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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

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Question reference: S2W-09491

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 12 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-16169 by Mr Jim Wallace on 14 June 2002, how many crimes and offences involving firearms were recorded in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-09300

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Frank McAveety on 8 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the net expenditure on public libraries was in each of the last three years, broken down by local authority.

Net expenditure on library service for 2001-02 and 2002-03, and estimated expenditure for 2003-04, is show, by local authority, in the table below:

Council	Actual 2001-02 Net Expenditure (£000)	Actual 2002-03 Net Expenditure (£000)	Budget Estimate 2003-04 Net Expenditure (£000)
Aberdeen	3,002	3,550	3,780
Aberdeenshire	3,184	3,048	3,959
Angus	1,633	1,664	1,835
Argyll and Bute	1,236	1,332	1,160
Clackmannanshire	836	748	862
Dumfries and Galloway	2,340	2,576	2,466
Dundee	3,582	3,812	3,949
East Ayrshire	2,005	1,924	1,987
East Dunbartonshire	2,553	2,398	2,648
East Lothian	1,357	1,377	1,363
East Renfrewshire	1,853	1,972	1,992
Edinburgh	9,163	10,150	10,637
Eilean Siar	698	660	744
Falkirk	2,512	2,586	2,863
Fife	6,011	6,287	6,747
Glasgow	10,947	10,100	13,005
Highland	3,535	3,860	4,301
Inverclyde	1,322	1,345	1,353
Midlothian	1,178	1,181	1,163
Moray	1,501	1,584	1,679
North Ayrshire	2,003	2,407	2,833
North Lanarkshire	5,678	5,546	5,745
Orkney	1,245	2,045	664
Perth and Kinross	2,906	3,061	3,097
Renfrewshire	3,742	3,885	3,847
Scottish Borders	1,459	1,461	1,579
Shetland	781	873	983
South Ayrshire	1,721	1,834	1,873
South Lanarkshire	5,753	5,357	4,944
Stirling	1,665	1,710	1,793
West Dunbartonshire	1,787	2,223	2,327
West Lothian	1,851	1,959	2,005

Question reference: S2W-09298

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Frank McAveety on 8 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) domestic and (b) overseas tourists have visited Scotland in each of the last three years, broken down by tourist board area.

The number of domestic and overseas visitors to each of the area tourist board (ATB) areas in Scotland in the last three years for which data is available is as follows:

	(millions)
2000	2001	2002
Domestic	Overseas	Total	Domestic	Overseas	Total	Domestic	Overseas	Total
Aberdeen and Grampian	1.91	0.17	2.08	1.54	0.13	1.67	1.83	0.15	1.98
Angus and Dundee	0.80	0.05	0.85	0.58	0.05	0.63	0.56	0.05	0.61
AILLST*	2.54	0.19	2.73	2.24	0.19	2.43	2.42	0.21	2.63
Ayrshire and Arran	0.87	0.09	0.96	1.21	0.08	1.29	0.99	0.07	1.06
Dumfries and Galloway	1.15	0.05	1.20	0.90	0.04	0.94	0.92	0.04	0.96
Edinburgh and Lothians	3.38	0.94	4.32	3.69	0.87	4.56	3.96	0.87	4.83
Gr Glas and Clyde Vall	3.40	0.50	3.90	3.20	0.48	3.68	3.34	0.46	3.80
Highlands of Scotland	2.72	0.41	3.13	2.53	0.36	2.89	2.44	0.36	2.80
Kingdom of Fife	0.82	0.09	0.91	0.75	0.08	0.83	0.73	0.09	0.82
Perthshire	1.22	0.10	1.32	0.94	0.10	1.04	1.06	0.10	1.16
Scottish Borders	0.45	0.03	0.48	0.38	0.04	0.42	0.52	0.04	0.56
Scotland	19.26	2.62	21.88	17.96	2.42	20.38	18.77	2.44	21.21

Notes:

* Argyll, the Isles, Loch Lomond, Stirling and the Trossachs.

1. The total number of visitors to Scotland in 2000, 2001 and 2002 was 20.7 million, 19.1 million and 20.1 million respectively. The table above shows a slightly higher total because a visitor moving between e.g. two ATB areas is counted as making two visits.

2. Due to small sample sizes, there are no area figures for Orkney, Shetland or Western Isles Tourist Boards.

Question reference: S2W-09026

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 8 July 2004

The cost of bank nurses, broken down by NHS board area, is shown in the table below. Information on agency nurses is published in tables E12 to E15 on the Scottish Health Statistics website at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.Table E14 provides a breakdown of agency nurse costs by NHS board area. Information for the year 2003-04 is not currently available.

