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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: S1W-05711

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 March 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 12 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what estimate it has made of any impact which the aggregates tax will have upon employment in Scotland over each of the next three years.

The aggregates tax is unlikely to have any impact over the next two years, as it will not be introduced until April 2002. Thereafter, there may be small reductions in employment in the extraction of primary aggregates, but there could also be increases in employment in the recycling of aggregates. However, the short- term elasticity of demand for these products is low, so it would be surprising if there were major impacts.

In addition, there are likely to be increases in employment stimulated by the sustainability fund, and the reductions in employers' National Insurance contributions.

Question reference: S1W-06317

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 April 2000
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 12 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will specify all representations which it has made to Her Majesty's Government in relation to those parts of Scotland which should be included in the assisted area status map.

Question reference: S1W-06339

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 April 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 10 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-5597 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 12 April 200, how many (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions there were for the summary offence of unlawful eviction in each of the last ten years.

The numbers of prosecutions and convictions which are identifiable under section 22 of the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 are given in the table below. This covers unlawful eviction and harassment of occupiers. From 1989-95 there may have been a small number of additional cases not separately identified in the data held centrally.

	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998
Persons proceeded against	8	11	5	7	8	3	3	2	2	2
Persons with charge proved	7	9	3	4	4	1	2	1	1	2

Question reference: S1W-06309

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 April 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 10 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has consulted the Lands Tribunal for Scotland in relation to the potential impact upon its workload of the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Bill and what measures it will consider to address any expected increase in the Tribunal's workload.

Question reference: S1W-06310

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 April 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 10 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications under section 19 of the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Bill it estimates will be made to the Lands Tribunal for Scotland in each of the five years immediately following commencement of this provision.

Question reference: S1W-06239

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 April 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jackie Baillie on 10 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what its estimate is of the value of services presently provided by Councils of Voluntary Service throughout Scotland and how much funding it provides to Councils of Voluntary Service.

Question reference: S1W-05322

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 March 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 9 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what the waiting times were for (a) a first appointment and (b) treatment within each specialty at Glasgow and Dundee Dental Hospitals in each of the last three years.

The median waiting time for a new outpatient consultation by specialty in the two dental hospitals is shown in the table below. Information on first appointment waiting times and individual specialty waiting times is not collected separately.

Appointments During Year Ended	Location	Speciality	Median wait (days)
31 December 1997	Dundee Dental Hospital	Oral surgery & oral medicine	41
		Orthodontics & paediatric dentistry	26
		Restorative dentistry	49
	Glasgow Dental Hospital & School	Oral surgery & oral medicine	51
		Orthodontics & paediatric dentistry	63
		Restorative dentistry	127
31 December 1998	Dundee Dental Hospital	Oral surgery & oral medicine	63
		Orthodontics & paediatric dentistry	28
		Restorative dentistry	60
	Glasgow Dental Hospital & School	Oral surgery & oral medicine	52
		Orthodontics & paediatric dentistry	83
		Restorative dentistry	125
31 December 1999	Dundee Dental Hospital	Oral surgery & oral medicine	63
		Orthodontics & paediatric dentistry	25
		Restorative dentistry	70
	Glasgow Dental Hospital & School	Oral surgery & oral medicine	56
		Orthodontics & paediatric dentistry	64
		Restorative dentistry	119

Question reference: S1W-04286

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 February 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 9 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what the estimated cost is of the proposed water industry consultative committees for each of the three water authority areas in each of the next three financial years.

Question reference: S1W-06240

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 April 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jackie Baillie on 8 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive how much the report commissioned from Eglinton Management Consultants in relation to its review of Councils of Voluntary Service cost; whether Eglinton Management Consultants sought any information from Councils of Voluntary Service whilst compiling this report and whether the report by Eglinton Management Consultants took into account rurality or sparsity of population in its recommendations as to funding models.

The cost of the report on the review of Councils of Voluntary Service produced by Eglinton Management Consultants is unable to be disclosed for reasons of commercial confidentiality.

Eglinton sought information for its report from a variety of sources. This included consulting 12 Councils of Voluntary Service and a range of other organisations directly connected with the voluntary sector including the Community and Voluntary Organisations Council, Voluntary Action Highlands & Islands, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Volunteer Development Scotland, and CVS Scotland.The report identified three models of funding:

- matching funding, involving equal contributions from the Scottish Executive and local authorities;

- funding entirely by the local authorities; and

- shared funding, aligned around community planning boundaries, that would involve the Scottish Executive, local authorities and other key agencies.As additional work, at no extra cost, Eglinton considered four possible funding models, two of which took into account rurality and sparsity of population.

These options and others are currently being considered by the Scottish Executive and an announcement as to the way forward will be made shortly.

Question reference: S1W-06176

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 April 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jack McConnell on 4 May 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-4773 by Mr Jack McConnell on 6 April 2000, what the five task forces are which have been established since July 1999, and what is the membership or composition of each.

