- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive how many formal consultations it launched between May 1999 and June 2000 and whether it will list for each of these consultations (a) the cost of launching and promoting the consultation; (b) the cost of analysing the consultation responses; (c) the length of the consultation period; (d) the number of responses received and (e) the date, or expected date, of publication of a summary of responses.
Answer
This information is not currently held centrally. Measures are being undertaken to improve the Scottish Executive's handling of consultations. The policy was set out in the statement I made on 1 June (Official Report Column 1205-1215).
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive who reads consultation responses and whether it sends acknowledgements to individuals and groups who submit responses.
Answer
The handling of responses varies according to the type and scale of the consultation exercise. Measures are being undertaken to improve the Scottish Executive's handling of consultations. The policy was set out in the statement I made on 1 June (Official Report Column 1205-1215).
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 16 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what government funding Northern Constabulary has received this year and in each of the previous five years.
Answer
Direct funding of Northern Constabulary by the Scottish Executive in the current financial year and by the Scottish Office in the previous five years is shown in the table below. Forces also meet a proportion of their costs from local authority funding.
Year | 1995-96 £'000 | 1996-97 £'000 | 1997-98 £'000 | 1998-99 £'000 | 1999-2000 £'000 | 2000-01 (estimate) £'000 |
Police Grant | 14,089 | 14,920 | 15,901 | 16,884 | 18,116 | 18,806 |
Loan Charges | 1,379 | 1,357 | 1,310 | 1,365 | 1,690 | 1,636 |
Civil Defence Grant | 52 | 54 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 |
Millennium Funding | | | | | | 409 |
Additional 100% Funding | | | | | | 523 |
SDEA Funding | | | | | | 100 |
DNA | | | | | | 91 |
TOTAL | 15,520 | 16,331 | 17,266 | 18,304 | 19,861 | 21,520 |
Police Grant was cash limited from 1996-97 onwards. Loan charges depend on the capital projects within the force area at any given time.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 07 April 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will obtain copies of all the title deeds of the Black Cuillins on Skye recorded in the Register of Sasines, including evidence of the title of the current owner, a full prescriptive progress, all burden writs, and any undischarged security writs.
Answer
All title deeds in the Register of Sasines are publicly available.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has adopted a policy of consulting more widely, in terms of both those consulted and the range of issues consulted upon, than was the case prior to May 1999; whether it has a policy of always consulting on certain types of issues; what criteria it uses in determining whether to consult on an issue and how it decides who should receive invitations to respond to different consultation exercises.
Answer
The management of consultations varies according to the type and scale of the consultation exercise. Measures are being undertaken to develop the Scottish Executive's handling of consultations. The policy was set out in the statement I made on 1 June (Official Report Column 1205-1215).
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 15 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive in respect of how many consultations which were launched between May 1999 and June 2000 and where the consultation period is now closed have summaries of consultation responses received been compiled and who compiled each such summary.
Answer
This information is not currently held centrally. However such information will become available in the future as measures are being undertaken to improve the Scottish Executive's handling of consultations. The policy was set out in the statement I made on 1 June (Official Report Column 1205-1215)
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Henry McLeish on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the database being compiled by Learndirect Scotland will be completed prior to the introduction of individual learning accounts.
Answer
The national learndirect scotland database will be available prior to the full introduction of learn direct scotland and individual learning accounts this autumn. Thereafter the database will be refined and developed on a continuous basis to ensure that accurate, relevant and comprehensive opportunities continue to be available to potential learners across Scotland.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Henry McLeish on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what the anticipated cost is of the marketing campaign for Learndirect Scotland.
Answer
While definitive figures are not available at this stage, it is anticipated that some £1.5 million will be available for the comprehensive marketing campaign learndirect scotland has planned for 2000-01.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Sarah Boyack on 12 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what further action it intends to take in relation to high fuel prices and the falling number of petrol stations and post offices in rural areas in response to the finding in The Quality of Services in Rural Scotland that "for those without reliable transport, the trend towards distant services represents a significant problem".
Answer
Service provision is of key importance for rural communities. The Executive has recently asked the Scottish National Rural Partnership to bring together service providers to look at how services might be provided in innovative and imaginative ways in rural areas, as well as identifying ways of helping local Communities to assess their realistic service needs and to work with providers to achieve these.
The Executive has also commissioned an evaluation of the effectiveness of the rural transport fund which is due to report in October 2000. This will inform decisions on future support for rural transport in this autumn's Scottish Spending Review. The Executive is working in close partnership with the UK Government to maintain the rural Post Office network. It welcomes the announcement made by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 28 June that the current size of that network will be maintained until 2006, except where it is impossible to find replacements for departing sub-postmasters.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 12 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to establish a broad consensus of what services should be available to communities in order to provide a benchmark against which local provision can be measured, as recommended in The Quality of Services in Rural Scotland, and when it expects to publish details of this benchmark level of service provision.
Answer
The Executive is considering the recommendations of the report The Quality of Services in Rural Scotland published on 26 June which included the provision of benchmarking. The Executive is committed to ensuring that rural communities are able to access a wide range of services. That is why I recently tasked the Scottish National Rural Partnership to bring together service providers to look at how services might be provided in innovative and imaginative ways in rural areas, as well as identifying ways of helping local communities to identify their realistic service needs and to work with providers to achieve these. I look forward to receiving the Group's recommendations at the end of November.