Table A: Cost of Bank Nursing and Midwifery staff; trend by NHS Board

	Bank Cost
1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03
Total	21,604,589	24,887,686	31,262,459	38,964,926
Qualified	12,583,106	14,500,531	17,418,060	21,009,771
Argyll and Clyde	1,062,302	916,881	1,433,734	1,439,255
Ayrshire and Arran	597,460	712,906	636,966	670,635
Borders	441,479	388,994	499,133	577,034
Dumfries and Galloway	26,108	52,375	131,702	112,050
Fife	816,222	1,017,115	993,307	1,353,110
Forth Valley	285,853	357,867	490,591	1,223,219
Grampian	1,816,785	2,231,590	2,183,714	2,453,245
Greater Glasgow	2,205,412	2,669,129	3,014,238	3,889,517
Highland	701,147	867,490	1,057,952	1,153,761
Lanarkshire	509,310	853,111	790,805	1,271,099
Lothian	2,892,078	3,169,205	4,827,831	5,399,373
Orkney	72,737	92,516	164,120	182,335
Shetland	79,335	90,038	100,874	141,900
Tayside	887,211	906,948	950,294	871,909
Western Isles	103,215	158,853	128,788	213,512
Special Health Boards	69,780	10,803	8,614	46,711
Unqualified	9,021,483	10,387,155	13,844,399	17,955,155
Argyll and Clyde	610,977	589,300	1,099,805	1,227,354
Ayrshire and Arran	841,888	1,099,425	1,182,610	1,425,957
Borders	351,405	406,807	519,456	538,621
Dumfries and Galloway	5,307	-	15,413	3,261
Fife	572,585	578,472	624,662	747,370
Forth Valley	190,639	304,281	395,774	1,210,864
Grampian	977,906	1,265,578	1,514,693	1,504,279
Greater Glasgow	1,824,883	2,455,682	3,500,659	4,842,372
Highland	371,654	445,277	558,409	687,574
Lanarkshire	413,156	661,852	762,735	1,117,152
Lothian	2,342,527	1,917,739	2,797,841	3,609,200
Orkney	24,598	26,321	51,865	56,755
Shetland	49,532	51,090	52,765	64,455
Tayside	161,643	470,356	653,401	778,223
Western Isles	59,288	118,029	116,884	149,803
Special Health Boards	240,168	1,655	2,824	3,021

Source: Earning Related Base Of Data

Bank nurses are employees of NHSScotland whilst agency nurses are employed by private nursing agencies and both are utilised by individual NHS employers to cover temporary nursing gaps. These gaps will continue to occur but employers have been encouraged to follow the guidance in Temporary Measures the Accounts Commission for Scotland Report 2000 on reducing usage and costs through a hierarchy of options in which preference for bank is higher than more expensive agency nurses.

The Partnership Agreement commits to implementing nationally co-ordinated nursing bank arrangements in Scotland and a project is currently examining a range of options to reduce the reliance on agency nurses, assist nurse placement across Scotland and improve patient services. This will report in the autumn.

The Scottish Health Workforce Plan 2004 Baseline report published inApril 2004, focuses on our drive to increase our capacity, reduce waiting times,improve outcomes and provide care in new and better ways.

Question reference: S2W-09292

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 7 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much capital debt is owed by each local authority, expressed as also per capita.

Question reference: S2W-09306

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

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of all victims of sexual assault in each of the last five years was children.

Question reference: S2W-09197

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 1 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to paragraph 5.1 of Final Consensus Statement of the Royal College of Physicians' Consensus Conference on Hepatitis C, what measures it is taking, and are planned, to reduce non-attendance at hepatitis C virus services (HCV), enhance referral to HCV services, improve data collection and service audit within the framework of managed clinical networks.

Question reference: S2W-09192

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 1 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to paragraph 3.3 of Final Consensus Statement of the Royal College of Physicians' Consensus Conference on Hepatitis C, what measures are being taken to encourage patient involvement, given that half of those referred do not attend clinics.

Question reference: S2W-09194

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 1 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to paragraph 4.4 of Final Consensus Statement of the Royal College of Physicians' Consensus Conference on Hepatitis C, what its response is in respect of the call for new drug therapies.

The regulation and safety of medicines is reserved and is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MRHA), or, for certain types of drugs, the European Medicines Agency (EMEA).

The MRHA has advised that any new drug applications, including those for Hepatitis C must achieve the required standards of safety, quality and efficacy before being granted a licence. The Scottish Executive would welcome any new drug therapies, which satisfied these criteria.

Question reference: S2W-09296

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 1 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-8837 by Cathy Jamieson on 18 June 2004, how many people were convicted of drink-driving in (a) 1999-2000, (b) 2000-01 and (c) 2001-02.

	Financial Year
1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03^P
Crimes and offences involving firearms	1,066	982	970	1,000	979