equivalent (WTE) percentage of the total headcount.

Table 1 provides details of locum consultants employed in NHS Scotland at 30th September 2003 broken down by NHS board area and shows WTE as a percentage of headcount for each NHS board area.

Table 1: NHS Locum Consultants by NHS Board (Headcount, Whole-Time Equivalent and WTE % of Headcount at 30th September 2003)

	Headcount	Whole-Time Equivalent	WTE % of Headcount
Total¹	Surgical Specialties²	All Other Specialties	Total¹	Surgical Specialties²	All Other Specialties	Total¹	Surgical Specialties²	All Other Specialties
Scotland	127.0	24.0	103.0	90.2	19.2	71.0	71.0%	79.9%	69.0%
NHS Argyll and Clyde	11.0	-	11.0	4.1	-	4.1	37.7%	x	37.7%
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	6.0	-	6.0	4.4	-	4.4	72.7%	x	72.7%
NHS Borders	2.0	-	2.0	2.0	-	2.0	100.0%	x	100.0%
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	2.0	1.0	1.0	2.0	1.0	1.0	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%
NHS Fife	3.0	-	3.0	3.0	-	3.0	100.0%	x	100.0%
NHS Forth Valley	2.0	-	2.0	2.0	-	2.0	100.0%	x	100.0%
NHS Grampian	21.0	4.0	17.0	14.5	2.1	12.5	69.3%	52.3%	73.3%
NHS Greater Glasgow	29.0	2.0	27.0	22.7	2.0	20.7	78.4%	100.0%	76.8%
NHS Highland	4.0	-	4.0	3.3	-	3.3	81.8%	x	81.8%
NHS Lanarkshire	25.0	11.0	14.0	15.1	8.6	6.5	60.4%	78.5%	46.1%
NHS Lothian	16.0	5.0	11.0	11.6	4.5	7.1	72.4%	89.1%	64.9%
NHS Orkney	-	-	-	-	-	-	x	x	x
NHS Shetland	-	-	-	-	-	-	x	x	x
State Hospital	1.0	-	1.0	1.0	-	1.0	100.0%	x	100.0%
NHS Tayside	2.0	-	2.0	1.5	-	1.5	72.8%	x	72.8%
NHS Western Isles	3.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	1.0	2.0	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%

Source: ISD Scotland.

Notes:

1. Includes hospital and community medical specialties, hospital and community dental specialties and public health medicine.

2. Medical surgical specialties.

Question reference: S2W-09754

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 1 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what data it has on the number of sea trout in rivers; where such data can be accessed; whether trout stocks are falling, and, if so, in which rivers and what action is being taken to reverse this trend.

Catch statistics for salmon and sea trout are collected by the Scottish Executive’s Fisheries Research Services Freshwater Laboratory (FRSFL) in Montrose. Statistical bulletins are published annually in September. Copies of the bulletins are placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

Sea trout numbers have been in decline in recent years, particularly on the west coast. The management of sea trout stocks is the responsibility of the District Salmon Fishery Boards. The boards, often in conjunction with Fisheries Trusts and FRSFL, are continuing to address the problems facing Scotland’s wild salmonid stocks.

Question reference: S2W-09777

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 1 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding it provides to ENABLE to assist with the Thistle Travel Card Scheme.

Question reference: S2W-09776

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 1 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-994 by Nicol Stephen on 21 July 2003, how many (a) enquiries have been received about and (b) cards have been issued for the Thistle Travel Card Scheme in each year since its launch and what guidelines have been provided for transport staff and companies on the scheme.

The Scottish Executive does not retain figures relating to the ENABLE Thistle Travel Card Scheme.

However, we have been informed by ENABLE that they receive approximately 20 to 30 enquiries per month from a range of potential transport users, transport centres and places like adult day centres, citizen advice bureaus and libraries. Some of these enquiries are requesting more Thistle Cards, others are to ask more about the scheme.

We do not have a record of the number of enquiries which are directed to transport operators or others about the scheme.

200,000 cards have been distributed to potential bus and train users since the launch in 2002. Staff guidelines and posters were distributed to transport operators throughout Scotland in September 2002.

The guidelines are aimed at all transport staff informing them of the needs of card holders and what staff can do to assist.

The Thistle Card Scheme is making a significant difference to the lives of many thousands of people throughout Scotland who are prevented from enjoying a full, active and independent life in their community.

Question reference: S2W-09814

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 July 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 1 September 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-9383 by Malcolm Chisholm on 21 July 2004, how many hospital beds there were in each NHS board area per 1,000 head of population in each year since 1997.

NHSScotland - Average Available Staffed Beds, Rate Per 1,000 Population^1,2; by Health Board Area: Years Ending 31 March

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004^P
Scotland	7.8	7.5	7.2	6.8	6.5	6.3	6.1	5.9
Argyll and Clyde	8.1	8.3	7.9	7.6	7.5	7.3	6.9	6.5
Ayrshire and Arran	6.1	6.0	5.8	5.8	5.8	5.8	5.8	5.6
Borders	7.4	7.1	6.9	6.5	6.2	6.0	5.8	6.1
Dumfries and Galloway³	7.4	7.2	7.4	6.6	5.7	5.5	5.2	5.6
Fife	6.4	6.1	5.9	5.7	5.5	5.2	5.1	4.9
Forth Valley	8.2	7.6	7.3	6.7	6.2	5.8	5.3	4.9
Grampian³	7.8	7.3	7.1	6.8	6.6	6.3	6.2	6.0
Greater Glasgow	9.3	9.2	8.6	8.2	7.8	7.5	7.2	7.1
Highland	7.2	7.2	6.9	6.8	6.5	6.5	6.2	6.1
Lanarkshire	7.0	6.7	6.6	6.5	6.2	5.8	5.5	5.4
Lothian	7.5	6.7	6.3	5.9	5.6	5.7	5.7	5.4
Orkney	7.8	7.4	6.7	5.3	4.9	4.9	4.9	4.9
Shetland	5.6	5.1	4.4	4.5	4.5	4.6	4.6	4.6
Tayside	9.0	8.5	8.2	7.9	7.3	6.7	6.6	6.4
Western Isles	8.1	9.8	9.5	9.1	9.3	8.5	8.5	8.7

^PProvisional.

Source: ISD Scotland [Form ISD(S)1]; Registrar General for Scotland.

Notes:

1. Includes joint-user and contractual hospitals.

2. Crude rates per 1,000 ; mid year population at 30 June.

3. Some information for later years is estimated.