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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: S3W-00115

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 7 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people committed suicide in each of the last five years for which figures are available, broken down by (a) gender and (b) age.

In presenting statistics onsuicides it is conventional to combine deaths classified as intentionalself-harm (suicides) with those classified as events of undetermined intent.This is because the majority of the latter are likely to have been suicides.The following table provides information on this basis.

Deaths Caused by IntentionalSelf-Harm and Events of Undetermined Intent¹ Scotland,2001-05

Age and Gender	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Persons	887	899	794	835	763
(a) by gender
Males	646	676	578	609	549
Females	241	223	216	226	214
(b) by age group
Under 25	129	132	104	101	107
25 - 34	177	208	159	136	142
35 - 44	228	204	194	240	192
45 - 54	149	137	143	163	131
55 - 64	101	110	92	95	96
65 and over	103	108	102	100	95

Note:1.ICD10 codes X60-X84, Y10-Y34, Y87.0, Y87.2.

Question reference: S3W-00313

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Maxwell on 7 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people were defined as homeless in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available, broken down by local authority.

The numbers of applicant householdsassessed as homeless under the homelessness legislation by local authorities areshown in the following table.

Number of ApplicationsAssessed as Homeless by Local Authority: 1996-97 to 2005-06

	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Scotland	24,700	27,000	29,000	29,900	29,500	32,800	35,067	36,711	34,866	36,625
Aberdeen City	830	920	1,030	1,160	1,080	990	844	806	659	1,099
Aberdeenshire	740	700	690	750	650	660	667	629	731	754
Angus	340	330	450	380	280	320	446	538	531	550
Argyll and Bute	320	260	250	250	230	370	515	561	561	658
Clackmannanshire	150	150	280	320	350	410	376	408	512	600
Dumfries and Galloway	420	450	390	590	530	650	780	801	860	842
Dundee City	630	630	550	510	530	520	415	366	378	342
East Ayrshire	330	400	420	370	400	460	671	692	808	734
East Dunbartonshire	290	260	250	250	250	250	258	321	258	364
East Lothian	390	390	380	390	340	340	435	436	462	561
East Renfrewshire	60	100	100	180	130	150	122	195	246	261
Edinburgh, City of	2,640	2,840	3,150	3,560	3,680	3,700	3,816	4,283	4,192	4,291
Eilean Siar	100	130	70	100	60	70	124	130	173	155
Falkirk	470	570	720	890	940	950	1,021	992	809	1,000
Fife	1,170	1,540	1,940	1,840	1,640	2,020	2,326	2,827	2,626	2,732
Glasgow City	9,320	10,260	10,570	10,250	10,150	12,030	11,038	10,624	8,439	8,634
Highland	370	390	370	380	530	550	791	1,220	1,293	1,352
Inverclyde	250	320	280	200	210	240	364	550	430	510
Midlothian	370	340	390	310	280	330	405	427	494	485
Moray	90	190	110	180	210	270	546	384	412	347
North Ayrshire	420	530	580	700	680	860	1,382	1,296	1,112	1,082
North Lanarkshire	1,030	1,000	1,360	1,080	1,030	1,170	1,649	1,972	2,763	2,881
Orkney	60	70	70	80	60	80	50	65	88	87
Perth and Kinross	130	120	120	230	430	440	654	362	307	391
Renfrewshire	310	270	180	440	630	470	565	652	689	633
Scottish Borders,The	480	390	410	410	420	440	388	598	470	530
Shetland	140	120	100	80	110	120	109	107	76	76
South Ayrshire	640	580	600	640	590	620	551	554	552	546
South Lanarkshire	860	1,070	1,090	1,020	990	1,030	1,335	1,402	1,267	1,402
Stirling	570	660	690	630	510	500	505	455	535	520
West Dunbartonshire	220	290	370	550	590	700	835	860	1,133	1,230
West Lothian	570	710	1,050	1,260	1,040	1,070	1,084	1,198	1,000	976

Source: HL1 returns by localauthorities to the Scottish Executive Communities Analytical Services Directorate.

Notes:

1. All applications within periodassessed as homeless (excluding potentially homeless).

2. Some households may have appliedseveral times during the period, and will be counted more than once.

3. Data prior to 2002 are estimateddue to missing returns (rounded to the nearest 100 for Scotland leveland the nearest 10 for local authority level).

