Tommy Sheridan

1 Mar 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any audits of overcrowding are carried out on heavily used FirstScotrail routes, such as Edinburgh to Glasgow, the Fife circle and Dundee routes at peak commuter times and other peak times, such as Edinburgh Festival Saturday nights, Hogmanay and the days of Murrayfield fixtures.

Answer · Tavish Scott: There are a number of measuresof capacity performance and First ScotRail conduct regular surveys and measuresof passenger loadings. This is used to allow the optimal allocation of train resourcesand First ScotRail are measured against delivery of the plan in …

1 Mar 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what requirements there are in respect of passenger limits within the FirstScotrail franchise, and what the reasons are for the position on this matter, given that other forms of public transport have such limits and, if there are no such criteria, whether it plans to include them in the …

Answer · Tavish Scott: There are no specific limitson passenger loads for trains. Carriages are designed to rigorous safety standardsand standing on a train is not seen as a significant safety risk in its own right.</p><p>Current and anticipated passengerloadings are not considered…

1 Mar 2006 · General Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how the First Minister¿s recent comments about a ¿lack of caring¿ and ¿stupidity¿ of social services staff will affect recruitment to social services departments across Scotland.

Answer · Peter Peacock: Social Service staff recruitment is buoyant and we expect that to continue.</p>

24 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it considers that Thomas Campbell and Joseph Steele deserve as fair recompense for their wrongful imprisonment for over 18 years for the deaths of six members of the Doyle family in Glasgow in 1984, in light of the Minister for Justice’s recent comments regarding the £750,000 com…

Answer · Cathy Jamieson: The circumstances of each caseare unique and each must be considered independently in isolation. Scottishministers have determined that Mr Campbell and Mr Steele are entitled to statutorycompensation for a miscarriage of justice as provided for in the Crimina…

22 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether its foster care service budgets are currently underspent by £63 million and, if so, what action is being taken to address this underspend.

Answer · Robert Brown: No.</p>

22 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many care beds are available to accommodate children removed from their homes for their own safety by social service departments and what the estimated shortfall is in respect of such beds and foster families.

Answer · Robert Brown: The information requested is not held centrally.</p>

22 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what effect the First Minister’s reported comments regarding the “stupidity or a lack of caring or both” of social service professionals in Glasgow in relation to the case of an 11-year-old Glasgow girl admitted to hospital for heroin abuse will have on recruitment campaigns by local auth…

Answer · Robert Brown: The Scottish Executive is committed to developing and promoting the confidence of the social services workforce, as reflected in its response to <i>Changing Lives</i>, the report of the 21st Century Social Work Review. Local recruitment campaigns are a matter…

22 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people or households in Glasgow are officially designated to be living in (a) income poverty and (b) fuel poverty.

Answer · Malcolm Chisholm: (a) The information requestedis not available.</p><p>The official source of low incomedata for Scotland is the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) datasetavailable from 1994-95. This is derived from the Family Resources Survey (FRS).The sample size of the …

22 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it accepts the estimate by Professor Arthur Midwinter that spending on children’s social work services is £135 million less than required to fund these services adequately.

Answer · Robert Brown: No. The estimated gap is between Grant Aided Expenditure (GAE) for Children’s Social Work Services and budgeted spend in 2003-04 on these services by local authorities. GAE, however, is not intended to support the total costs of providing services and council…

22 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children have been placed on child protection registers in each of the last five years, broken down by child protection committee area.

Answer · Robert Brown: The number of children registered on child protection registers cannot be broken down by child protection committee area, but is available by local authority area.</p> <p>Local authority figures are all published information and can be found in <i>Child Pro…

22 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children it estimates live in households with a (a) drug-abusing and (b) alcohol-abusing parent, or parents.

Answer · Hugh Henry: In <i>Hidden Harm – Responding to the needs of children of problem drug users</i>, published by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in 2003, it was estimated that there were 10,000-19,000 children in Scotland living with a drug using parent. In the sa…

22 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children have been subject to (a) home removal orders, (b) hearings by sheriffs or children’s panels which have rejected child removal recommendations and (c) home removal orders but were unable to be removed due to a lack of suitable accommodation in each of the last five years,…

Answer · Robert Brown: In respect of part (a) of the question, page 13 of the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration annual report for 2004-05 (Bib. SE/2005/219) provided for the first time a breakdown of the number of children who had been accommodated away from home and the …

8 Feb 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will publish the research on improving council tax collection rates in Scotland.

Answer · Tom McCabe: We are currently awaiting the finalised version of this report, which is being revised in line with our social research guidelines. In particular, an edited summary of the findings has been requested in order to promote wider dissemination and increase the ac…

31 Jan 2006 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether the lack of any mechanism to correct factual errors in draft reports by the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner breaches the European Convention on Human Rights or Scots Law.

Answer · John Scott: The member is referred to the answer to question S2W-22792. </p> <p>In terms of section 9(3) of the 2002 act where the Commissioner concludes that a member has breached a provision, before sending the report to the Standards and Public Appointments Commit…

31 Jan 2006 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether the lack of an appeal process in respect of procedures for reports by the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner breaches the European Convention on Human Rights or Scots Law.

Answer · John Scott: The remit of the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner as set out in the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Act 2002 (the 2002 Act) is to determine the admissibility of complaints against members, to investigate complaints and to report on the outco…

31 Jan 2006 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what information it has on how many draft reports by the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner have been leaked to the media, expressed also as a percentage of all reports drafted.

