Parliamentary questions
Stewart Stevenson
2,358 questions tabled in the Scottish Parliament, most recent first.
29 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive when it will reply to my letter of 28 August 2002 to the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport about the Area Tourist Board review.
Answer · Mike Watson: Your letter was passed to the Area Tourist Board review team who acknowledged it on 18 September 2002 as a response to the review. We have received well over 300 such responses and at this stage have simply acknowledged each one, although we plan to publish a…
24 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many people were convicted of speeding in each of the last four years, broken down by speed limit exceeded and showing the average fine incurred by people exceeding each speed limit.
Answer · Jim Wallace: The available information is published at tables 8 and 9 in the statistical bulletin <I>Motor Vehicle Offences in Scotland</I> for the years 1997-2000 (Bib. numbers 19450, 4848, 10421 and 17819 in the Parliament's Reference Centre). The available statistics r…
24 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-28419 by Mr Andy Kerr on 11 September 2002, whether it will publish evidence and/or statistics on the effectiveness of the Learn to Let Go advertising campaign and whether it will place a copy of the evidence and/or statistics in the Scottish Parliam…
Answer · Andy Kerr: Research on the effectiveness of the Learn to Let Go campaign has been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 25242).
23 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many male, long-term sex offenders were in custody on average in each of the last five years.
Answer · Jim Wallace: I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:<P>The available information is given in the following table:<P>Male Prisoners in Custody on 30 June with a Sentence of Four Years and Over Whose …
23 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to increase the training provided to general practitioners and community psychiatrists regarding the diagnosis and treatment of anorexia nervosa.
Answer · Mary Mulligan: The Scottish Executive Health Department held an event in October, to discuss how to improve implementation of the Framework for Mental Health Services in Scotland. At this, proposals to provide better support and training for primary care teams in the diagno…
23 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost was of the study into the Know the Score campaign undertaken by Lambda Research and Consultancy Ltd.
Answer · Richard Simpson: The cost of the study was £29,000.<P>For the avoidance of any doubt, this study covered the Know the Score elements of the 2001 Safer Scotland campaign, which did not include national advertising funded by the Executive. This study is, therefore, unrelated to…
23 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost is of the study into the Foolsspeed campaign undertaken by Strathclyde University's Centre for Social Marketing.
Answer · Lewis Macdonald: The cost of the research study, <I>Changing Speeding Behaviour in Scotland: An Evaluation of the 'Foolsspeed' Campaign,</I> was £81,700.42.
23 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what studies, other than the evaluation of the Know the Score campaign, it has commissioned from Lambda Research and Consultancy Ltd.
Answer · Richard Simpson: In addition to the evaluation of the 2001 Know the Score activities, Lambda Research and Consultancy has undertaken studies covering:<P>(a) business-related bankruptcies in Scotland;<P>(b) policy making in civil justice;<P>(c) dealing with sex offenders in Sc…
23 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what studies, other than the research for the Foolsspeed campaign, it has commissioned from Strathclyde University's Centre for Social Marketing.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The Scottish Executive has commissioned one completed study, other than the research for the Foolsspeed campaign, from the Centre for Social Marketing at Strathclyde University. This was to provide advice on dissemination to the Effective Interventions Unit i…
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its Children's Hearings website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The Scottish Executive Education Department began receiving website statistics in February 2001. Since then the total number of recorded hits to the home page of the Children's Hearings website is 25,266 and to the entire site is 310,706.<P>Statistics were no…
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its Property Pages website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The website is managed by Scottish Property Network (SPN) who regularly analyse site activity using the proprietary WEBTRENDS software.<P>The total and monthly number of hits on the Scottish Executive public sector property website are shown in the following …
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its Funding for Learners website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Iain Gray: The Funding For Learners website was launched in March 2002 and, at the end of September 2002, had received 29,122 hits. This figure compares favourably with our pre-launch projections.<P>The total number of hits by month is:<TABLE BORDER CELLSPACING=1 CELLPA…
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its M74 Completion website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Lewis Macdonald: The number of hits on the site since its introduction in May 2002 is 199,970. However, given the opinion of the National Audit Office, in their report on government web sites, that hits is not a reliable way to measure activity, we monitor the site using figu…
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its Know the Score website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Richard Simpson: Up until 31 October 2002, there had been a total of 153,179 hits to the Know the Score website. On a month-by-month basis, this is broken down as follows:<TABLE BORDER CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=2 WIDTH=143><TR><TD WIDTH="61%" VALIGN="TOP" HEIGHT=16><P>April</…
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its National Grid for Learning (Scotland) website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Nicol Stephen: The National Grid for Learning web services received 3,018,233 hits during the period October 2000 to October 2002. Figures are not available for the initial period of 2000 when the site was under development. A detailed breakdown of hits since the initial se…
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its Do a Little, Change a lot website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Ross Finnie: The Do a Little, Change a Lot website: <A HREF="http://www.dochange.net/">www.dochange.net</A>, was redesigned and re-launched on 2 September to coincide with the new phase of the campaign. The site had 2,378 hits in its first month. No pre-launch projections…
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its National Debate on Education website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The National Debate on Education website was launched on 20 March 2002. Since then, there have been approximately 21,000 hits to the homepages for the Discussion and Reflection stages of the Debate.<P>Figures for the number of hits per month are displayed in …
22 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how many hits its Learn to Let Go website has had (a) in total and (b) each month and how these figures compare to pre-launch projections.