4. Due to the live nature of the data collection system, figures are updated on a continuous basis and the informationpublished here may differ from that published previously.

Question reference: S3W-00138

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 6 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of eligible cancer patients in the west of Scotland are being treated with Herceptin; how this compares with other regions of Scotland, and what steps it will take to (a) end any area-based disparity and (b) monitor the outcome of any such action.

Question reference: S3W-00105

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 6 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it will take to ensure that retained firefighters working in the public sector are allowed time off work to enable them to carry out their firefighting duties without penalty.

The co-operation of primary employers,whether in the public or private sector, is essential to supporting the role ofa retained firefighter. The government has no plans to prescribe how this is done,rather it will continue to fall to each Fire and Rescue Service to enter into dialoguewith primary employers to encourage local agreements.

It is already the case that,consistent with agreements made at the National Joint Council for Local AuthorityFire Brigades where responsibility for this matter lies, retained firefighters areprotected with respect to any loss of earnings incurred as a result of respondingto an emergency.

Jim Smith, a retainedfirefighter and a large employer with experience of releasing staff for fire-fightingduties, has recently been appointed as an Assistant Inspector with Her Majesty’sFire Inspectorate. Mr Smith’s role will revolve around drawing upon his experienceto raise awareness amongst employers about the benefits of employing staff who arealso retained firefighters.

Question reference: S3W-00362

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 6 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what recommendations of Missing Out – Young Runaways in Scotland it has implemented.

In response to therecommendations of this report, the Executive has:

provided substantialadditional support to ChildLine and ParentLine;

funded, on a pilot projectbasis, the Running Other Choices (ROC) project run by Aberlour Child CareTrust, and

provided a guidance pack toChild Protection Committees on Vulnerable Children and Young People (July2003), with the expectation that local authority areas will develop their ownprotocols to support the guidance, as suits their local circumstances.

Some of the recommendationsin this report were overtaken by the implementation of the three-year ChildProtection Reform Programme (2003 to 2006-07) which provided a strengthenednational framework, and mechanisms, for local agencies to work together toidentify the needs of all children in their area and make appropriate provisionto meet these.

Question reference: S3W-00121

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 6 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children under the age of 16 ran away from home and (a) were missing for more than 24 hours, (b) were believed to have been physically or sexually abused while away from home, (c) remained missing after seven days and (d) were never found in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Question reference: S3W-00106

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 6 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive how many prisoners have escaped or absconded from prison in each of the last five years for which figures are available, broken down by prison, and, of these, how man, remain at large.

The number of absconds and escapes for the period requested can be obtained from the Scottish Prison Service annual reports published at:

http://www.sps.gov.uk/default.aspx?documentid=67e156ce-a4c9-49f5-a526-0dab421427f6.

The number of prisoners still at large (18) is detailed in the following table.

Establishment	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Barlinnie					1
Open Estate		1	3	3	10
Total	0	1	3	3	11

The following is the original answer (published on 6 June 2007); see below

The number of absconds and escapes for the period requested can be obtained from the Scottish Prison Service annual reports published at:

http://www.sps.gov.uk/default.aspx?documentid=67e156ce-a4c9-49f5-a526-0dab421427f6.

Number of Prisoners Still at Large

Establishment	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Aberdeen					1
Barlinnie					1
Open estate		1	3	3	10
Total	0	1	3	3	12

Question reference: S3W-00108

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 6 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what additional resources have been provided to the police to detect and deter migrant criminals from entering Scotland following the enlargement of the European Union in 2007.

Question reference: S3W-00367

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 6 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Working Group on Young Runaways and Children Abused Through Prostitution last met and what matters were discussed.

Question reference: S3W-00069

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 May 2007
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 6 June 2007

To ask the Scottish Executive what impact it estimates the cost of gaining the Chartered Teacher qualification has on discouraging teachers from commencing and continuing with the modules.

Progression on the six-pointChartered Teacher salary scale typically involves one-off costs of around £1,200in return for an automatic increase of between £774 and £1,436 per annum inpensionable salary - overall £7,161 above the top of the unprompted teachers’scale. While no comprehensive survey has been conducted into the relativeimpact of cost or other factors in relation to uptake, Audit Scotland(2006) found that 74% of recently qualified teachers said they were likely toparticipate in the scheme.

Cost issues will beconsidered as part of the current review of the Chartered Teacher project.