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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-02326

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 29 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive when the #100,000 publicity campaign, announced by the Deputy Minister for Finance and Public Services on 12 November 2002 to assist the implementation of the Dog Fouling (Scotland) Act 2003, will be launched; what form it will take, and how long it will last.

The marketing campaign to generateawareness of the implementation of the Dog Fouling (Scotland) Act2003 will begin on 16 October and run for approximately two weeks.

The first stage of the campaignwill comprise the placing of advertisements in regional and national press and over100 local newspapers, which will alert people to the change in legislation. Theadvertising activity will be supported by other marketing activity to generate furthermedia coverage and public awareness.

Campaign messages will also bebroadcast by Scottish Radio Holdings’ stations on all of their AM and FM stationsacross Scotland, starting on the day of the launch and running for fivedays.

We are also working closely withlocal authorities to ensure that the message is distributed widely in all localitiesacross Scotland.

The budget for the advertisingelement of the campaign has been reduced from the previously announced £100,000to £82,000 as a result of the review of Scottish Executive advertising expenditure, whichI announced in August of 2002.

Question reference: S2W-02319

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by George Reid on 26 September 2003

To ask the Presiding Officer whether the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body will publish the budget for the new Parliament building for 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06, including landscaping and all associated costs.

The SPCB's budget for 2003-04 is published in theBudget (Scotland) (No 4) Act as amended by the 2003-04 Summer Budget Revisionlaid before Parliament in June 2003. The total capital budget of £149.4 millionfor the current year includes £143.5 million in respect of the new Parliament Building and £3.4 million in respect of landscaping. Thesefigures, together with the approved budgets for previous years,comprise the £373.9 million forecast expenditure advised to the FinanceCommittee in June 2003.

In my letter of 22 September 2003, I have advised the Finance Committee of potential capital expenditure requirementsfor 2004-05 in respect of the Holyrood Project and these will be reviewed bythe Finance Committee as part of the normal budget scrutiny process.

Question reference: S2W-02510

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 24 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive when it expects Scottish Natural Heritage to produce the revised Scottish Outdoor Access Code for approval by ministers and the Parliament.

Under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act2003, the production of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code is a matter for ScottishNatural Heritage (SNH). I understand SNH are currently considering the commentsreceived following their consultation on a draft code and expect to be in a positionto forward the revised Scottish Outdoor Access Code to ministers later this year.Following consideration and approval by ministers, the code will be presented tothe Parliament for its approval.

Question reference: S2W-02489

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 23 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-1857 by Andy Kerr on 5 September 2003, whether it will provide any information it has on the monthly pattern of expenditure on newspapers, radio, television and any other spending on advertising and marketing for 2002-03.

Any such pattern is formed bythe scheduling of campaigns. The actual recorded payments are, however, determinedby the date of receipt and payment of invoices.

The scheduling of a number of the Executive’s campaigns are influenced by seasonal factors. For example, in 2002-03the drink-drive, domestic abuse, fire safety, and alcohol misuse campaigns werescheduled for the winter period to coincide with proven higher incidences of relatedbehaviour, accidents and risk.

The flu campaign was scheduledfrom mid-September to November, which is the recognised “window” for immunisationof the elderly and at risk groups before the winter period of potential flu occurrence.

Planned expenditure for the lastquarter of 2002-03 was reduced by over 25% (written answer S1W-31578 on 7February 2002 refers - all answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa),in line with the First Minister’s decision of August 2002 to reduce advertisingexpenditure. This is at odds with Mr Monteith’s claim, published in The Herald,Saturday September 6, that “Labour used government promotions to influence the Holyroodelection in May [2003]”.

Question reference: S2W-02490

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 23 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-1857 by Andy Kerr on 5 September 2003, whether it will publish each campaign's media schedule or make the information available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

Question reference: S2W-02481

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 22 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-1857 by Mr Andy Kerr on 5 September 2003, how much each of its departments spent on advertising in 2002-03, broken down by campaign.

Health Dept	Justice Dept
	Spend (£)		Spend (£)
Alcohol Abuse	864,258	Crime Breakers	33,413
Breathing Space	139,272	Domestic abuse	481,763
Drugs	1,505,490	Fire Prevention	470,469
Flu	896,032	Safer Scotland	176,265
Healthy Eating/Living	1,420,325
NHS Helpline	162,520
Free Personal Care	275,829
Organ Donation	28,355
Organ Retention	94,131
Total	5,386,212	Total	1,161,910

Rural Affairs	Development
	Spend (£)		Spend (£)
Environment	742,759	European Year of the Disabled	56,799
Farmers on Line	29,154	Glasgow Housing	21,083
Foot and Mouth	39,421	Racism	1,435,412
		Road Safety	1,565,607
Total	811,334	Total	3,078,901

Education	ELL&T
	Spend (£)		Spend (£)
Child Protection on the Internet	119,092	Digital Access	182,352
Children’s Hearings	373,721	Concessionary Travel	296,986
Funding for Learners	72,108	Regional Selective Assistance	63,475
Home Reading	237,135	Travel Awareness	504,677
Social Care	541,974	Traveline	51,453
National Debate on Education	343,985	Broadband	7,961
UEFA	7,029	M74	41,055
Total	1,695,044	Total	1,147,959

Question reference: S2W-02423

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Peter Peacock on 19 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will issue guidance or regulations to local authorities under the Education (Disability Strategies and Pupils' Records) Act 2002 that will make pupil records available to parents.

