- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 August 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Iain Gray on 17 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what the most recent budgets allocated by Scottish Enterprise National (SEN) to each network company are, expressed (a) as a percentage of the overall SEN budget and (b) per capita.
Answer
This is an operational matter for the enterprise networks.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 August 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Elaine Murray on 17 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many awards the Scottish Arts Council has made in each of the last five years, broken down by (a) parliamentary constituency and (b) local authority area expressed (i) per capita and (ii) as a percentage of the overall number of awards made in each year.
Answer
I have referred the question to the Scottish Arts Council asking that a response be made directly to the member.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 August 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Elaine Murray on 17 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made towards the establishment of a film promotion initiative for the north east.
Answer
In spring this year Scottish Enterprise Grampian commissioned a feasibility study into the establishment of a film liaison service for the north east. A meeting was subsequently held on 27 August between the Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils and SE Grampian, and it was agreed to progress this development by drafting objectives for such a service for further discussion.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 August 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 17 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many and what percentage of GP appointments were missed in each of the last three years and what the cost was of such non-attendance, broken down by NHS board area.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally. A service-led group, chaired by a NHS Trust Chief Executive, has been established to consider the issue of missed appointments. NHS boards and trusts, together with primary care teams are already working to ensure that wherever possible if an appointment is cancelled it can be filled by another patient. Patients also have a responsibility to ensure that where they are likely to have difficulty in attending an appointment they inform their practice or clinic as soon as possible.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 August 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Iain Gray on 17 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made with the development of broadband services in rural communities and what the (a) current and (b) anticipated levels of coverage are under present targets.
Answer
The Scottish Executive set out its broadband strategy last year in Connecting Scotland: Our Broadband Future and our vision was to make broadband connections more affordable and pervasive across the country, including in rural areas. As part of that strategy, the Executive has developed the Pathfinder initiatives to aggregate public sector demand for broadband in the Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. It is hoped that this major investment on the part of the public sector will help to stimulate both demand for and supply of broadband within these areas, which might not be immediately covered by the commercial market. Work on the Pathfinder initiative is well in hand.Our strategy also undertook to identify where there was a need for direct support measures; our programme under the UK Broadband Fund is developing this element through almost a dozen projects managed by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. These include awareness raising measures and technology trials in rural areas, such as Powerline Carrier and Wireless pilots, which aim to determine the potential of these technologies for delivering broadband in rural communities. The UK Government has set a general target on broadband which is to "have the most extensive and competitive broadband market in the G7 by 2005" and the Scottish Executive's broadband strategy is designed to contribute to this overall objective.Currently, about half of the Scottish population has access to broadband via terrestrial ADSL and/or cable-modem equivalents.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 August 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Mary Mulligan on 17 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many vacant consultant posts there currently are in each acute hospital and expressed as a percentage of the complement of each hospital and how long the post has been vacant in each case.
Answer
The latest available information on the number of consultant vacancies in each acute trust, is shown in the following table. Information at hospital level is not held centrally.Consultant Vacancies in Acute Trusts in NHSScotland: Headcount at 30 September 2001
| | Establishment | In Post | Total Vacancies | Length of Vacancy | Vacancies as a % of Establishment |
| < 6 Months | 6 Months or More | Total | 6 Months or More |
| Argyll and Clyde Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | 164 | 151 | 13 | 8 | 5 | 7.9 | 3.0 |
| Ayrshire and Arran Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | 138 | 136 | 2 | 2 | - | 1.4 | - |
| Borders Acute Hospital NHS Trust | 49 | 47 | 2 | 2 | - | 4.1 | - |
| Dumfries and Galloway Acute and Maternity Hospitals NHS Trust | 69 | 68 | 1 | - | 1 | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| Fife Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | 129 | 116 | 13 | 1 | 12 | 10.1 | 9.3 |
| Forth Valley Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | 112 | 110 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1.8 | 0.9 |
| Grampian University Hospitals NHS Trust | 308 | 295 | 13 | 11 | 2 | 4.2 | 0.6 |
| North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust | 469 | 462 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 1.5 | 1.1 |
| South Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust | 211 | 209 | 2 | 2 | - | 0.9 | - |
| Yorkhill NHS Trust | 115 | 112 | 3 | 3 | - | 2.6 | - |
| Highland Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | 102 | 102 | - | - | - | - | - |
| Lanarkshire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | 226 | 207 | 19 | 8 | 11 | 8.4 | 4.9 |
| Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust | 445 | 437 | 8 | 1 | 7 | 1.8 | 1.6 |
| West Lothian Healthcare NHS Trust1 | 85 | 80 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5.9 | 3.5 |
| Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust | 270 | 262 | 8 | 8 | - | 3.0 | - |
| Orkney Health Board2 | 3 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - |
| Shetland Health Board2 | 9 | 7 | 2 | - | 2 | 22.2 | 22.2 |
| Western Isles Health Board2 | 15 | 12 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 20.0 | 13.3 |
Source: ISD(M)4 Medical and Dental Census ISD Scotland.Notes:West Lothian Healthcare is an integrated trust providing acute and primary care services. It is not possible to provide separate data for each of these services.Orkney Health Board, Shetland Health Board and Western Isles Health Board are special health boards providing acute and primary care services. It is not possible to provide separate data for each of these services.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 17 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many limited partnership tenancies there are in the agricultural sector and how many such tenancies have been created in each of the last 10 years.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Elish Angiolini on 16 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases were marked "no proceedings" in each district and regional procurator fiscal office in each of the last three years.
