Nicola Sturgeon

22 Oct 2003 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer what representations, and on what issues, the Parliament's staff in Scotland House have made to (a) UKRep and (b) directly to EU institutions.

Answer · Andrew Welsh: The remit, agreed by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB), of themember of staff based in Brussels on a fixed term basis for one year from April 2003 is:</p><p>to research and produce a report to the SPCB on the options for and the practical aspec…

22 Oct 2003 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer who is responsible for directing work carried out by the Parliament's staff in Scotland House.

Answer · Andrew Welsh: I refer the member to the answer given to S2W-3575 on 11 November 2003</p>

22 Oct 2003 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer what the cost was of establishing a Parliamentary presence in Scotland House and what the annual running costs are, including details of rent paid for accommodation in Scotland House.

Answer · Andrew Welsh: I refer the member to the answer given to S2W-3575 on 11 November2003.</p>

22 Oct 2003 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer whether the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body plans to change the number of staff that the Parliament employs in Scotland House.

Answer · Andrew Welsh: I refer the member to the answer given to S2W-3575 on 11 November 2003</p>

22 Oct 2003 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Presiding Officer how many staff the Parliament employs in Scotland House and what their functions and annual costs are.

Answer · Andrew Welsh: The Scottish ParliamentaryCorporate Body (SPCB) has one member of staff based in Brussels ona fixed term basis for one year from April 2003. This was agreed by the SPCB atits meeting of 7 January 2003.</p><p class=MsoHeader>The staff member is linemanaged by …

22 Oct 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what representations, and on what issues, the Scottish Executive EU Office has made to UKRep.

Answer · Andy Kerr: Staff in the Scottish Executive EU Office (SEEUO) have a wide range of meetings and contactswith staff of the UK Permanent Representation to the European Union (UKRep).These contacts are numerous, take place at many different levels, are not allrecorded and c…

22 Oct 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what representations, and on what issues, the Scottish Executive EU Office has made on behalf of the Scottish Executive to EU institutions.

Answer · Andy Kerr: Staff in the Scottish Executive EU Office (SEEUO) have a wide range of meetings and contactswith representatives of EU institutions and bodies. These contacts arenumerous, take place at many different levels, are not all recorded and can bein the context of c…

22 Oct 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive on how many occasions the Scottish Executive EU Office has made representations to the EU institutions without the assistance of UKRep.

Answer · Andy Kerr: Staff in the Scottish Executive EU Office have a wide range of meetings and contacts withrepresentatives of EU institutions and bodies. These contacts are numerous,take place at many different levels, are not all recorded, and can be in thecontext of confiden…

22 Oct 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Scottish Executive EU Office has authority to represent the Executive on devolved matters to EU institutions and bodies without permission from UKRep.

Answer · Andy Kerr: Staff in the Scottish Executive EU Office (SEEUO) have a wide range of meetings and contactswith representatives of EU institutions and bodies. Permission from the UKPermanent Representation to the European Union (UKRep) is not required for suchmeetings and c…

22 Oct 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the annual running costs are of the Scottish Executive EU Office, including details of rent paid for accommodation in Scotland House.

Answer · Andy Kerr: The Scottish Executive EU Office budget for 2003-04 is £820,000, of which £45,000 is for rentof office accommodation in Scotland House.</p>

22 Oct 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many staff it employs in the Scottish Executive EU Office and what their functions and annual costs are.

Answer · Andy Kerr: There are 12 posts in the Scottish Executive EU Office (SEEUO). Details of the work of the SEEUO can befound in the Scottish Executive Business Directory, which is available to MSPs. TheSEEUO budget for 2003-04 is £820,000.</p>

30 Sep 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the name and location is of each registered (a) residential and (b) day-care drug rehabilitation centre; how many people have been referred to each centre, and by whom each centre has been funded, in each of the last five years.

Answer · Tom McCabe: Information about individualresidential and non-residential drug services, including numbers of clients, isavailable in the corporate action plans submitted by drug action teams. Theseare available at <a href="http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/">www.drugm…

30 Sep 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding drug action teams (DATs) will be awarded in (a) 2003-04 and (b) future financial years for which figures are available.

Answer · Hugh Henry: The operation of drug actionteams (DATs) is supported by £1.5 million of funding in this financial year,allocated via NHS boards. Resources for future years have not yet beenconfirmed.</p><p>Resources to tackle drugmisuse are allocated through a number of dif…

22 Sep 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many reports procurators fiscal received from each non-police reporting agency in 2002-03 and, of these, how many (a) were marked &#147;no proceedings&#148; on account of delay on the part of the reporting agency, (b) proceeded to trial, (c) resulted in a conviction and (d) are curre…

Answer · Elish Angiolini: Procurators fiscal receive inthe region of 300,000 reports annually from the police and over fifty specialistreporting agencies. Around 35,000 of those are from specialist reporting agencies,the majority of whom do not yet report cases electronically. To obta…

22 Sep 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S2W-1509 and S2W-1510 by Colin Boyd QC on 12 August 2003, how much it would cost to answer these questions.