Answer · John Scott: <p class=MsoHeader>This is not a matter for the SPCB. The Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner operates independently of the SPCB in the exercise of his statutory functions. </p>The member may wish to contact the Commissioner directly on this mat…

31 Jan 2006 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body how many draft reports by the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner have been made available to complainers, expressed also as a percentage of all complaint reports drafted.

Answer · John Scott: <p class=MsoHeader>This is not a matter for the SPCB. The Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner operates independently of the SPCB in the exercise of his statutory functions. </p>The member may wish to contact the Commissioner directly on this mat…

31 Jan 2006 · SPCB Written Question

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether all complaint reports by the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner are subjected to legal scrutiny before publication and, if so, by whom.

Answer · John Scott: This is not a matter for the SPCB. The Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner operates independently of the SPCB in the exercise of his statutory functions.</p> <p>The member may wish to contact the Commissioner directly on this matter by writing to …

17 Jan 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive where the dental records of patients previously, but no longer, registered with an NHS dentist or dental surgery are held and for how long.

Answer · Lewis Macdonald: Dental records are the property of the dentist. The dental records of patients previously, but no longer, registered with a dentist under NHS will therefore remain in the dentist’s possession. Under their NHS terms of service dentists are required to retain r…

17 Jan 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people are registered with a dentist or dental surgery, on a private or NHS basis, in (a) Tayside, (b) Fife and (c) the Highlands, expressed as a percentage of the population in each of these areas.

Answer · Lewis Macdonald: Information on the number of patients registered with an NHS dentist is provided in the table. Information on patients registered with a dentist on a private basis is not available.</p> <p>Number of Patients Registered with an NHS General Dentist at 31 March …

17 Jan 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many NHS dentists or dental surgeries in (a) Tayside, (b) Fife and (c) the Highlands (i) still have NHS patients on their lists and (ii) operate on a private or Denplan basis only.

Answer · Lewis Macdonald: Information on the number of dental practices with NHS patients registered is provided in the table. Information on dental practices that operate exclusively on a private or Denplan basis only is not available.</p> <p>Number of Dental Practices with NHS Patie…

17 Jan 2006 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive how many NHS dentists or dental surgeries have closed their lists to NHS patients in (a) Tayside, (b) Fife and (c) the Highlands in 2005-06.

Answer · Lewis Macdonald: This information is not collected centrally. Dentists are not obliged to advise NHS boards if they are accepting or have stopped accepting new NHS patients.</p>

1 Dec 2005 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive what examination it has carried out into whether the transfer of Clyde and Hebrides ferry workers contracts offshore could further jeopardise security of employment for these workers in the event of Caledonian MacBrayne not gaining the contract to run the lifeline services.

Answer · Tavish Scott: Should Caledonian MacBrayne proceed and implement their offshore crewing proposals prior to the start of the new contract this will have no impact on the security of employment for the Caledonian MacBrayne workforce. The Invitation to Tender will invite bids …

1 Dec 2005 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has examined the impact on staff terms and conditions and rights to state benefits of transferring contracts of employment for Clyde and Hebrides ferry workers offshore.

Answer · Tavish Scott: It is for Caledonian MacBrayne as employer of the staff concerned to consider such matters and I understand that it has made a detailed assessment of the effect of a decision to introduce offshore crewing would have on the staff concerned.</p> <p>The company …

1 Dec 2005 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will lose any revenue resulting from the proposed transfer of Clyde and Hebrides ferry workers contracts offshore and, if so, how much.

Answer · Tavish Scott: The Exchequer funding that is made available annually to the Scottish Executive would not change as a consequence of a decision by Caledonian MacBrayne to introduce offshore crewing arrangements.</p>

1 Dec 2005 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has given authority for Caledonian MacBrayne to transfer contracts of employment for Clyde and Hebrides ferry workers offshore.

Answer · Tavish Scott: We advised Caledonian MacBrayne in April 2005 that we would be content were it to decide to introduce offshore crewing, on the basis that this is normal practice within the UK shipping industry.</p>

24 Oct 2005 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to monitor, with a view to curbing, environmental pollutants such as pesticides, herbicides and the use of antibiotics, additives and hormone treatments in the animal and plant food chain, in light of the statement by the UK Working Group on the Primary Prevention…

Answer · Andy Kerr: The report suggests that exposure to industrial chemicals and radiation are major causes of breast cancer. However, there is currently no compelling scientific evidence for the role of pollutants in breast-cancer risk. Evidence for a link between breast cance…

24 Oct 2005 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to extend nationally monitoring of patients who have had mantle area radiotherapy, given that mantle radiation carries an increased risk of breast cancer.

Answer · Andy Kerr: Following a report from the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) about the evidence of an increased risk of breast cancer following supradiagphragmatic (mantle) radiotherapy for Hodgkins disease in young women, the Chief Medical Officers of the four UK D…

24 Oct 2005 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to decentralise cancer screening and treatment services in the west of Scotland, given that the east of Scotland has four centres and the west has one.

Answer · Andy Kerr: Decisions on where cancer treatment is provided are clinically based and are agreed between doctor and patient. As far as possible and dependent on the type of tumour and treatment requirements, arrangements are made to treat patients as close to home as poss…

24 Oct 2005 · Written Question

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to direct more investment in the NHS towards technicians and equipment parts concerned with the treatment of cancer, given that equipment needs to be serviced and maintained.

Answer · Andy Kerr: The treatment of cancer is a top priority for the Scottish Executive and NHSScotland.</p> <p>The Scottish Executive has invested heavily in more skilled staff and equipment to improve cancer services, including £87 million for the new West of Scotland Cancer …