- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how it measures the number of persistent young offenders, as referred to in target 2 in the education and young people section of Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys.
Answer
The number of young offenders going through the hearings system is monitored by the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration. In their annual report, SCRA publish data on the number of young people with one to three, over three and over 10 offences in one year. In addition to the focus on the last category, SCRA is developing further measures which will provide more information to the Executive and youth justice teams on the frequency of offending.
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will give a breakdown of its target for increasing the number of drugs sei'ures, as referred to in the justice section of Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys, and whether this target includes sei'ures by HM Customs and Excise.
Answer
The target is a national target for a 25% increase in seizures of Class A drugs by the Scottish Police Service. It does not, therefore, include seizures by HM Customs and Excise and no sub-targets have been set either for seizures of different types of Class A drug or for individual police forces. However, further information on seizures of controlled drugs can be found in the web version of Drug Misuse Statistics Scotland 2001 on the national drugs website
www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org.
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Simpson on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will measure its target to reduce the number of drug misusers who inject, as referred to in the justice section of Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys.
Answer
The key performance indicator which will be used to measure progress on achieving the target will be the proportion of new problem drug users seen by drug services and reported to the Scottish Drug Misuse Database, who reported injecting "in the previous month". The data is available annually.Account will also be taken of injecting data obtained through national prevalence work, which we have undertaken to repeat every three years. The first national prevalence survey reported in 2001 and contained data for the year 2000.
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it expects any reduction in the number of persistent young offenders by May 2003.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-29728 today. All answers to written PQs are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether its target to increase the number of drug sei'ures, as referred to in the justice section of Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys, includes any target for (a) particular controlled drugs and (b) class (i) B or (ii) C drugs.
Answer
The target relates only to Class A drugs.
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Colin Boyd on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will give a breakdown of the non-court costs for the Crown Office in each year (a) since 1999-2000 and (b) to 2005-06, as referred to in the table in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service section of Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys.
Answer
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service records the nature of case costs, but does not attribute this to individual cases. Staff time spent on individual cases is not recorded but costing calculations are based on standard weightings derived from past analysis of staff time spent on the full range of different cases handled by the department. This produces a broad indication of relative costs rather than precise measures, and non-court costs are calculated to be as follows (£000)
| | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 | 2001-02 |
| No Proceedings | 1,150 | 1,311 | 1,533 |
| No Further Proceedings | 3,199 | 4,853 | 4,488 |
| Warnings | 451 | 528 | 663 |
| Conditional Offer | 308 | 342 | 407 |
| Fiscal Fine | 704 | 836 | 1,206 |
| Diversion | 90 | 95 | 107 |
| Reporter | 52 | 53 | 63 |
| Transfer | 47 | 25 | 29 |
| Associate | 257 | 306 | 321 |
| Total | 6,258 | 8,349 | 8,817 |
A split of non-court costs for 2002-03 to 2005-06 is not available, as that will depend on the numbers and nature of cases arising in those years.
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Colin Boyd on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive why the public survey to monitor trends in public confidence in the prosecution service will not start until 2003-04, as referred to in target 3 in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service section of Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys.
Answer
The public survey will not start until 2003-04 because thought needs to be given to the appropriate questions to ask, to ensure that national standards for quality control are applied properly in developing the survey.
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Colin Boyd on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of indictments that involved bail, served in sheriff and jury cases, were served within nine months of the first appearance on petition in each year since 1999-2000.
Answer
The percentage of indictments that involved bail, served in sheriff and jury cases, that were served within nine months of the first appearance on petition in each year since 1999-2000, a period when the volume of solemn business was increasing, were:
| 1999-2000 | 72% |
| 2000-01 | 81% |
| 2001-02 | 72% |
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Colin Boyd on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there will be any maximum period for action on the remaining 25% of crime reports, as referred to in target 2 in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service section of Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys.
Answer
Other than compliance with any statutory time limits, there will be no maximum period for action on the remaining 25% of crime reports referred to in target 2 of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service Section of Building a Better Scotland. These will be the more complex cases where the length of time taken could vary widely. Any such cases will be kept under review on a regular basis to ensure that action is taken as soon as quickly as possible.
- Asked by: Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 September 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Colin Boyd on 7 October 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what it considers to be "action" in respect of crime reports, as referred to in target 2 in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service section of Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys.
Answer
Action is defined (1) as the marking decision taken by the procurator fiscal in respect of each crime report received, i.e. to prosecute, to issue a fiscal fine, to make a conditional offer, to issue a warning letter, to pass to the Reporter to the Children's panel, to divert to a Diversion Scheme, to take no proceedings and (2) as the action taken to implement that decision, i.e., sending a Complaint for service, issuing a Petition Warrant, etc.
