Chamber and committees

Of the records held centrally the Education Department has received the most freedom of information requests to date.

Charging for providing information is discretionary, but any charges must be made in accordance with the current fees regulations issued under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 in SSIs 2004/376 and 2004/467. The Code of Practice issued by Scottish ministers under s60 of the act requires authorities to bear in mind, when applying the fees regime, that many applicants may be on low incomes. The operation of the fees regulations is one of the subjects of the current  public consultation on the operation of the act.

The number of Scottish Executive officials who have received an honour in the (a) Queen’s Birthday Honours List and (b) New Year’s Honours List in each year since 1999 are detailed in the following table.

Honours List	Awards
New Year 2006	6
Birthday 2005	7
New Year 2005	6
Birthday 2004	5
New Year 2004	5
Birthday 2003	7
New Year 2003	8
Birthday  2002	6
New Year 2002	6
Birthday 2001	7
New Year 2001	4
Birthday 2000	7
New Year 2000	10
Birthday 1999	5
New Year 1999	9

 

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-22161 on 23 January 2006. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Officials have had a number of recent meetings with the Children’s Commissioner’s office to discuss children of asylum seekers amongst other things. There will be further meetings in the coming weeks.

We have made clear on many occasions that we are seeking to agree improvements in a range of issues and that we will report to Parliament once our discussions with the Home Office are concluded. It will be for Parliament to determine whether any parliamentary consideration is appropriate in due course.

This information is not held centrally.

The information requested is contained in five tables entitled Medical Staff in Neurology by grade and NHS Board 2001-2005 a copy of which has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 38692).

NHSScotland has made excellent progress in reducing long waits for patients. On 30 September 2005, the number of patients waiting more than 26 weeks for a first outpatient appointment with a consultant in neurology, following referral, was 986 compared with 1,841 on 30 September 2004 - a reduction of 46%.

The number of first out-patient neurology appointments and the median waiting time for a first out-patient appointment with a consultant in the specialty of neurology, following referral by a general medical practitioner, by NHS board of residence, in the year ended 30 September 2005, is given in the table.

NHSScotland: Number of First Out-Patient Appointments and Median Waiting Times for a First Out-Patient Appointment with a Consultant in the Specialty of Neurology, Following Referral by a General Medical Practitioner, by NHS Board Area of Residence, Year Ended 30 September 2005^P

NHS Board	Number of Appointments	Median Waits (Days)
Argyll and Clyde	1,226	101
Ayrshire and Arran	547	95
Borders	323	100
Dumfries and Galloway	264	85
Fife	1,197	118
Forth Valley	671	74
Grampian	1,924	54
Greater Glasgow	3,750	92
Highland	395	130
Lanarkshire	1,067	127
Lothian	4,758	36
Orkney	16	60*
Shetland	22	74*
Tayside	1,401	188
Western Isles	55	168
Scotland	17,616	83

Source: SMR00, ISD Scotland.

^pProvisional.

Notes:

*Figures should be treated with caution as they are derived from a possible unrepresentatively small number of appointments (more than 14 but less than 50).

Excludes patients with an Availability Status Code.

The available information is given in the following table.

Persons Released from a Custodial Sentence or Given a Non-Custodial Sentence in 1999-2002 Whose Index Conviction¹ was for a Violent Crime: Percentage Reconvicted Within One Year

	Percentage Reconvicted Within 1 Year
	1999	2000	2001	2002
All Violent Crime	22	24	23	24
Serious assault and homicide 2	16	18	20	19
Robbery	36	37	35	39
Simple assault	22	24	23	24
Other Violence	17	18	22	21

Notes:

1. For each offender in the cohort, this is the conviction which resulted in a non-custodial sentence being served or the one which had originally led to a custodial sentence being served.

2. Includes murder, culpable homicide, attempted murder and serious assault.