Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-32302

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many prosecutors are currently employed by the Aberdeen office of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

Question reference: S6W-32335

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) has spent on expert witnesses in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-32304

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the current average time is for the Aberdeen office of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) to bring cases to court, broken down by case type.

Question reference: S6W-32303

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) procurator fiscals and (b) support staff are currently (i) employed by and (ii) based in the Aberdeen office of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

COPFS employs 2501 staff comprised of 733 legal staff and 1768 support and administrative staff. As referred to in the answer for S6W-32302 on 9 January 2025 based within the Aberdeen Procurator Fiscal’s Office, there are 37 legal members of staff. In Addition, there are 84 members of support/administration staff. These figures are correct as at 30 November 2024.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-32311

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many trials were scheduled but not proceeded with by the Aberdeen office of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in the last reporting year.

The assigning of a hearing for trial is an order of the court and is recorded within the court’s interlocutor for each case.

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis. Scheduled trial data is not retained once a date is cancelled regardless of the reason.

Information in respect of cases brought to court is produced by the Scottish Government, using data provided both by COPFS and SCTS. These are national figures and are not produced for individual courts or Procurator Fiscal Offices.

Question reference: S6W-32313

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases involving human trafficking have been prosecuted by the Aberdeen office of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in each year since 2020.

Question reference: S6W-32341

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many procurator fiscals are currently employed by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

Question reference: S6W-32330

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been reffered to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) for precognition in each of the last five years.

COPFS uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical analysis. Any data in respect of the number of people currently being precognosed is updated each day and cannot be recalculated retrospectively or aggregated. This question cannot be readily answered by COPFS.

Question reference: S6W-32340

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many criminal cases in the last year have been discontinued by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) due to lack of evidence.

Question reference: S6W-32343

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 9 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many extradition cases have been handled by the Lord Advocate in each of the last 10 years.

2019-20	£264,225
2020-21	£139,540
2021-22	£606,651
2022-23	£1,434,227
2023-24	£496,683

		Financial year reported
	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
Charges prosecuted	0	0	0	3

	Extradition In	Extradition Out	Total
2014	151	36	187
2015	184	41	225
2016	131	44	175
2017	177	36	213
2018	146	47	193
2019	107	64	171
2020	107	52	159
2021	82	26	108
2022	94	49	143
2023	96	78	174
2024	56	144	200
Total	1331	617	1948

	2023-2024
No further action - Now Insufficient Evidence	6,609