Questions and answers

Question reference: S4W-19915

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Margaret Burgess on 10 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many property owners under its help to buy scheme it has bought out of the agreement.

Under the scheme a buyer can purchase a new-build property, up to the value of £400,000, with the Scottish Government purchasing an equity share of up to 20% of the property.

There is no set deadline by which purchasers must repay to Scottish Government the equity support which they receive through the Help to Buy (Scotland) Scheme. The Scottish scheme runs on indefinitely and purchasers can decide to acquire all or some of Scottish Government's retained equity stake in their home at a time of their own choosing. Alternatively, the equity support will be repaid upon the occurrence of certain events, the most common one being when the purchaser decides to sell their home. Currently no-one has repaid their equity share.

Question reference: S4W-19583

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Lesley Thomson on 4 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases of flytipping have been reported to procurators fiscal in each year since 1999, and how many (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions there were.

Fly-tipping is covered by section 33(1)(a) and (6) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which makes it an offence to deposit “controlled waste” unless the deposit is authorised by a waste management licence. The following table contains the information requested in relation to that offence:

��

Year	Charges reported To Procurator Fiscal	Charges dealt with by Direct Measures	Prosecutions * (where main charge) Source: Scottish Government (Charges reported to COPFS prosecuted in court in brackets Source: COPFS) ��	Convictions * (where main charge) �� Source: Scottish Government
2002-03	26	13	(9) 3	3
2003-04	9	2	(5) 8	8
2004-05	39	7	(29) 6	6
2005-06	128	33	(73) 20	16
2006-07	112	17	(45) 14	10
2007-08	101	24	(40) 21	19
2008-09	111	24	(45) 8	8
2009-10	113	17	(48) 15	9
2010-11	198	94	(36) 9	7
2011-12	253	77	(9) 5	4
2012-13	277	60	(16) 3	2

* Based on people at date of disposal

Notes:

1. COPFS does not hold complete statistical data prior to the year 2002-03 and therefore cannot provide data for the years 1999-00 and 2000-01. COPFS records the number of individual charges reported to it, not the numbers of cases containing a particular type of crime. A reported case can contain multiple charges of the same type against one or more offenders

2. Instances of fly-tipping can also be prosecuted under sections 33(1)(b) and 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. However, other types of criminal act are also prosecuted under these sections. Accordingly, statistics in relation to these offences do not exclusively relate to fly-tipping and cannot be provided as part of this Written Answer.

3. In the majority of cases where no action was taken it was because there was insufficient admissible evidence in law to raise criminal proceedings.

4. Figures for prosecutions and convictions which are based on people at date of disposal come from the Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings Database.

Question reference: S4F-01928

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 03 March 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 March 2014

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on the calls from Transform Scotland to upgrade the rail network.

Question reference: S4W-19690

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 3 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the need to dredge rivers and burns to reduce the risk of flooding.

In December 2011, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) published Scotland’s first National Flood Risk Assessment. For the first time, we have a national picture of flood risk across Scotland, which helps us to target future efforts to plan and invest in reducing impacts in areas most vulnerable to flooding.

We are now working with local authorities, SEPA and Scottish Water to deliver our strategic flood risk management plans. Building on the national flood risk assessment and SEPA’s recently published flood risk and hazard maps, these will set out objectives for reducing flood risk in potentially vulnerable areas across Scotland, and the best combination of measures to achieve this. These measures may include dredging where it is appropriate and is part of a sustainable, long-term catchment solution to sediment management issues.

We believe this is the best approach to managing flood risk across the whole of Scotland, rather than focussing on one single issue which is certainly not a "cure all" for flooding. Dredging can have a role to play in flood risk management, but carried out in the wrong way and in the wrong place can result in significant environmental damage, and increased flooding and erosion downstream.

Question reference: S4W-19689

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 3 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many local authorities have applied to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency for licences to dredge rivers in each year since 1999.

Authorisation to carry out dredging was required from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency from 2006 onwards, with the introduction of the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2005.

Authorisations can be granted in two forms depending on the scale and likely environmental impact of the proposed dredging activity, by licences and by registration.

Table 1 provides the relevant breakdown of both licence and registration applications each year. Some local authorities applied for more than one authorisation.

Table 1:

Year	No of local authorities that applied for dredging Licences each year.	Total Licences granted to local authorities	No of local authorities that applied for dredging registrations each year.	Total registrations granted to local authorities
Pre 2007	0	0	0	0
2007	2	2	1	1
2008	0	0	2	3
2009	1	2	4	13
2010	0	0	4	10
2011	0	0	5	12
2012	0	0	3	11
2013	2	2	6	12

Question reference: S4W-19691

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 3 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what advice it has provided to local authorities regarding the dredging of rivers and burns.