Answer · Lewis Macdonald: The number of hits on the site since its introduction is 395,908. However, given the opinion of the National Audit Office, in their report on Government websites, that hits is not a reliable way to measure activity, we monitor the site using figures relating …
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its Domestic Abuse website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Margaret Curran: The Domestic Abuse website cost £20,000 (excluding VAT) to establish. Annual operating costs are £2,250 (excluding VAT).
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its Older People's website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Frank McAveety: The costs of establishing and maintaining the site are being met from within existing departmental running costs and thus have not given rise to any additional cost.
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its "Children's Hearings" website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The initial design and development of the site was as part of the main Scottish Executive website and undertaken by Scottish Executive staff. No development costs are available. Around £300 was spent in registering and setting up the separate website. Operati…
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its "Property Pages" website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Andy Kerr: The Scottish Executive set up the Scottish public sector property website to speed up sales and lettings of public sector property and expose it 24 hours a day to a wider market than other property marketing methods.<P>It cost £12,000 to establish, £9,470 run…
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its Funding for Learners website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Iain Gray: It cost £11,844 to establish the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department's Funding For Learners website, with an annual operating cost of £2,644.
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its "M74 Completion" website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Lewis Macdonald: The M74 Completion website is designed to provide information to communities or businesses which will be affected by the M74 motorway construction proposals, and is jointly funded by the Scottish Executive, Glasgow City Council, South Lanarkshire Council and …
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its Know the Score website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Richard Simpson: The total cost of establishing the Know the Score website was £15,000. It is estimated that the operating costs in the first year will amount to £2,025 (we are currently in discussion with the website designers about updating the site, but do not yet have pro…
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its "National Grid for Learning (Scotland)" website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Nicol Stephen: The National Grid for Learning (Scotland) web services are funded by the Scottish Executive and managed by Learning and Teaching Scotland. The web services were launched in February 2000 and the cost in financial year 1999-2000 was £245,000. The budgeted runn…
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its Do a Little - Change a Lot website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Ross Finnie: The Do a Little, Change a Lot website <A HREF="http://www.dochange.net/">www.dochange.net</A> was redesigned and re-launched on 2 September to coincide with the new phase of the campaign. The new website cost £26,000 to establish. Annual operating costs of £7…
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its National Debate on Education website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The National Debate on Education website was launched on 20 March 2002. The cost to establish the website was £24,000. The total operating cost from March to September 2002 was £3,500.
15 Oct 2002 · Written Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it cost to establish its "Learn to Let Go" website and what the annual operating costs are of the site.
Answer · Lewis Macdonald: It cost £25,000 to establish the Learn to Let Go website and the most recent annual operating costs of the site were £1,434 for hosting of the site and £3,246 for additions and updates in the course of the year.
11 Oct 2002 · SPCB Written Question
To ask the Presiding Officer whether any element of the planned opening ceremony for the new Parliament building could represent any taxable benefit to members.
Answer · David Steel: Planning for the opening ceremonies is at a very early stage. It is not possible to say what the elements will be.