Chamber and committees

The Estimated Number Patients Seen in general practices in Scotland Newly Diagnosed with “Obesity” or as Being “Overweight” is shown in the following table.

	Overweight
Year	Obesity	Including Oobesity
2002 (consultations with GP only)	8,900	11,500
2003 (consultations with GP only)	8,600	11,400
2003-04 (consultations with GP, practice or district nurse or health visitor)	11,100	16,700

The Estimated Number of Patients Seen for Obesity

Year	Number of Patients Seen
2002 (consultations with GP only)	38,100
2003 (consultations with GP only)	35,600
2003-04 (consultations with GP, practice or district nurse or health visitor)	48,400

Source: Practice Team Information from Information Services NHS National Services Scotland.

The tables show the number of newly diagnosed patients and the overall number of patients seen for obesity.

These figures considerably underestimate the true number of obese people in Scotland. Many people with obesity do not consult their GP. In addition these figures exclude people with obesity who did not consult their GP during the year of the analysis. Also patients may visit the general practice for a condition related to their obesity without obesity itself being recorded.

This Information is not held centrally.

The payment of benefits, including those made for funeral expenses, is a reserved matter, on which the Executive has made no representations to the UK Government.

Information specific to Scotland is not held centrally.

This information is not held centrally.

The cost to local authorities of administering royal visits and royal holidays is not identified separately in the local authority expenditure returns made to the Scottish Executive.

We have outlined various non-legislative proposals to complement the Family Law Bill, including a possible telephone helpline or information service on family relationship issues. Before allocating any funding for a helpline project we will discuss key questions with stakeholders, including the added value of a helpline on family relationships, the links with existing helplines for parents, step-parents and children, and impact on service provision at local level. We will also take account of the current scoping study of telephone helpline services by Parenting across Scotland. We are also currently looking at options for providing web-based information to improve the availability of information about family law and support services in Scotland.

The following table shows core funding under the Children, Young People and Families Unified Voluntary Sector Fund received by four services which cover the south of Scotland.

	2001-02 (£)	2002-03 (£)	2003-04 (£)	2004-05 (£)
Family Mediation Borders	31,930	32,888	33,710	34,553
Family Mediation Dumfries and Galloway	56,650	58,350	59,808	61,303
Family Mediation Lothian	52,005	53,565	54,904	56,277
Family Mediation West	147,466	151,890	155,687	159,579

Figures are given in the Annual Reports published by Family Mediation Scotland (FMS). In general, these relate to the number of people who contact local services for information or advice of any kind, not of the final numbers who proceed to mediation (though the report for 2001 does distinguish these, as noted below). Not all the figures have been collated in the same way since 1999.

	2000	2001*	2002	2003
Family Mediation Borders	158	308	297	638
FM Central	325	500	680	587
FM Dumfries and Galloway	169	221	261	127
FM Fife	392	321	70	523
FM Grampian	352	X(1)	X(1)	X(1)
FM Highland	588	768	637	460
FM Lothian	2,377	1,330	1,367	2,000
FM Orkney	107	19	97	113
FM Shetland	48	50	X(2)	X(2)
FM South Lanarkshire (from 2002)	X(3)	X(3)	109	240
FM Tayside	534	553	543	650
FM West	1,151	1,034	1,337	1,063
Counselling and Mediation Western Isles	97	29	76	145

Notes:

*In the report for 2001, the total number of all new contacts was given as 5,133, of which 628 mediation cases were started:

X(1): Figures not provided to FMS.

X(2): Service not operational.

X(3): Service not operational until 2002.

The FMS report for 2004 provides a chart showing the distribution of cases across services but does not give figures of either initial contact or mediation cases.

The cost to local authorities of administering and servicing the duties of lords lieutenant and their deputies is not identified separately in the local authority expenditure returns made to the Scottish Executive.

To the extent that police officers from a local force were on duty during an event attended by the Royal Family as part of their normal duties, there will be no additional cost incurred by the local force. Otherwise, as I indicated in my earlier answer to question S2W-14474 on 1 March 2005, it is not the policy of the Scottish Executive to comment on, or otherwise disclose details of, the cost of policing events attended by members of the royal family as to do so could compromise their security and play into the hands of those who might wish to intimidate them or cause them harm.

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/webapp/wa.search.