Question reference: S4O-02964

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 March 2014

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with local authorities following the recent incidents of flooding.

Question reference: S4W-19617

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 26 February 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how many bids there have been for air quality management funding in each year since 1999.

The information requested is provided in the following table. Three air quality funding schemes currently operate, local air quality management (introduced in 1998), vehicle emissions testing (introduced in 2003) and vehicle emissions reduction/air quality action plan support (introduced in 2009). Not all local authorities apply for funding in a given financial year:

��	Local Air Quality Management	Vehicle Emissions Testing	Vehicle Emissions Reduction/Air Quality Action Planning
1999-00	8	-	-
2000-01	9	-	-
2001-02	5	-	-
2002-03	12	-	-
2003-04	13	3	-
2004-05	16	3	-
2005-06	17	7	-
2006-07	16	6	-
2007-08	24	10	-
2008-09	14	8	-
2009-10	14	8	8
2010-11	16	8	8
2011-12	17	9	9
2012-13	16	8	10
2013-14	18	7	11

Question reference: S4W-19618

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 February 2014
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 26 February 2014

To ask the Scottish Government how much air quality management funding each local authority has received in each year since 1999.

The information requested is provided in the following tables. Allocations are based on an application process, rather than being made automatically. Three air quality funding schemes currently operate, local air quality management (introduced in 1998), vehicle emissions testing (introduced in 2003) and vehicle emissions reduction/air quality action plan support (introduced in 2009). Not all local authorities apply for funding in a given financial year.

From 2008-09 all local authorities have also received a direct non ring fenced allocation for air quality work. This is a consequence of the Concordat signed by Scottish Ministers and the COSLA presidential team in November 2007, which rolled up a number of specific capital grants into a single General Capital Grant. The air quality allocation is based on funding provided over the previous five years. Following this agreement, the Local Air Quality Management fund is only available to those local authorities with existing or potential air quality management areas, routine air quality work is expected to be fund from the direct allocation.

Local air quality management:

Local authority	1999-00 (£)	2000-01 (£)	2001-02 (£)	2002-03 (£)	2003-04 (£)
Aberdeen	29,500.00	9,000.00	11,000.00	0	55,000.00
Aberdeenshire	0	0	0	0	0
Angus	0	0	0	0	4,000.00
Argyll and Bute	0	0	0	2,000.00	10,000.00
Clackmannanshire	39,800.00	0	0	4,000.00	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	��	��	0	0
Dundee	57,000.00	32,000.00	50,000.00	43,000.00	40,000.00
East Ayrshire	23,000.00	0	0	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	28,000.00
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	0	0
East Lothian	0	5,000.00	0	0	0
East Renfrewshire	0	0	0	15,000.00	��
Edinburgh	0	0	87,000.00	100,000.00	20,000.00
Falkirk	231,000.00	51,000.00	45,000.00	23,000.00	11,000.00
Fife	0	32,000.00	0	10,000.00	0
Glasgow	43,000.00	63,000.00	85,000.00	52,000.00	30,000.00
Highland	0	0	0	0	0
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	0	26,000.00	0	0	0
Moray	0	0	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0
North Lanarkshire	54,700.00	36,000.00	0	23,000.00	10,000.00
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0
Perth and Kinross	0	0	0	0	40,000.00
Renfrewshire	22,000.00	36,000.00	0	23,000.00	12,000.00
Scottish Borders	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0
South Ayrshire	0	0	0	5,000.00	14,000.00
South Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0
Stirling	0	0	0	3,000.00	0
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	15,000.00
West Lothian	0	0	0	0	0

��

Local Air Quality Management:

Local authority	2004-05 (£)	2005-06 (£)	2006-07 (£)	2007-08 (£)	2008-09 (£)
Aberdeen	2,250.00	72,000.00	39,200.00	50,000.00	77,800.00
Aberdeenshire	0	0	0	0	0
Angus	21,700.00	15,000.00	15,000.00	22,000.00	0
Argyll and Bute	0	0	22,922.00	6,500.00	0
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	0	0	4,986.00
Dundee	39,690.00	118,000.00	110,403.34	19,200.00	0
East Ayrshire	0	10,682.00	0	30,000.00	44,636.47
East Dunbartonshire	13,807.00	53,365.20	94,143.00	30,450.00	35,610.00
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	0	0
East Lothian	2,000.00	0	0	10,468.00	0
East Renfrewshire	25,000.00	0	5,350.00	12,225.00	4,000.00
Edinburgh	84,850.00	37,000.00	28,214.71	35,000.00	30,000.00
Falkirk	44,358.00	37,000.00	24,000.00	17,500.00	7,500.00
Fife	0	43,000.00	23,128.00	60,000.00	89,600.00
Glasgow	72,161.00	58,000.00	104,000.00	0	55,000.00
Highland	34,530.00	0	0	17,655.00	0
Inverclyde	0	0	0	11,412.00	0
Midlothian	0	26,000.00	10,105.00	0	26,013.00
Moray	0	0	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	0	0	0	11,700.00	42,650.00
North Lanarkshire	17,500.00	58,000.00	56,000.00	67,000.00	55,000.00
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0
Perth and Kinross	75,000.00	83,000.00	81,222.00	44,722.00	41,500.00
Renfrewshire	0	9,000.00	27,993.00	51,500.00	25,000.00
Scottish Borders	31,500.00	0	0	21,930.00	0
Shetland	0	0	0	30,000.00	0
South Ayrshire	11,730.00	15,000.00	0	34,455.00	0
South Lanarkshire	0	0	0	111,094.00	0
Stirling	4,912.00	14,000.00	14,918.00	16,183.20	0
West Dunbartonshire	19,000.00	40,000.00	41,500.00	8,000.00	0
West Lothian	0	28,000.00	0	45,120.00	0

