Questions · Irene McGugan

18 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many foster placements on average children in foster care have during their time in foster care.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The information requested is not held centrally.

18 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many local authority residential care places there currently are for children.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The number of residential childcare places at 31 March 2001 is given, along with a range of other statistics in the publication Children in Residential Accommodation 2000-2001 available from the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 24055).

18 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-31441 by Nicol Stephen on 21 November 2002, how much funding is currently available to local authorities under capital allocation arrangements to assist in the schools rebuilding and refurbishment programme.

Answer · Nicol Stephen: General consent to incur expenditure on their non-housing capital programmes, including education, is allocated to local authorities on the basis of a formula agreed with COSLA. The total such allocation for the current financial year is £314.246 million. The…

13 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children's panel members' associations there are and what the role of such associations is in the children's hearing system.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: There is only one national association for panel members, the Scottish Association of Children's Panels. Membership is open to all panel members. The role of the association is to:(a) promote the effectiveness of children's hearings;(b) provide a means …

13 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether relatives that act as foster carers are entitled to receive any foster care benefits.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-31686 on 28 November 2002. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at <A HREF="http://www.scottish.parliament.u…

13 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average rate of pay is for foster carers and whether there are any plans to implement a national pay scale for such carers.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: We do not hold information on payments to foster carers centrally. Rates of pay for foster carers are decided by local authorities based on the needs of the individual child. There are no plans at present to implement a national pay scale for foster carers.

13 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) registered foster carers there have been and (b) children have been in foster care in each year for which such information is available since 1995.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: Figures on the number of registered foster carers are not held centrally. Figures on the number of children in foster care are not available for 1995 and 1996. Figures on the number of children in foster care since 1997 are available in the following publicat…

13 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there is any record of the number of occasions on which the outcome of a children's hearing as decided by a children's panel cannot be implemented due to lack of resources.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-31723 on 28 November 2002. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at <A HREF="http://www.scottish.parliament.u…

11 Dec 2002 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer what efforts are being made to publicise the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body's language policy and ensure that it is complied with.

Answer · David Steel: The language policy is available on the Parliament's Intranet for staff and members to consult. A SPICe Briefing Paper is in preparation, which will include the language policy as an appendix. A press release will be issued when the briefing is published on t…

11 Dec 2002 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer, with regard to point 7 of the action plan in the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) language policy, what translation facilities are available to the SPCB to enable responses in Scots.

Answer · David Steel: Further to the answers given to questions S1W-32558 and S1W-32559 today, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) has no contracted services to enable responses in Scots to be produced. As the member knows, the SPCB has approved the funding necessa…

11 Dec 2002 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer, with regard to point 7 of the action plan in the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) language policy, why letters received by the SPCB in Scots have been replied to in English.

Answer · David Steel: The Scottish Parliament welcomes correspondence in any language. The SPCB has decided that when it wishes to reply to correspondence it will normally reply in the language used by the correspondent. When the correspondent uses Scots, the SPCB policy is to rep…

11 Dec 2002 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer, with regard to point 7 of the action plan in the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body language policy, whether it is now policy to respond to letters in the language in which they were written and, if so, whether there are any exceptions to doing so and under what circumstances any such …

Answer · David Steel: The Scottish Parliament welcomes correspondence in any language. The SPCB has decided that when it wishes to reply to correspondence it will normally reply in the language used by the correspondent. When the correspondent uses Scots, the SPCB policy is to rep…

6 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether Eventscotland will play a role in helping to bring the badminton world team championship to Scotland in 2005.

Answer · Mike Watson: We expect to set up EventScotland in spring 2003. It would be for EventScotland to decide at that point whether the Badminton World Championships in 2005 would fall within its priorities for support.

6 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what support is being offered by (a) it and (b) sportscotland to help bring the badminton world team championship to Scotland in 2005.

Answer · Mike Watson: As the event is one of UK significance, an application has been made by Badminton Scotland to UK Sport for funding assistance from its UK Major Events budget to bid to stage the badminton world team championships in 2005. A decision by UK Sport is expected ea…

2 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-26612 by Mr Frank McAveety on 24 June 2002, what funding mechanism is now in place to ensure that carers' services, including respite services, developed and funded through the carers' strategy allocation in 2000, will be able to continue beyond 2003.

Answer · Frank McAveety: The resources allocated by the Executive to local authorities to support carers, including resources to develop respite services, will have risen from £5 million in 1999-2000 to £21 million in the period 2003-04. The local government allocations for the next …

2 Dec 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-27645 by Mr Frank McAveety on 13 August 2002, whether local outcome agreements with local authorities in respect of respite care provision are now in place and what provision each local authority has made.

Answer · Frank McAveety: As we are still in the process of developing local outcome agreements with local authorities it is not possible to say what provision each local authority has made for respite care.

26 Nov 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive under what criteria it releases information under embargo to the press without first releasing it to the Parliament.

Answer · Andy Kerr: Under the terms of paragraph 8.5 of the Scottish Ministerial Code there is no regular procedure whereby final proof versions of policy documents can be made available under embargo to the media before publication. Such use of embargoes is normally limi…

21 Nov 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-30879 and S1W-30880 by Malcolm Chisholm on 18 November 2002, what action has been taken to put in place the tumour-specific multi-disciplinary managed clinical networks for neuro-oncology.

Answer · Malcolm Chisholm: There are three multi-disciplinary neuro-oncology centres in Scotland - one in each Regional Cancer Advisory Group Area - situated in Glasgow (West of Scotland), Edinburgh (South East of Scotland) and Aberdeen (North of Scotland).

11 Nov 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration will be given to the allocation of additional funding outwith the public private partnership initiative to local authorities to assist in the schools rebuilding and refurbishment programme.

Answer · Nicol Stephen: Local authorities already have access to substantial resources outwith the public private partnership arrangements which they can apply to rebuilding and refurbishing schools. These include the general resources available to them under the capital allocation …

28 Oct 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average number of offences committed by persons released on bail after release was in each of the last four years.

Answer · Jim Wallace: The information requested is not held centrally.

23 Oct 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration is being given to the establishment of a Scottish neuro-oncology network that can allow and encourage patients to have access to national and international clinical trials in the treatment of malignant brain tumours and what is being done to facilitate such a developmen…

Answer · Malcolm Chisholm: I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-30879 today. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at <A HREF="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/searc…

23 Oct 2002 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration is being given to allowing patients living in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen access to trials in experimental treatment and randomised controlled trials in the treatment of malignant brain tumours.

Answer · Malcolm Chisholm: An additional £1 million has been made available to support the planned Scottish Cancer Research Network (SCRN) which is expected to at least double patient entry into clinical trials. The network is expected to be fully established by April 2003.Participa…