- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 10 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive how many incidents of abuse of the Blue Badge scheme have been reported in each of the last five years and what enforcement measures have been taken.
Answer
The information is not held centrally. This is a matter for individual local authorities.
However, the member may be interested to learn that Audit Scotland recently published details of possible fraud on the Blue Badge Scheme in their report on the National Fraud Initiative. As a result of a pilot scheme on data matching with some local authorities, 960 Blue Badges were cancelled, mainly where the holder had died and the badge had not been returned. Audit Scotland have decided to make this a mandatory part of the National Fraud Initiative in order that all local authorities will be involved in the next round.
The report can be found at:
http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/docs/central/2008/nr_080515_national_fraud_initiative.pdf.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 9 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken to tackle any abuse of the Blue Badge scheme.
Answer
There are existing powers under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 available to local authorities to make all disabled parking bays legally enforceable.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 9 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what future plans it has to amend the Blue Badge scheme to cut down any abuse of the scheme.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-13741 on 9 June 2008.
Powers exist under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 available to local authorities to make all disabled parking bays legally enforceable.
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/wa.search.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 6 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive how many copies of Choosing Scotland’s Future: A National Conversation have been purchased at a cost of £10 from Blackwell's bookshops.
Answer
To date, 172 copies of
Choosing Scotland’s Future have been sold by Blackwell’s bookshops. About 90 further copies have been sold via wholesalers and at the Edinburgh Book Festival.
Over 3,000 free copies were distributed to key stakeholders and public libraries following the launch of the paper, and a number of hard copies have been distributed internally within the government for use by policy officials with their stakeholders. The document is also available to download for free on the government’s National Conversation website – to date it has been downloaded over 9,200 times, and has been read online around 30,730 times.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 May 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 5 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been screened for thrombophilia since May 2007.
Answer
This information is not held centrally. We have accepted the advice from the National Screening Committee that population screening for thrombophilia should not be offered. As with all the topics on which it offers advice, however, the committee keeps the evidence base under review.
It is usual in Scotland, however, for adult relatives of those with Factor V Leiden, the most common genetic mutation which gives rise to thrombophilia, to be offered genetic testing and given appropriate advice in the light of the result of that test.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 5 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what the response times were for ambulances attending patients in (a) Dumbarton, (b) the Vale of Leven, (c) Helensburgh and (d) the Rosneath Peninsula set against national targets, in each of the last six months.
Answer
The national response time target for category A calls (life threatening) across mainland Scotland is that, by March 2009, 75% of all incidents should be reached within eight minutes.
The national response time target for category B calls (serious but not life threatening) across mainland Scotland is that, by March 2009, 95% of all incidents should be reached within 14, 19 or 21 minutes depending on population density. For the locations requested, the target is 21 minutes.
The information requested has been provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service and has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 45730).
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 5 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive how many ambulances have been unable to be deployed on shifts at the Vale of Leven, Helensburgh and Arrochar stations due to staff sickness during the last six months, also broken down by month.
Answer
It is not possible to provide the information in the format requested. However, the Scottish Ambulance Service has provided the following table which sets out all shifts not covered. These may be seen in the context of more than 2,000 rostered shifts across the three stations over the last six months. Reasons for shifts not covered will include staff sickness and vacancies.
| | December 2007 | January 2008 | February 2008 | March 2008 | April 2008 | May 2008 | Total |
| Vale of Leven | 5 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 29 |
| Helensburgh | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 10 |
| Arrochar | 0 | 2 | 7 | 14 | 0 | 14 | 37 |
| Total | 7 | 8 | 12 | 20 | 8 | 21 | |
As the Cabinet Secretary made clear in her statement to the Parliament on 4 June 2008, the Scottish Ambulance Service must make every effort to cover all shifts and budget controls should not determine decisions about whether or not to cover shifts.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 5 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether all ambulances from the Vale of Leven, Helensburgh and Arrochar are double-crewed.
Answer
The Scottish Ambulance Service has confirmed that all traditional Accident and Emergency Units (AEUs) are rostered to be double crewed. However, in exceptional circumstances, such as short notice sickness absence, a single manned unit AEU may be deployed.
The statement to Parliament on 4 June by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing made clear the position of the Scottish Government on these matters.
In addition there are single crewed Paramedic Rapid Response Vehicles at the Vale of Leven.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 5 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what the overtime budget was for the Scottish Ambulance Service for 2007-08 and what it is for 2008-09.
Answer
The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that the final overtime budget in 2007-08 was £2.615 million. The current planned overtime budget for 2008-09 is £3.247 million though this figure is subject to revision over the course of the year.
- Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 May 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 5 June 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether all ambulances are double-crewed, and what the reasons are for its position on the matter.
Answer
The service operates a range of vehicle types deployed according to the clinical condition of the patient. Rapid Response Vehicles tend to be single responders, accident and emergency units should be double crewed, as should mid tier and urgent tier units.
The statement to Parliament on 4 June by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing made clear the position of the Scottish Government on these matters.
