Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive Central Research Unit is in the process of developing its Crime and Criminal Justice Research Programme for 2001-2004. The Programme will, in due course, be presented to Ministers for approval. It is not, therefore, possible at this stage to say what research will be commissioned over the next 5 years and how much will be earmarked for research on domestic violence. Currently, the Scottish Executive is funding an evaluation of the Zero Tolerance 'Respect' pilot. The research commenced in December 2000 and will run until July 2001. There is also a proposal to commission research into domestic abuse against men in early Spring 2001, to run until December 2001. The costs of individual research studies are not normally published as this could contravene commercial confidentiality.

We have put in place a wide range of criminal justice responses to tackle sexual violence including strengthening the sex offenders legislation, and providing resources to put more police on our streets. A White Paper in the spring will outline further proposals for legislation on serious and violent sexual offenders.

The Executive has no plans to launch such campaigns. However, as I made clear in my answer to question S1W-11531, a range of information about the Human Rights Act has already been made available to the public.

The information is not available.

Research into public awareness and perceptions of domestic abuse was carried out by the Scottish Office in 1994, following the first domestic abuse advertising campaign. Similarly, research was carried out prior to the 1998-99 advertising campaign and repeated afterwards in order to gauge changes in attitudes. This research was repeated after the 1999-2000 campaign and will be carried out after the end of the current campaign on 31 January 2001.

The Action Plan of the National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland includes a recommendation to develop links between local groups and the national group through information sharing and dissemination of good practice.As a first step the Scottish Executive is organising a Conference on the National Strategy to take place on 13 February 2001, to which non-governmental organisations, and local and national service providers have been invited.

As stated in my replies to questions S1W-12713 and S1W-12706, the Scottish Executive is carrying out evaluation research of the Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust's "Respect" educational package. This research will involve asking children and young people, as well as their teachers and youth workers, about their knowledge of, and attitudes to domestic abuse. In addition, research will shortly be carried out into attitudes and perceptions of the general public, in association with the current domestic abuse advertising campaign.A National Group to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland will shortly be established to oversee the implementation of the National Strategy. Decisions about future research will be taken by this group.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-10179 on 30 October.

The information is not available.

The information requested is detailed in the following table. The figures shown include all cases where the main accused was the spouse, separated/divorced spouse or cohabitee of the victim.

Homicide victims¹ where main accused was the spouse of the victim

Year	Number of victims
1978	16
1979	13
1980	19
1981	16
1982	19
1983	17
1984	17
1985	15
1986	12
1987	13
1988	9
1989	23
1990	12
1991	10
1992	14
1993	17
1994	14
1995	13
1996	15
1997	7
1998	9
1999	16

Notes:1. Currently (as at 10 November 2000) recorded as homicide victims.