The information requested is set out in the table below:

Task Force	Membership
Homelessness Task Force	Ms Jackie Baillie (Chair) Deputy Minister for Communities
	Councillor Rita Miller, Convener of Community Services, South Ayrshire Council
	Mr Mark Turley, Director of Housing, Edinburgh City Council
	Mr Robert Aldridge, Director, Scottish Council for Single Homeless
	Ms Liz Nicholson, Director, Shelter, Scotland
	Ms Margaret Taylor, Director, Glasgow Council for Single Homeless
	Mr Mel Young, Director, The Big Issue in Scotland
	Mr David Orr, Director, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations
	Ms Pat Bagot, Policy and Practice Manager, Scottish Homes
	Ms Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Department of Urban Studies, Glasgow University
	Ms Hilary Reynolds, Department of Social Security
	Ms Catriona Renfrew, Greater Glasgow Health Board
	Mr Bill Robertson, Association of Directors of Social Work
	Mr David Belfall, Head of Group, Development Department, Scottish Executive
Tayside Task Force	Professor Frank Clark CBE, former General Manager of Lanarkshire Health Board (Chair)
	Mr David Bolton, Director of Primary and Community Service Development at Lothian Primary Care NHS Trust
	Mr Cameron Revie, PricewaterhouseCoopers
	Mr Mike Fuller, Scottish Partnership Forum
	Professor David Rowley, Chairman of Tayside Acute Services Review
Gaelic Organisations Task Force	Mr John Alick Macpherson, Depute Director of the Gaelic Broadcasting Committee (Chair)
	Ms Maggie Cunningham, BBC Scotland
	Mrs Annie MacSween, Senior Lecturer in Gaelic Development at Lews Castle College
	Mr Donald John MacInnes, Chief Executive of Scotland Europa
	Mr Donald Mackay, Financial Consultant
Digital Scotland Task Force	Mr Peter Peacock, Deputy Minister for Children and Education
	Mr Robert Crawford, Chief Executive, Scottish Enterprise
	Mr Gordon McKenzie, Scotland Country Manager, Microsoft Limited
	Mr Graham Moore, Director, BT Scotland
	Mr Frank Cullen, Managing Director, NTL Scotland
	Ms Margaret Morrison, Country Manager Scotland and Ireland, Cisco Systems
	Mr Gordon H Brown, Finance Director, IBM UK Limited
	Professor Tom Wilson, Chair of Glasgow, Technology Network, GCBP
	Mr Robert Craig, Director, Scottish Centre for Information and Library Services
	Mr Keith Monserrat, Director, Legal and Regulation, THUS
	Mr Richard Pietrasik, Chief Executive, SCET
	Ms Rachel Willmer, Chief Executive Officer, Intertrader
	Mr Gavin Nicholson, Managing Director, The Realise Group
	Mr Bill Harvey, Deputy Director, The Scottish Funding Councils for Further and Higher Education
	Ms Lesley Beddie, Director of Communications, The Scottish Parliament
	Ms Oonagh Aitken, Chief Executive, CoSLA
	Mr Frank Binnie, Chief Executive, Internet Society of Scotland
	Ms Ann Macintosh, Director, International Teledemocracy Centre
	Mr Chris van der Kuyl, Chief Executive Officer, VIS Interactive plc
	Mr Hugh Aitken, Vice-President Operations, SUN Microsystems Scotland B.V.
	Mr Scott McGlinchey, Director ICL Scotland
	Mr John Elvidge, Secretary, Scottish Executive Education Department
	Mr Alistair Brown, Scottish Executive
	Mr Chris Winslow, Special Adviser
Knowledge Economy Task Force	Mr Henry McLeish, MP, MSP, Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Chair)
	Mr Nicol Stephen, MSP, Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning
	Mr Hugh Aitken, Vice President, Operations, (Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific), Sun Microsystems; Chairman, Electronics Scotland
	Mr Rae Angus, Principal, Aberdeen College
	Professor John Archer, Principal, Heriot-Watt University
	Dr Janet Brown, Head of Innovation, Scottish Enterprise
	Mr Robert Crawford, Chief Executive, Scottish Enterprise
	Mr Bob Downes, Director, Economic Development, BT
	Dr Cathy Garner, Director, Research and Enterprise, University of Glasgow
	Mr Gordon Guthrie, Technical Architect/IT Strategist at the new Halifax internet bank (greenfield.co.uk)
	Mr Charles Leadbeater, respected author on the knowledge economy
	Ms Shonaig Macpherson, Managing Partner, Edinburgh, McGrigor Donald
	Professor Stephen Molyneux, Microsoft Professor of Advanced Learning Technology, University of Wolverhampton; Director, DELTA (Development and Evaluation of Learning Technology Applications) Institute
	Mr Neil Roden, Director of Human Resources, Royal Bank of Scotland
	Mr Spiro Rombotis, Chief Executive, Cyclacel Ltd
	Professor John Sizer, Chief Executive, SHEFC/SFEFC
	Mr Willie Watt, Director, Scotland, 3I plc
	Mr Eddie Frizzell, Secretary, Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department
	Mr Godfrey Robson, Head of Enterprise and Industrial Affairs Group
	Mr Ed Weeple, Head of Lifelong Learning Group