Parliamentary questions

Kenneth Gibson

2,008 questions tabled in the Scottish Parliament, most recent first.

31 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how much housing association grant was allocated to housing associations in each local authority in each year from 1995-96 to 1999-2000 inclusive, in real terms.

Answer · Wendy Alexander: For the period in question the information was not collected in the form requested.

31 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any Ministers have met organisations representing older people since the establishment of the Parliament to discuss cases of alleged age discrimination in the NHS and, if so, which Ministers.

Answer · Iain Gray: I have regular meetings with organisations representing the interests of older people at both national and local level, and discuss a wide range of issues with them. Specific cases of alleged age discrimination in the NHS have not been raised by those bodies …

31 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any Ministers have met organisations representing older people since the establishment of the Parliament to discuss the impact of council tax on older people and, if so, which Ministers.

Answer · Jack McConnell: The Deputy Ministers for Communities and Community Care regularly meet with organisations representing older people to discuss issues of concern. To date council tax has not been raised as an issue.

31 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many hectares of (a) greenfield and (b) brownfield land have been owned by each local authority in each of the past four years.

Answer · Sarah Boyack: Information is not held centrally on greenfield land. The table below gives the amount of local authority owned vacant and derelict land in each local authority area. Information is not yet available for 1999.<P>Local Authority Owned Vacant and Derelict Land<…

31 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to increase the number of visits by socially excluded people to museums and galleries.

Answer · Rhona Brankin: The Scottish Executive encourages the National Museums and Galleries to ensure increased public access by including the provision of additional grants specific for that purpose. The National Cultural Strategy shows a key aim to increase public access and stat…

25 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many hospital beds there are in each health board area per thousand population.

Answer · Susan Deacon: The following table shows the number of available staffed beds in NHS Hospitals in each health board area per 1,000 population for the year ending 31 March 2000. The figures, which cover all specialties, are provisional.<P>NHS Staffed Beds per 1,000 Populatio…

25 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what financial start-up support it is able to give to community or micro-finance initiatives.

Answer · Henry McLeish: I refer Mr Kenneth Gibson to the answer I gave to question S1W-9407 on 15 September 2000.

25 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what importance it places on the provision and availability of targeted access to capital finance as part of its enterprise review and its social inclusion strategies.

Answer · Henry McLeish: We attach importance to the provision and availability of targeted access to capital as part of our enterprise review and our social inclusion strategies. A number of schemes of support are available from the Scottish Executive and through the Enterprise Netw…

22 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what specific plans it will implement to reverse the anticipated population decline in Inverclyde of 17.2% between 1999 and 2016 as detailed in the 1999 Annual Report of the Registrar General for Scotland.

Answer · Henry McLeish: The Scottish Executive and its agencies will continue to encourage population retention based on employment opportunities through assistance to business and the efforts of Locate in Scotland to attract inward investment to the area. A study was commissioned b…

22 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what specific plans it will implement to reverse the anticipated population decline in Dundee of 15.3% between 1999 and 2016 as detailed in the 1999 Annual Report of the Registrar General for Scotland.

21 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-8927 by Sarah Boyack on 17 August 2000, why the terms of settlement of the two court actions against the consulting engineers who designed the Kingston Bridge are confidential to the two parties and not open to public scrutiny.

Answer · Sarah Boyack: It was a condition of the settlement that the terms would not be disclosed and would remain confidential to the parties beyond that the actions had been settled out of court without any admission of liability by the defendants and each party had borne its own…

18 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what resources it has put in place to help Greater Glasgow Health Board address the recent increased level of hospital waiting lists.

Answer · Susan Deacon: Greater Glasgow Health Board already receives £8.503 million each year specifically to reduce waiting lists. A further £11.179 million was recently allocated to the health board as its share of the additional £60 million allocated to the NHS in Scotland to ta…

18 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many full time equivalent jobs there were in each year from 1994-95 to 1999-2000 in each of the textile, footwear, leather and clothing manufacturing sectors.

Answer · Henry McLeish: The number of employee jobs in Scotland in the textile, footwear, leather and clothing manufacturing sectors is shown in the following table. The leather and footwear sectors have been combined due to confidentiality.<TABLE BORDER CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=7 …

18 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what output was in each of the last five years for which figures are available in each of the textile, footwear, leather and clothing manufacturing sectors.

Answer · Henry McLeish: Data on the gross output of manufacturing businesses in Scotland are available from the Scottish Production Database for the five years to 1997 as follows:<TABLE BORDER CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=7 WIDTH=474><TR><TD WIDTH="38%" VALIGN="TOP" ROWSPAN=2> </T…

18 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many home help clients there were in each local authority area in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Answer · Iain Gray: The following table shows numbers at 31 March 1997, 1998 and 1999. Prior to local government reorganisation in April 1996, figures are only available on the basis of the old local authorities. Figures for 1998 and 1999 cover clients who receive home care purc…

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many manufacturing jobs there were in Scotland in each of the last five years and how many of these were in (a) Glasgow and (b) Dundee.