��

Local Air Quality Management:

Local authority	2009-10 (£)	2010-11 (£)	2011-12 (£)	2012-13 (£)	2013-14 (£)
Aberdeen	25,000.00	25,500.00	30,000.00	20,000.00	30,000.00
Aberdeenshire	0	0	0	0	0
Angus	0	0	0	0	0
Argyll and Bute	0	0	0	0	0
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	18,980.00
Dumfries and Galloway	0	28,502.46	0	0	0
Dundee	0	0	26,600.00	36,000.00	41,700.00
East Ayrshire	0	11,000.00	20,000.00	10,000.00	24,792.00
East Dunbartonshire	93,189.03	58,499.20	30,256.00	38,300.00	25,000.00
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	0	0
East Lothian	10,280.00	0	0	0	3,398.00
East Renfrewshire	6,639.00	8,718.00	0	0	0
Edinburgh	40,000.00	9,038.00	10,940.00	12,000.00	10,760.00
Falkirk	50,543.00	31,718.00	32,600.00	42,700.00	35,000.00
Fife	82,145.50	55,267.00	33,625.00	23,400.00	16,425.00
Glasgow	15,000.00	40,416.00	46,409.00	49,800.00	27,638.00
Highland	0	0	0	0	0
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	23,802.56	35,736.00	21,400.00	12,850.00	13,500.00
Moray	0	0	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	20,000.00	7,700.00	4,593.00	15,511.00	5,663.00
North Lanarkshire	88,500.00	75,183.00	49,300.00	54,000.00	76,000.00
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0
Perth and Kinross	34,000.00	34,767.00	55,600.00	50,000.00	64,000.00
Renfrewshire	135,000.00	70,474.00	16,250.00	35,000.00	19,768.00
Scottish Borders	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0
South Ayrshire	0	0	10,964.00	9,000.00	9,000.00
South Lanarkshire	112,720.48	61,000.00	35,373.00	61,652.00	90,000.00
Stirling	0	0	0	0	0
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	52,000.00	0	0
West Lothian	0	11,932.00	47,300.00	31,700.00	12,000.00

��

Vehicle Emissions Testing:

Local authority	2003-04 (£)	2004-05 (£)	2005-06 (£)	2006-07 (£)	2007-08 (£)
Aberdeen	0	45,000.00	50,000.00	51,000.00	18,000.00
Aberdeenshire	0	0	0	0	0
Angus	0	0	0	0	0
Argyll and Bute	0	0	0	0	5,000.00
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	0	0	0
Dundee	0	0	0	0	0
East Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	22,760.00
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	7,000.00	19,060.00	17,200.00
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	0	0
East Lothian	0	0	0	0	0
East Renfrewshire	0	0	2,500.00	0	11,250.00
Edinburgh	0	0	0	0	0
Falkirk	0	0	0	0	0
Fife	0	0	0	0	0
Glasgow	200,000.00	227,000.00	300,000.00	262,215.00	265,000.00
Highland	0	0	0	0	0
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	0	0	0	0	0
Moray	0	0	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0
North Lanarkshire¹	0	0	0	4,236.00	24,850.00
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0
Perth and Kinross	0	0	0	0	0
Renfrewshire	0	0	2,300.00	0	0
Scottish Borders	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0
South Ayrshire	40,000.00	15,949.44	16,860.00	20,285.00	16,690.00
South Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0
Stirling	0	0	0	0	0
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	20,000.00	35,620.00	20,000.00
West Lothian²	75,000.00	65,000.00	128,500.00	145,000.00	145,000.00

��

Vehicle Emissions Testing:

Local authority	2008-09 (£)	2009-10 (£)	2010-11 (£)	2011-12 (£)	2012-13 (£)
Aberdeen	15,000.00	15,600.00	15,600.00	17,900.00	18,000.00
Aberdeenshire	0	0	0	0	0
Angus	0	0	0	0	0
Argyll and Bute	0	0	0	0	0
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	0	0	0
Dundee	0	0	0	0	0
East Ayrshire	15,000.00	0	0	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	0
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	0	0
East Lothian	0	0	0	0	0
East Renfrewshire	0	0	0	1,981.77	0
Edinburgh	0	0	2,500.00	500.00	500.00
Falkirk	0	0	0	0	0
Fife	0	0	0	0	0
Glasgow	270,000.00	280,000.00	280,000.00	250,000.00	250,000.00
Highland	0	0	0	0	0
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	0	0	0	0	0
Moray	0	0	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	15,000.00	15,000.00	0	0	0
North Lanarkshire¹	60,000.00	80,000.00	80,000.00	80,000.00	80,000.00
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0
Perth and Kinross	0	0	0	0	0
Renfrewshire	0	17,800.00	20,000.00	19,740.00	15,000.00
Scottish Borders	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0
South Ayrshire	18,000.00	18,000.00	18,000.00	19,829.43	20,000.00
South Lanarkshire	0	0	0	0	0
Stirling	0	0	0	0	0
West Dunbartonshire	12,000.00	16,000.00	16,000.00	16,000.00	16,000.00
West Lothian²	161,000.00	171,000.00	174,000.00	170,000.00	170,000.00

��

Vehicle Emissions Testing:

Local authority	2013-14 (£)
Aberdeen	18,000.00
Aberdeenshire	0
Angus	0
Argyll and Bute	0
Clackmannanshire	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0
Dundee	0
East Ayrshire	0
East Dunbartonshire	0
Eilean Siar	0
East Lothian	0
East Renfrewshire	0
Edinburgh	500.00
Falkirk	0
Fife	0
Glasgow	240,000.00
Highland	0
Inverclyde	0
Midlothian	0
Moray	0
North Ayrshire	0
North Lanarkshire¹	80,000.00
Orkney	0
Perth and Kinross	0
Renfrewshire	25,200.00
Scottish Borders	0
Shetland	0
South Ayrshire	20,000.00
South Lanarkshire	0
Stirling	0
West Dunbartonshire	0
West Lothian²	170,000.00

¹North Lanarkshire Council is the lead authority in a vehicle emissions testing partnership also involving South Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire Councils (since 2008).

²West Lothian Council is the lead authority in a vehicle emissions testing partnership also involving East Lothian, Midlothian and Falkirk Councils.

��

Vehicle Emissions Reduction/Air Quality Action Planning:

Local authority	2009-10 (£)	2010-11 (£)	2011-12 (£)	2012-13 (£)	2013-14 (£)
Aberdeen	120,278.00	55,000.00	72,000.00	82,000.00	50,000.00
Aberdeenshire	35,139.00	0	0	0	0
Angus	0	0	0	0	0
Argyll and Bute	0	0	0	0	0
Clackmannanshire	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	37,240.00	0	0	0	0
Dundee	44,024.00	42,372.00	185,000.00	180,000.00	166,000.00
East Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	106,000.00	30,000.00	56,000.00
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	0	0
East Lothian	0	0	0	0	0
East Renfrewshire	0	0	0	0	0
Edinburgh	4,350.00	202,198.00	15,000.00	30,500.00	55,000.00
Falkirk	0	0	0	29,500.00	29,983.00
Fife	0	79,000.00	109,000.00	81,500.00	40,000.00
Glasgow	70,000.00	100,000.00	190,000.00	190,000.00	165,000.00
Highland	0	0	0	0	0
Inverclyde	0	0	0	0	0
Midlothian	0	0	0	0	0
Moray	0	0	0	0	0
North Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0
North Lanarkshire	0	0	60,000.00	60,616.00	63,500.00
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0
Perth and Kinross	200,288.00	347,500.00	165,000.00	160,000.00	230,000.00
Renfrewshire	0	150,000.00	0	0	4,600.00
Scottish Borders	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0
South Ayrshire	0	0	0	0	0
South Lanarkshire	70,000.00	60,000.00	102,242.00	170,000.00	150,000.00
Stirling	0	0	0	0	0
West Dunbartonshire	0	0	0	0	0
West Lothian	0	0	0	0	0

Question reference: S4W-19504

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 30 January 2014
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 20 February 2014

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that Education Scotland inspections should take account of the quality of teaching��facilities and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

Education Scotland Inspectors take account of the quality of teaching facilities during school inspections. No formal evaluation of accommodation is made using a quality indicator, but in cases where pupils' safety might be at risk, or where poor facilities are having a negative impact on pupils' learning experiences, this will be highlighted and discussed with the school and its local authority. Such issues may be highlighted in the letter to parents after the inspection, or in the detailed record of inspection findings.

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