Chamber and committees

Education Maintenance Allowances over the three years in question are estimated to cost:

(a) 2003-04 £7.2 million (actual)

(b) 2004-05 £16.6 million (estimated)

(c) 2005-06 £28.4 million (estimated).

This information is not currently available. Arrangements are in place with the Executive’s delivery partners to collect management information on the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) national rollout. Provisional information on the number of students in each local authority area in receipt of EMA payments between August 2004 and January 2005 will be available in the spring of 2005. More complete information on the numbers of EMA recipients, amounts paid in both weekly payments and bonus payments as well as characteristics of EMA students will be published for the full academic year 2004-05 in the autumn of 2005. These data will be released in Scottish Executive National Statistics publications.

We have invested an additional £34 million over the last three years in treatment and rehabilitation services. This has supported a 41% increase in non-residential services, and a 33% increase in residential services since 1999-2000. In 2003-04, over 12,650 “new” patients attended services, an 8% increase from the previous year.

We are also funding a new initiative to provide first-aid training for front‑line workers, drug misusers and families to reduce risks from overdoses. New information materials for prisoners will explain the risks from relapse and overdose on release.

Under current arrangements,50% of recovered assets are retained for allocation to good causes. However,this arrangement is under review for 2004-05 onwards.

Previous awards have gone tosupport additional addictions services for homeless people in Glasgow(£250,000) and to help establish a network of family support groups who workwith families and carers of people with drug problems (£180,000). We areworking on new arrangements which will target future awards on Scottishcommunities which bear the brunt of the problems which drugs can bring.

Under the Waiting Times Framework,local service providers will submit waiting times information on a monthlybasis to Drug Action Teams. This information will be used to identify localpressures and blockages, and as a basis for action to improve the effectivenessand efficiency of services. Aggregated information from the Drug Action Teamswill be submitted to the Executive on a quarterly basis.

Waiting times for individualservices can also be affected by a wide range of factors, and can vary rapidly.It is not, therefore, our intention to publish information on waiting times forindividual services.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) has increased the number of prosecutors in the High Court and built in additional preparation time for Advocate Deputes to engage proactively with the defence to resolve potential difficulties in advance of the trial diet.

Additional resources have also been devoted to the management of High Court Sittings. Taken together with the increase in sheriff sentencing powers, the pressure on the High Court is being reduced and the number of High Court disposals is increasing. The number of cases being adjourned is decreasing, particularly in Glasgow High Court.

Together with other criminal justice partners, COPFS is working towards the implementation of the Criminal Justice (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2004, following on from Lord Bonomy's review of the High Court. These reforms should further increase efficiency and reduce delays.

The inspection process is subject to an annual review by a panel comprising a wide range of external stakeholders. The 2003 review panel report provided a very strong endorsement from authorities of the soundness and rigour of the inspection process.

Schoolrolls in publicly funded secondary schools are projected to decline by 10%between 2003 and 2010.

Five councils,Western Isles, Argyll and Bute, Stirling, Inverclyde and Renfrewshire havedeclared their intention to transfer their housing stock, subject of course tothe wishes of tenants. If these transfers proceed, around 40,000 more houseswill move into community ownership. Stirling Council has already been formallyaccepted on to the Community Ownership Programme. We expect the other fourcouncils to join the programme shortly.

I firmlybelieve that transfer remains the best means for a number of councils toachieve the Scottish Housing Quality Standard and a number of other councilsare currently considering their position in relation to transfer.

Section 1 of the Protectionof Animals (Scotland) Act 1912 specifies numerous offences of crueltytowards animals. None of these offences relate specifically to the incorrectshoeing of horses. While such a procedure may, in certain circumstances, fallwithin the terms of a section 1 offence, the information system used by theCrown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service does not record the specific detailsof any such offence. This system is designed primarily as a case trackingsystem, and it has not been designed to facilitate the extraction of suchdetailed information about the facts of individual cases.