Answer · Colin Boyd: An exact figure cannot be provided.Procurators fiscal receive in the region of 300,000 reports annually from the policeand over fifty specialist reporting agencies. Around 35,000 of those are from specialistreporting agencies, the majority of whom do not yet …

22 Sep 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-115 by Mrs Elish Angiolini on 19 June 2003, how much it cost to answer that question.

Answer · Elish Angiolini: The information requested relatedto only one reporting agency and involved 22 reports. An exact figure cannot beprovided, but it is estimated that the staff costs to Crown Office and ProcuratorFiscal Service of searching for, retrieving, checking and presenti…

16 Sep 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it will be required to take in order to comply with those aspects of the Council of the European Union Directive 2003/9/EC which relate to devolved matters.

Answer · Margaret Curran: The Scottish Executive is considering what steps it may be required to take to comply with anyaspects of the Council of the European Union Directive 2003/9/EC which relate todevolved matters.</p>

10 Sep 2003 · General Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether HM Prison Kilmarnock offers good value for money based on its performance.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: Yes, it offers excellentvalue for money.</p>

8 Sep 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many careless driving offences have involved a fatality since statistics on careless driving were disaggregated to allow this information to be gathered.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: A separate charge code foroffences of careless driving involving a road accident fatality was introducedin March 2002. This additional information should enable such cases to beseparately identified in the available statistics on careless driving offenceswhic…

29 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-34889 and S2W-111 by Mrs Elish Angiolini on 31 March and 21 July 2003 respectively, which sheriff court districts were not included in the data provided in the answer to question S1W-34889 because of the upgrading of the computer system in Glasgow.

Answer · Elish Angiolini: The data for the Sheriffdom of Glasgow and Strathkelvin was not included in thedata provided in the answer to question S1W-34889. Glasgow Sheriff Court is the only sheriff court within this jurisdiction.

29 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many, and what proportion of, drink-driving cases reported to procurators fiscal have been prosecuted.

Answer · Elish Angiolini: I refer the member to the answergiven to question S1W-34889 on 31 March 2003. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at <a href="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/weba…

24 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will introduce legislation to increase the age limit for possessing or using an airgun from 14 to 17 and ban some types completely.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: Firearms legislation is reserved. The Anti-Social Behaviour Bill, currently before the UK Parliament, introduces a number of changes to the Firearms Act 1968 which are intended to deal with the misuse of air weapons and to provide for stricter control over ai…

23 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-29433 by Mr Jim Wallace on 1 October 2002, when it will next attend a meeting of the reconstituted Firearms Consultative Committee and whether the Executive will make any representations to the committee and, if so, on what areas of concern.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The next meeting of the Firearms Consultative Committee is planned for mid September. A Scottish Executive official is a member of the Committee and is due to attend that meeting. The committee does not disclose details of the business it carries out at indiv…

21 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive when work on the new search engine for the Scottish Executive website (a) started and (b) will be complete and what features the search engine will have once complete.

Answer · Andy Kerr: The Scottish Executive has procured a new search engine for deployment on the Scottish Executive website. The simple search component was introduced to the website on 12 February 2003. We are currently working with the solution provider to develop and test th…

16 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-942 by Mr Andy Kerr on 14 July 2003, why information on the number of expert groups it has set up since 1999 is not held centrally.

Answer · Andy Kerr: There is no requirement and no perceived benefit in allocating resources for collecting and holding this information centrally.

16 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on resourcing expert groups in each year since 1999.

Answer · Andy Kerr: The definition of an expert group is vague, potentially covering a wide range of bodies including non-departmental public bodies, working parties and advisory groups. Information on the establishment and resourcing of all such bodies is not registered and hel…

15 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many reports procurators fiscal received from each reporting agency and, of these, how many proceeded to trial in 2002-03.

Answer · Colin Boyd: The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

15 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the reasons were for each report received by procurators fiscal from each reporting agency that did not proceed to trial in 2002-03.

Answer · Colin Boyd: The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

9 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how long it takes to confirm, or not confirm, a person's identity in cases where the Livescan fingerprint service is used.

Answer · Hugh Henry: In the year to 31 March 2003, where Livescan equipment was used, the Scottish Fingerprint Service confirmed identity, or did not, in under 2 hours in 98.05% of cases.

9 Jul 2003 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many shootings were reported to the police in 2002.

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The most recent available information, which relates to 2001, is given in Table 5 of the statistical bulletin recorded crimes and offences Involving Firearms, Scotland, 2001. Copies of the bulletin are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib Numbe…