Chamber and committees

The available information is given in the following table:

Court	1999-2000 Average	2000-01 Average	2001-02 Average	2002-03 Average	2003-04 Average
Aberdeen	10	12	13	14	14
Airdrie	11	15	15	10	13
Alloa	13	15	11	18	16
Arbroath	12	11	12	12	12
Ayr	10	14	13	13	12
Banff	10	13	13	14	12
Campbeltown	10	10	10	10	11
Cupar	12	14	12	10	10
Dingwall	10	11	9	11	13
Dornoch	12	12	10	11	11
Dumbarton	12	12	11	11	9
Dumfries	12	12	11	10	11
Dundee	16	16	13	12	13
Dunfermline	13	14	13	10	10
Dunoon	12	12	12	11	11
Duns	9	n/a	10	***	***
Edinburgh	13	15	16	16	16
Elgin	12	12	13	14	16
Falkirk	14	14	13	12	10
Forfar	10	10	10	11	11
Fort William	11	11	10	8	9
Glasgow	10	12	12	12	11
Greenock	8	11	13	12	10
Haddington	10	11	13	12	10
Hamilton	10	16	15	11	16
Inverness	10	12	14	13	16
Jedburgh	11	12	12	10	10
Kilmarnock	8	11	11	12	11
Kirkcaldy	15	16	14	14	14
Kirkcudbright	9	9	8	10	7
Kirkwall	7	9	8	10	9
Lanark	9	10	10	10	12
Lerwick	9	8	9	10	9
Linlithgow	17	14	13	9	9
Lochmaddy	8	9	8	***	***
Oban	10	11	9	11	10
Paisley	8	13	11	10	14
Peebles	9	10	12	9	15
Perth	19	21	14	13	16
Peterhead	12	13	13	11	10
Portree	8	9	11	11	9
Rothesay	7	9	8	7	7
Selkirk	10	12	11	10	11
Stirling	15	13	12	12	12
Stonehaven	10	10	9	10	10
Stornoway	10	9	11	10	10
Stranraer	8	9	9	11	10
Tain	10	10	11	10	10
Wick	9	9	9	10	10
National Average	11	12	11	11	11

Note:

***Combined figures for Jedburgh/Duns and Portree Lochmaddy for 2002-03 and 2003-04.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The Scottish Executive does not recommend funding levels for local roads maintenance, it provides local authorities with Grant Aided Expenditure (GAE) allocations. GAEs allocations are not funding as such. They form part of a more complex formula used to calculate a single Revenue Support Grant figure for each local authority which covers all grant‑aided local authority services. It is for each local authority to decide on its spending on individual services based on local needs and priorities.

Trunk road maintenance funding levels are shown in tables 11.1 and 11.2 of Scottish Transport Statistics, No 22, 2003 Edition, a copy of which has been placed in the Scottish Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 29044). Table 11.1 shows expenditure for all Scotland and table 11.2 shows expenditure by Operating Company. Expenditure is not allocated or gathered by local authority area.

The table below shows the percentage of the Scottish budget that was spent by non-departmental public bodies in the years 1999-2000, 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04.

	1999-2000 (£ Million)	2000-01 (£ Million)	2001-02 (£ Million)	2002-03 (£ Million)	2003-042 (£ Million)
Scottish Budget1	15,895	17,993	19,890	20,972	22,764
NDPB Allocation	209	223	259	290	346
% of Total Budget	1.31	1.24	1.30	1.38	1.52

Notes:

1. The figures for the Scottish budget were taken from Serving Scotland’s Needs 1999 (for 1999-2000) and from the Draft Budget 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05 (for the remaining years).

2. The figures for 2003-04 are prepared on a full resource accounting basis andinclude provision for capital charges.

There are currently four local authority areas with Common Housing Registers (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Perth and Kinross and Renfrewshire).

The Scottish Executive is encouraging local authorities and Registered Social Landlords to develop Common Housing Registers within each local authority area in Scotland. It has provided £3 million for a new funding programme over the period 2004-06 to facilitate this together with advice and support. Towards the end of this programme, we will review progress and consider whether there is a need to invoke powers provided by Section 8 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001.

The Scottish Law Commission hopes to publish its report on this subject by the end of 2004. It will include a draft bill.

Information held by ISD Scotland shows that 96 public health consultants were in post at September 2003 from a total establishment of 104, a vacancy rate of 7.7%.

The route to consultant posts is through specialist registrar training. We have increased the total number of specialist registrar training posts in publichealth medicine from 31 to 34 over the last two years. It is projected that eight training posts will complete specialist registrar training in 2004 and a furthereight in 2005. This will help to ensure an adequate supply of public health practitioners at consultant level.

The National Workforce Committee is leading on the work force development agenda and will be assisted in this by the new Workforce Numbers Group (WoNuG). This group will for the first time look comprehensively at the health care work force, including the public health work force. It will advise the committee on work force numbers and modelling across all staff groups and make recommendations on work force size and shape in a sensible and pragmatic way.

The latest information currently available relates to calendar year 2002. In that year a total of 9,978 drink-driving offences resulted in a charge proved in court. It is planned to publish information for 2003 in November.

The available information, which relates to Scottish applications for an award, for the period 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004, is given in the following table. The information requested is not available by sheriff court district.

Date of Application to Date of Decision

Period	Number	% Within Period
Less than 1 year	6,249	70.24
1 year to less than 2 years	2,109	23.70
2 years to less than 3 years	421	4.73
Over 3 years	118	1.33
Total	8,897	100

Source: Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

We expect to receive a report by the end of 2004, as explained at page 15 of the Scottish Law Commission’s Annual Report for 2003 (Scot Law Com No 194) published by The Stationery Office in 2004, a copy of which is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 32268).