Question reference: S2W-02391

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 18 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any television programmes have been sponsored by the General Register Office for Scotland and, if so, which programmes have been sponsored and how much money has been spent on such sponsorship.

The Scottish Televisionseries “Celtic America”, was sponsored by the ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk website.The cost of this sponsorship was borne jointly by the General Register Officefor Scotland (GROS) and Scotland on Line, the GROS private sector partner in thewebsite. The ScotlandsPeople website will also be sponsoring “This Scotland”, aseries due to be broadcast in November. The cost to GROS of sponsoring bothprogrammes will be £9,420.27. GROS are monitoring the effect thatsponsorship and publicity has on the business generated on the internet siteand to date GROS are satisfied that the costs represent value for money.

Question reference: S2W-02325

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 16 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-1802 by Mr Tom McCabe on 27 August 2003, how much each local authority spent on care for elderly people from 1997-98 until 2001-02.

The following table showsnet revenue expenditure on older people per local authority area, for the years1997-98 to 2001-02. The figures are taken from the Local Financial Return (LFR)(Social Work) and are therefore not comparable with the provisional outturn andbudget estimates information used to answer qusetion S2W-1802 on 27 August 2003.

Net Revenue Expenditure¹(£000)

Social Work Older People²	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
Scotland	246,286	263,949	302,662	293,548	316,130
Aberdeen City	4,667	3,253	13,418	13,412	14,643
Aberdeenshire	8,500	10,796	11,717	12,619	13,219
Angus	7,305	8,175	7,967	6,919	8,019
Argyll and Bute	5,807	5,252	5,056	6,297	7,119
Clackmannanshire	1,181	1,873	2,938	1,889	2,623
Dumfries and Galloway	8,189	8,020	8,583	7,941	7,857
Dundee City	9,470	9,183	8,666	8,941	9,152
East Ayrshire	5,556	5,696	5,526	5,684	6,008
East Dunbartonshire	480	591	541	836	643
East Lothian	4,409	5,127	4,934	4,491	4,751
East Renfrewshire	3,263	3,642	4,482	4,759	5,535
Edinburgh, City of	18,134	16,260	16,218	17,497	19,380
Eilean Siar	3,365	3,721	3,852	3,842	4,094
Falkirk	5,037	9,431	9,363	9,380	10,606
Fife	16,299	18,484	18,842	18,766	20,361
Glasgow, City of³	43,333	44,964	60,634	44,959	46,835
Highland	9,824	13,391	16,064	17,764	17,895
Inverclyde	4,100	4,663	5,034	5,025	5,547
Midlothian	3,645	3,116	3,654	3,878	3,826
Moray	4,891	4,352	4,952	5,707	5,056
North Ayrshire	5,296	5,707	6,173	6,408	7,526
North Lanarkshire	16,385	16,879	18,610	20,463	21,541
Orkney Islands	1,623	1,853	2,037	2,081	2,288
Perth and Kinross	6,728	5,952	7,500	7,056	8,003
Renfrewshire	8,841	9,366	8,564	10,240	10,731
Scottish Borders	5,862	6,367	5,931	5,750	6,080
Shetland Islands	1,228	1,321	1,192	1,525	2,147
South Ayrshire	5,388	6,736	8,068	7,952	8,793
South Lanarkshire	12,467	13,402	13,489	13,908	16,630
Stirling	2,794	3,156	3,570	3,697	2,974
West Dunbartonshire	6,233	7,049	7,516	7,295	8,361
West Lothian	6,231	6,213	6,767	6,207	8,274

Source: As reported by localauthorities on LFR3 (Social Work) returns to the Executive.

Notes:

1. Net revenue expenditureis expenditure met from council tax, non‑domestic rates and revenuesupport grant.

2. Support Service costs andRevenue Contributions to Capital are apportioned notionally, pro rata toexpenditure on operating costs.

3. Glasgow’sincrease in expenditure in 1999-2000 was due to a change in the authority’srecording practices.

Question reference: S2W-02324

Asked by: Mr Brian Monteith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 September 2003
Current Status: Answered by Frank McAveety on 16 September 2003

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-1809 by Mr Frank McAveety on 27 August 2003, what budget has been agreed for the National and Regional Facilities Strategy up to 2006, broken down by financial year, and whether there was any underspend on the strategy's budget for 2002-03.