Answer
The information requested is as follows:
| Cases Marked: "No Proceedings" | April 1999 to March 2000 | April 2000 to March 2001 | April 2001 to March 2002 |
| Aberdeen | 2,198 | 1,188 | 1,269 |
| Airdrie | 1,319 | 1,523 | 1,225 |
| Alloa | 362 | 397 | 473 |
| Arbroath | 389 | 324 | 184 |
| Ayr | 1,009 | 923 | 858 |
| Banff | 456 | 102 | 199 |
| Campbeltown | 76 | 69 | 36 |
| Cupar | 388 | 391 | 353 |
| Dingwall | 143 | 169 | 148 |
| Dornoch | 39 | 43 | 47 |
| Dumbarton | 1,275 | 1,538 | 1,563 |
| Dumfries | 806 | 787 | 862 |
| Dundee | 1,251 | 1,115 | 911 |
| Dunfermline | 1,153 | 883 | 1,081 |
| Dunoon | 148 | 176 | 212 |
| Duns | 56 | 74 | 88 |
| Edinburgh | 3,386 | 2,804 | 3,879 |
| Elgin | 486 | 277 | 309 |
| Falkirk | 864 | 1,099 | 1,329 |
| Forfar | 276 | 259 | 224 |
| Fort William | 109 | 135 | 109 |
| Glasgow | 13,726 | 16,081 | 13,967 |
| Greenock | 817 | 792 | 724 |
| Haddington | 347 | 380 | 359 |
| Hamilton | 2,440 | 2,355 | 2,198 |
| Inverness | 720 | 776 | 705 |
| Jedburgh | 175 | 150 | 172 |
| Kilmarnock | 1,451 | 1,216 | 1,614 |
| Kirkcaldy | 1,308 | 1,710 | 1,349 |
| Kirkcudbright | 171 | 170 | 119 |
| Kirkwall | 72 | 71 | 57 |
| Lanark | 346 | 344 | 201 |
| Lerwick | 94 | 60 | 76 |
| Linlithgow | 841 | 769 | 841 |
| Lochmaddy | 24 | 21 | 18 |
| Oban | 184 | 142 | 132 |
| Paisley | 2,036 | 1,586 | 1,660 |
| Peebles | 81 | 65 | 60 |
| Perth | 893 | 695 | 766 |
| Peterhead | 204 | 174 | 135 |
| Portree | 32 | 51 | 60 |
| Rothesay | 30 | 22 | 45 |
| Selkirk | 273 | 303 | 231 |
| Stirling | 660 | 943 | 922 |
| Stonehaven | 118 | 129 | 86 |
| Stornoway | 34 | 46 | 52 |
| Stranraer | 446 | 320 | 276 |
| Tain | 134 | 181 | 209 |
| Wick | 112 | 152 | 123 |
| PF Service Total | 43,958 | 43,980 | 42,516 |
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Elish Angiolini on 16 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases have been dismissed by the courts as a result of incomplete paperwork or any other error by the (a) Procurator Fiscal Service and (b) Crown Office in each of the last three years.
Answer
The information requested is not available but Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service Management reviews each instance of this and takes steps to ensure that lessons are learned to seek to avoid repetitions.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 August 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 16 September 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) inspections Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons has carried out and (b) reports have been issued for each prison in each of the last five years.
Answer
I have asked Clive Fairweather, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons to respond. His response is as follows:The number of inspections carried out and reports issued from 1998 to August 2002, (excluding inspections of Legalised Police Cells), is shown in the following table:
| Establishment | Number of Inspections | Reports Issued | Comments |
| HMP Aberdeen | 8 | 5 | |
| HMP Castle Huntly | 4 | 4 | |
| HMP Edinburgh | 4 | 4 | |
| HMP Friarton | 1 | 1 | Amalgamated with HMP Perth |
| HMP and YOI Glenochil | 4 | 4 | |
| HMP Inverness | 5 | 5 | |
| HMP Noranside | 4 | 4 | |
| HMP Perth | 5 | 5 | |
| HMP Peterhead | 4 | 4 | |
| HM Unit Peterhead | 2 | 1 | Opened 1995, mothballed 2000 |
| HMYOI Polmont | 6 | 6 | |
| HMP Barlinnie | 4 | 4 | |
| HMP and YOI Cornton Vale | 3 | 3 | |
| HMP and YOI Dumfries | 5 | 4 | |
| HMP Dungavel | 3 | 3 | Closed 2000 |
| HMP Greenock | 4 | 4 | |
| HM Remand Longriggend | 1 | 1 | Closed 2000 |
| HMP Low Moss | 4 | 3 | |
| HMP Penninghame | 2 | 1 | Closed 2000 |
| HMP Shotts | 4 | 3 | |
| HM Unit Shotts | 2 | 2 | Amalgamated with main prison (Temporarily Closed 2002) |
| HM National Induction Centre Shotts | 3 | 3 | Amalgamated with main prison |
| HMP Kilmarnock | 3 | 3 | Opened March 1999 |
| HMP Zeist (informal assessment) | 1 | 1 | Closed 2002 |
