Chamber and committees

Three thousand, nine hundredand fifty-four people were reported to procurators fiscal by the police in the financialyear 2003-04 for allegedly committing an offence involving fraud. Criminal proceedingsin court were taken in respect of 2,343 ofthese people. A breakdown of these figures by Crown Office and ProcuratorFiscal Service area corresponding to police forces is shown in the following table:

Number of People Reported toProcurators Fiscal (PF) by the Police for Offences Involving Fraud¹and Number of those Reported who were Subject to Criminal Proceedings in Court²In Financial Year 2003-04.

COPFS Areas	Number of People Reported to PF	Number of Reported People Subject of Criminal Proceedings
Central	286	176
Dumfries and Galloway	105	70
Fife	320	184
Grampian	243	173
Highland and Islands3	162	88
Lothian and Borders	666	388
Strathclyde4	1,761	1,006
Tayside	411	258
Total	3,954	2,343

Notes:

1. Includes charges of fraud,attempted fraud, fraudulent scheme and fraud involving credit/debit cards,board and lodgings and taxi/vehicle fares.

2. Excludes alternatives toprosecution and non-court disposals.  In 70 cases the charge proceeded with bythe Procurator Fiscal was a charge of, for example, embezzlement, theft oranother crime of dishonesty rather than a charge of fraud.

3. Corresponds to NorthernConstabulary.

4. Includes COPFS Areas ofAyrshire, Argyll and Clyde, Glasgow and Lanarkshire.

NHS Lanarkshire is committed to ensuring that it meets the Executive’s national, maximum waiting times targets.

If at a first out-patient consultation an orthopaedic consultant decides that a patient requires surgery and places them on the waiting list, then the current national commitment is that the patient will be admitted to hospital for that treatment within nine months. This national, maximum waiting times guarantee will be reduced to six months from the end of this year and to 18 weeks from the end of 2007.

On 30 June 2005, no patient with a guarantee in NHS Lanarkshire had waited more than nine months for orthopaedic surgery.

The current national maximum waiting time for inpatient and day case treatment, including orthopaedic surgery, is nine months. Lanarkshire NHS Board consistently meets this commitment.

The guaranteed maximum waiting time for in-patient and day case treatment will be reduced to six months from the end of this year, and to 18 weeks from the end of 2007. NHS Lanarkshire is committed to meeting these guarantees for the benefit of patients in their area.

On 30 June 2005, 2,548 residents of Lanarkshire NHS Board were waiting for hospital admission for in-patient or day case treatment in the specialty of orthopaedics.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-18029 on 4 August 2005. 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.

Since 2000, the Scottish Executive, via sportscotland, has awarded an annual grant of £100,000 to the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland (CGCS) for core administration and strategic planning. I announced on 15 August 2005 that this award has been increased by £10,000 to £110,000 per annum.

I also announced that same day sportscotland’s award of £1,077,300, consisting of Exchequer and Lottery Sports Fund support, to seven Commonwealth sports (boxing, squash, table tennis, triathlon, weightlifting, badminton and bowling). Also, 11 of the sports competing at the Commonwealth Games will benefit from an additional £185,922 from the Lottery Sports Fund. This funding will enhance the athlete preparation for and medal potential at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

In November 2002, the First Minister launched the Commonwealth Games (Scotland) Endowment Fund and announced an Executive donation to it of £2.5 million. The fund will help the CGCS meet the costs of team training, preparation and participation in future Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Youth Games. The Executive and the trustees hope that the fund will attract matching funds from corporate and other sources.

The number of repossession orders granted by the courts up to 2002 is published in the annual Civil Judicial Statistics. However, as noted in the recent research paper Mortgage Arrears and Repossessions in Scotland (Bib. number 26213), the published figures do not serve as reliable indicators of the number of repossessions or the related trends – the proportion of orders resulting in repossession is dependent on mortgages lenders’ practices. In addition, the research paper reported errors and inconsistencies in data collation and the Scottish Court Service is currently reviewing systems to resolve this.

If the Procurator Fiscal considers that a police report contains insufficient information on which to base a decision as to how to proceed, he or she may instruct the police to carry out further enquiries. However, it is open to any individual to disclose information that he or she considers relevant to a particular case to the police or directly to the Procurator Fiscal.

The Scottish Executive hasno plans to explore the possibility of Scotland fielding its own team in the Olympics.

Scottish athletes with thetalent to reach GB squad membership gain from competing with and againstathletes of a similar calibre. We believe that combining the strengths of all partsof Great Britain both offers a greater chance of internationalsuccess and offers athletes the opportunity to train with a larger pool ofworld class competitors.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-18025 on 11 August 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the searchfacility for which can found at http://scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.