Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

Criathragan Hide all filters

Displaying 3500 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S3W-02023

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Linda Fabiani on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will issue guidance to all non-departmental public bodies for which it has responsibility to encourage them to fly the Saltire as the principal flag above those of their properties for which there is an existing flagpole.

Question reference: S3W-02024

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Linda Fabiani on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what representations it will make to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, whose responsibility covers official flag flying, to remove the rule that the department applies with regard to the flying of the Saltire and the Union flag when flown together that the Saltire must never be flown in a superior position to the Union flag.

The union flag is flown outside Scottish Government buildings on 18 dates a year by Royal Command. The Saltire flies outside Scottish Government buildings throughout the year.

The Scottish Government believes that the Saltire is Scotland''s national flag and all such matters should be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Ministers.Such matters are currently the subject of a consultation exercise following the Government''s publication of the constitutional reform green paper The Governance of Britain, published on Tuesday 3 July 2007.

The flag-flying guidelines apply to the Scottish Government, its related agencies and associated departments. A copy is held in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 43157).

Question reference: S3W-02025

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Linda Fabiani on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to encourage the flying of the Saltire throughout Scotland all year round.

Question reference: S3W-02051

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Security Service, MI5, has in any of its briefings to Scottish ministers disclosed what percentage of the estimated 2,700 active files held on individuals resident in Scotland are on persons who are duly elected representatives of (a) a Scottish local authority, (b) the UK Parliament, (c) the European Parliament and (d) the Scottish Parliament.

Question reference: S3W-02022

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Linda Fabiani on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to fly the Saltire permanently over governmental buildings for which it has responsibility.

Question reference: S3W-02038

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what average time is taken by Disclosure Scotland to respond to applications for disclosure checks.

Question reference: S3W-02040

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of applications to Disclosure Scotland have fallen outwith the turnaround times stipulated by each service agreement for (a) basic, (b) standard and (c) enhanced disclosures in (i) each year since its establishment and (ii) each of the last six months.

Disclosure Scotlandmeasures performance for Basic applications, and for standard and enhancedapplications against a service level agreement target of 14 calendar days.

The information requested isset out in the following table.

Period	% of Applications Outwith SLA
Period	Basic	Standard/Enhanced
2002-03	1.0%	7.9%
2003-04	2.0%	24.6%
2004-05	1.2%	22.8%
2005-06	0.1%	6.0%
2006-07	0.0%	0.1%
January 2007	0.0%	0.0%
February 2007	0.0%	0.0%
March 2007	0.0%	0.0%
April 2007	0.0%	0.0%
May 2007	0.0%	0.1%
June 2007	0.0%	0.1%

Question reference: S3W-02041

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications to Disclosure Scotland for disclosure checks have been returned to the applicants due to errors in (a) each year since its establishment and (b) each of the last six months, expressed also as a percentage of the total number of applications in each category of disclosure.

Disclosure Scotland hasbeen recording application returns since April 2004. They do not gatherinformation separately for the different levels of check. The availableinformation is provided in the following table.

Period	Number of Applications Returned	% of Applications Returned
2004-05	36,870	9.84%
2005-06	44,828	8.29%
2006-07	47,270	7.89%
January 2007	3,255	7.22%
February 2007	3,847	7.50%
March 2007	4,917	8.11%
April 2007	3,522	7.07%
May 2007	4,974	8.44%
June 2007	4,740	8.04%

Question reference: S3W-02039

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications there have been to Disclosure Scotland for (a) basic, (b) standard and (c) enhanced disclosures in (i) each year since its establishment and (ii) each of the last 12 months.

It is not possible toprovide separate figures for standard and enhanced disclosures. The informationthat is available is set out in the following table.

Period	Applications Received
Period	Basic	Standard/Enhanced
2002-03	2,191	136,429
2003-04	178,818	187,162
2004-05	129,630	245,067
2005-06	209,484	331,267
2006-07	258,396	340,711
July 2006	21,035	30,141
August 2006	20,329	28,779
September 2006	19,633	30,411
October 2006	22,007	27,510
November 2006	22,461	32,455
December 2006	16,171	22,978
January 2007	21,328	23,751
February 2007	22,958	28,329
March 2007	28,339	32,292
April 2007	24,829	24,982
May 2007	28,601	30,328
June 2007	27,666	31,285

Question reference: S3W-02043

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 July 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications for disclosure checks have been processed by Disclosure Scotland in each week since 1 April 2004 and what the average processing time has been.

Disclosure Scotland canprovide this information on a monthly basis. Since April 2004 the number ofapplications and the average turnaround time for correctly completedapplications where there was no need to gather information from police forcesis set out in the following table.

Period	Applications Processed	Average Turnaround (days)
April 2004	51,857	13
May 2004	38,810	13.8
June 2004	38,932	17
July 2004	55,686	21.5
August 2004	50,113	10.3
September 2004	30,611	4
October 2004	29,521	3.5
November 2004	37,012	3.5
December 2004	26,279	4
January 2005	26,641	3.3
February 2005	30,689	4.3
March 2005	33,307	4.6
April 2005	35,965	4
May 2005	33,571	4
June 2005	42,808	5.5
July 2005	42,217	7.3
August 2005	42,017	7
September 2005	50,897	4.7
October 2005	50,012	5.6
November 2005	56,033	7.3
December 2005	40,265	12.1
January 2006	55,215	10.8
February 2006	49,356	3.8
March 2006	54,344	4.4
April 2006	46,005	3.7
May 2006	51,607	2.4
June 2006	53,592	1.8
July 2006	50,771	2.3
August 2006	49,272	1.7
September 2006	38,602	2.5
October 2006	56,059	4
November 2006	52,611	3.8
December 2006	42,409	4.4
January 2007	46,492	4.1
February 2007	46,528	3.6
March 2007	51,944	4.3
April 2007	57,857	5.1
May 2007	55,090	4.1
June 2007	55,799	3.8