Answer · Henry McLeish: Figures for Glasgow and Dundee are available from September 1995 to September 1998. In addition, an estimate for September 1999 is given for Scotland in the table below<P>Employee jobs in Manufacturing, 1995-1999 (000s)<TABLE BORDER CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=…

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many manufacturing jobs created through inward investment were lost in each of the last five years and how many of these were in Glasgow.

Answer · Henry McLeish: Records of manufacturing jobs created by inward investors which have been lost over a five year period are not held centrally and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.<P>The numbers given for loss of manufacturing jobs are based on figures supplied b…

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many manufacturing jobs were created through inward investment in Dundee in each of the last five years and how many manufacturing jobs created through inward investment were lost in Dundee in each of these years.

Answer · Henry McLeish: Locate in Scotland does not keep records of how many jobs are created by individual companies each year. The figures, therefore, reflect the number of jobs planned by a company when its decision to proceed with a project was made. In addition, the figures re…

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the anticipated costs of the European Convention on Human Rights will be to each police force in 2001-02 in terms of additional capital requirements.

Answer · Jim Wallace: No such estimate of costs has been made. Capital allocations are issued annually on the basis of bids submitted by Forces. Following the distribution of the allocations it is for Forces to determine their spending priorities.

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what capital resources, in real terms, were allocated to each police force in each year from 1995-1996 to 1999-2000 and what the allocations will be in 2001-02.

Answer · Jim Wallace: There are two sources of capital allocated to police forces. The capital allocations, issued under Section 94 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and financed by borrowing, determines the amount of capital expenditure a police authority may undertake …

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive which police forces had a financial deficit at end of (a) 1998-99 and (b) 1999-2000; what deficit it anticipates each police force will have at the end 2001-2002 and how it intends to address any such deficits.

Answer · Jim Wallace: The information requested is not held centrally. It is the responsibility of police authorities to set their force budgets and to monitor expenditure.

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how much additional funding it will allocate to each police force to assist in the establishment of race crime units.

Answer · Jim Wallace: Race crime units have been suggested in a response to the consultation on our action plan for implementing the recommendations in the MacPherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. The suggestion is being considered by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Steerin…

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how much the registration and monitoring of sex offenders has cost each police force in each financial year since registration was enacted and what additional resources it has given to each police force in each of these years to enable them to carry out regular sex offender profiling and …

Answer · Jim Wallace: The information requested is not held centrally. It is for chief constables to allocate resources according to priorities and demands in their force area. Funding from the Executive is not, therefore, earmarked for specific purposes.

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the financial impact of the health and safety at work regulations, enacted in 1974 and applied to police forces in 1998, was in each police force in financial years 1998-99 and 1999-2000 and what additional resources it has allocated to each police force to meet any costs arising fro…

Answer · Jim Wallace: The information requested is not held centrally. The application of health and safety at work regulations is an operational matter and therefore the responsibility of the relevant chief constable.

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what impact the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into Scots law will have on police surveillance operations and informant handling.

Answer · Jim Wallace: The need to ensure compliance with the Convention on these matters is recognised and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Bill currently before the Scottish Parliament will address this.

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider introducing conditional offers, similar to those used for speeding offences, for other offences.

Answer · Jim Wallace: Conditional offers may already be made by Procurators Fiscal for crimes and offences other than road traffic offences. There is extensive use of this power for less serious crimes and offences.

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what the average cost is of a court hearing to deal with non-payment of a fine, what the average fine is and what the additional costs to the criminal justice system of non-payment of fines, were in the last years for which figures are available.

Answer · Jim Wallace: The average cost of a court hearing to deal with non-payment of a fine in the sheriff court was £35 in 1998-99. Similar information is not readily available in respect of non-payment cases dealt with in the district court. The average fine imposed in Scottish…

9 Aug 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider using wage or benefit arrestment as a means of recouping fines from offenders who have defaulted.

Answer · Jim Wallace: Under the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, the courts already have extensive powers to recover fines (including possible seizure of earnings). We have no plans to modify those powers at present.

27 Jul 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive (a) how much repairs to the Kingston Bridge have cost at current prices, since its original completion prior to current repairs, (b) who paid for those repairs, (c) how much it will cost at current prices for the repairs being carried out at present and (d) who is paying for current repai…

Answer · Sarah Boyack: Between the late 1980s when it became apparent that the bridge was suffering from a number of serious structural problems, and 1 April 1996 when the M8 through Glasgow was adopted as a trunk road, Strathclyde Regional Council, the local roads authority, incur…

27 Jul 2000 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how much compensation it was paid by the original designers of the Kingston Bridge, at current prices, following discovery of any design faults.

Answer · Sarah Boyack: The Secretary of State inherited two court actions against the consulting engineers who designed the bridge when he took over responsibility for this structure when the M8 through Glasgow was adopted as a trunk road on 1 April 1996. The actions were settled o…