Questions and answers

Question reference: S2W-23779

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 March 2006
Current Status: Answered by George Reid on 15 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what contingency plans it has in place for the Parliament to meet in the event of temporary closure of the Holyrood site.

Question reference: S2W-25046

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 12 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that local authorities may cut bus services to fund the national concessionary fare scheme.

The Scotland-wide Free BusScheme for Older and Disabled People is being run by Transport Scotlandusing resources withdrawn from the local government finance settlement whichwere previously used for funding the free local off-peak bus schemes andadditional resources allocated centrally. The resources withdrawn from the settlement are the subject of an agreement withCOSLA which ensures that local authorities continue to be resourced forconcessionary travel on modes other than bus and that resources used forsupported bus services are protected. Accordingly,there is no need or justification for local authorities to cut bus services tohelp fund the scheme.

Question reference: S2W-25047

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 12 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to monitor any impact on bus service levels arising as a consequence of local authority obligations to fund the national concessionary fare scheme.

There are no consequences onlocal authorities to fund the Scotland-wide Free Bus Scheme for Older and DisabledPeople as it is funded by the Scottish Executive through Transport Scotland. Whenthe Scheme was being set up, a fair split of resources was agreed with the Conventionof Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) which ensured that the funding available tolocal authorities to support bus services was protected. Nevertheless, we will ofcourse continue to monitor the provision in respect of bus services over time.

Question reference: S2W-25431

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 11 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive which local authorities require drivers in circumstances other than transporting children to and from school to undergo enhanced Disclosure Scotland checks and what these circumstances are.

Question reference: S2O-09911

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 10 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what progress has been made in respect of a Scottish food fortnight in the Members¿ Restaurant.

Question reference: S2W-25451

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 9 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many charitable organisations which have rented or owned premises since 1999 are liable for full payment of water rates and what criteria are applied to exemptions for such premises.

Scottish Water does not categoriseits non-domestic customers by reference to the nature of their business or to theirstatus in the eyes of HM Customs and Revenue. The information sought therefore isnot held by either the Scottish Executive or Scottish Water.

The Regulations which establishedthe water and sewerage charges exemption scheme (the Water and Sewerage Charges(Exemption) (Scotland) Regulations 2002) specify the criteria that ScottishWater must apply in administering the scheme. A copy of the Regulations is availablein the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 20440).

Question reference: S2W-25453

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 9 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to revise the exemption scheme for water and sewerage services to premises operated by charitable and voluntary organisations to reduce their financial burden.

The water and sewerage chargesexemption scheme was established originally for four years with effect from 1 April 2002 to assistthose organisations that had previously been in receipt of relief and which werelikely to be most affected by its withdrawal. The statutory criteria for qualifyingfor exemption were set with that objective in mind. The Executive extended the scheme from 2006-10, to allowmore time for those organisations to prepare to pay for the services that they consume.The Executive has no plans to revise thescheme.

Question reference: S2W-24995

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 8 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) primary and (b) secondary pupils there were with autistic spectrum disorder in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The information requested isprovided in the following tables. It should be noted that prior to and including2001 the data was based on pupils with Records of Needs only. From 2002 onwardsthe data includes pupils with Records of Needs and/or Individualised EducationalProgrammes.

Numbers of Pupils in PubliclyFunded Primary Schools with Records of Needs and/or Individualised Educational ProgrammesHaving Autistic Spectrum Disorder as their Main Difficulty in Learning

Publicly Funded (Primary)	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999
Aberdeen City	65	60	48	43	24	18	9
Aberdeenshire	114	109	98	77	31	29	18
Angus	34	39	35	-	20	18	14
Argyll and Bute	26	25	23	14	15	12	7
Clackmannanshire	12	11	13	11	*	*	*
Dumfries and Galloway	67	56	41	36	29	19	13
Dundee City	90	66	55	44	20	11	8
East Ayrshire	24	26	19	18	13	5	*
East Dunbartonshire	15	14	10	7	*	*	*
East Lothian	25	26	22	23	12	15	12
East Renfrewshire	44	38	38	23	14	6	11
Edinburgh, City of	100	90	76	75	12	19	31
Eilean Siar	17	14	11	10	*	*	*
Falkirk	28	19	18	19	9	9	7
Fife	155	150	133	118	52	41	35
Glasgow City	57	53	33	22	48	63	16
Highland	151	147	130	103	73	63	56
Inverclyde	27	28	23	22	16	19	10
Midlothian	31	20	17	18	-	-	*
Moray	51	53	44	36	37	28	23
North Ayrshire	40	31	22	20	9	3	*
North Lanarkshire	109	96	90	89	60	41	32
Orkney Islands	30	28	28	29	*	*	*
Perth and Kinross	68	54	51	39	32	20	21
Renfrewshire	56	63	53	44	31	27	20
Scottish Borders	38	35	36	40	5	17	16
Shetland Islands	33	30	19	6	*	-	*
South Ayrshire	23	23	23	18	5	7	*
South Lanarkshire	91	65	59	53	24	20	14
Stirling	33	27	29	24	17	14	10
West Dunbartonshire	17	17	15	8	10	-	-
West Lothian	65	47	70	53	23	19	11
All Local Authorities	1,736	1,560	1,382	1,142	653	551	415

