Chamber and committees

The figure of £18,000 quoted in question S1W-7449 did not include staff time spent preparing the document. Rural Scotland: A New Approach was produced with the assistance of contributions from a large number of officials across the Executive. The Scottish Executive does not routinely keep a record of the time spent by officials in carrying out particular tasks. It is not, therefore, possible to determine precisely the staff cost element. The document was circulated to a wide range of rural interests using standard consultation lists. Rural Scotland: A New Approach was a policy statement rather than a consultation document and responses were not specifically invited. Nevertheless, a number of written and verbal comments have been received.

There will be an informal meeting of the Council of Ministers on justice and home affairs on 28 and 29 July. I do not propose to attend.

It has not proved possible to issue the White Paper before the Scottish Parliament recess. However, we expect to issue the White Paper shortly after Parliament resumes.

None at present, but performance is monitored and the staffing resources of the office of the Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman have been increased to reduce the time taken to handle complaints.

I refer Ms Cunningham to my answer to Dr Richard Simpson (S1W-5377) which lists the numbers of Scottish Executive and Executive Agency employees by local authority area. In addition, there are staff in Brussels (12), London (14), Luxembourg (4) and The Scottish Court In The Netherlands (60).

A further copy of the correspondence has been requested and a reply will be sent as soon as possible.

Relations with the European Union and control of the Internet are reserved matters. The Scottish Executive made no specific representations on this initiative but welcomes it. Scots law already addresses child pornography, whether or not on the Internet, and I am not aware of any immediate implications for the Scottish legal and criminal justice system. We will continue to do whatever is necessary to combat child pornography, including national and international co-operation.

No. Historical information, actual or estimated, on staff working in this area of activity is not available.

Information in the form requested is not routinely available. However, arrangements have been made to extract details of the elapsed time in respect of certain summary cases for October 1999 and February 2000. Information for December 1999 and January 2000 would be distorted by the Christmas and New Year holiday periods.

The table which follows illustrates the average period in weeks between an initial plea of "Not Guilty" and conclusion of proceedings. For this purpose concluded cases will include those deserted, findings of not guilty and not proven. However, in order to minimise unnecessary distortion of the duration periods, the following categories of cases have been excluded: namely cases involving breach proceedings, warrants to apprehend, restoration of driving licences and deferred sentences.

The period can appear to fluctuate erratically in some courts, particularly the smaller courts where the concluded sample is relatively small, because of the nature of the individual cases being dealt with at the time. Any one case experiencing several adjournments will distort the average period disproportionately.

	Oct 99	Feb 2000		Oct 99	Feb 2000
Aberdeen	11	10	Inverness	16	12
Airdrie	17	18	Jedburgh	11	18
Alloa	17	19	Kilmarnock	8	8
Arbroath	12	13	Kirkcaldy	15	17
Ayr	17	16	Kirkcudbright	10	18
Banff	18	15	Kirkwall	9	7
Campbeltown	13	13	Lanark	12	12
Cupar	12	20	Lerwick	13	14
Dingwall	8	12	Linlithgow	19	22
Dornoch	23	12	Lochmaddy	16	12
Dumbarton	19	15	Oban	12	10
Dumfries	16	13	Paisley	11	13
Dundee	18	21	Peebles	12	10
Dunfermline	13	16	Perth	20	22
Dunoon	25	10	Peterhead	17	13
Duns	11	10	Portree	n/a	4
Edinburgh	18	17	Rothesay	8	2
Elgin	13	21	Selkirk	11	17
Falkirk	14	17	Stirling	14	22
Forfar	12	14	Stonehaven	13	14
Fort William	14	12	Stornoway	9	12
Glasgow	13	13	Stranraer	10	11
Greenock	11	11	Tain	19	16
Haddington	13	14	Wick	7	11
Hamilton	15	17	Scottish Average	14	15

This information is not held centrally. However, I understand that around 80 council employees throughout Scotland are likely to be involved in this area of work.