Note: *Signifies a numberless than five

Numbers of Pupils in PubliclyFunded Secondary Schools with Records of Needs and/or Individualised EducationalProgrammes Having Autistic Spectrum Disorder as their Main Difficulty in Learning

Publicly Funded (Secondary)	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999
Aberdeen City	31	18	17	14	11	10	12
Aberdeenshire	58	49	42	34	12	8	7
Angus	17	15	13	9	6	*	7
Argyll and Bute	19	16	8	8	8	5	*
Clackmannanshire	10	5	*	5	5	*	-
Dumfries and Galloway	24	20	20	19	12	9	*
Dundee City	27	27	21	14	13	8	*
East Ayrshire	16	18	19	13	*	*	5
East Dunbartonshire	13	7	6	8	*	*	*
East Lothian	13	8	7	*	7	*	*
East Renfrewshire	23	20	16	7	9	7	*
Edinburgh, City of	38	30	29	27	7	6	*
Eilean Siar	5	5	*	*	*	*	-
Falkirk	7	5	*	*	-	-	-
Fife	72	55	37	27	16	15	12
Glasgow City	51	41	16	12	*	*	11
Highland	95	80	68	51	*	9	2
Inverclyde	15	14	14	5	5	*	*
Midlothian	13	9	8	*	-	*	*
Moray	34	25	18	16	14	14	11
North Ayrshire	4	3	6	8	12	7	7
North Lanarkshire	44	40	36	32	23	18	*
Orkney Islands	8	10	7	6	-	-	-
Perth and Kinross	33	27	18	13	6	6	*
Renfrewshire	25	26	19	6	8	6	*
Scottish Borders	30	23	22	10	-	*	-
Shetland Islands	19	11	8	*	*	*	-
South Ayrshire	19	18	13	13	8	7	*
South Lanarkshire	25	20	19	15	10	5	*
Stirling	14	11	*	*	-	-	-
West Dunbartonshire	8	7	*	*	*	*	*
West Lothian	15	13	14	20	14	9	6
All local authorities	825	676	542	415	224	174	114

Note: *Signifiesa number less than five.

Question reference: S2W-25272

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 8 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many covert surveillance operations have been carried out by any relevant authority, current or historic, on MSPs since 1999.

Information relating to the useof covert surveillance by relevant authorities would, if held by the Scottish Executive,be exempt by virtue of sections 31 (National Security) and 35 (Law Enforcement)of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. We believe it would be contraryto the public interest, to confirm whether or not any such information exists oris held by the Scottish Executive. The terms of this refusal are provided for bysection 18 (1) of the 2002 act.

As stated in my answer to questionS2W-21758 on 18 January 2006, the Chief Surveillance Commissioner publishes detailsin his annual report of the number of authorisations given under the Police Act1997 for property interference, and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Act2000 and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 for directed and intrusivesurveillance.

The most recent report – Bib.number 37809, document number SE/2005/203 – was laid before the Scottish Parliamenton 3 November 2005.

All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website the search facilityfor which can be found at www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Question reference: S2W-25269

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 8 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-24499 by Cathy Jamieson on 13 April 2006, whether it is in the public interest to know whether Scottish ministers are aware of any potential subversive activity to undermine the democracy of Scotland by (a) senior British military officers and (b) the British Security Service.

The Security Service, SecretIntelligence Service, Government Communications Headquarters and the armed forcesare all subject to the rule of law. Evidence of criminal offences committed by membersof these organisations is subject to investigation and prosecution in line withestablished procedures.

The practice of not commentingon operational matters related to the Security and Intelligence Services, as referredto in my answer to S2W-24499, exists because it has been deemed in the public interestnot to risk jeopardising the work carried out by these organisations by revealing,even inadvertently, potentially sensitive information or investigative techniques.

All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website the search facilityfor which can be found at www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

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