Chamber and committees

I met with the Sense Over Sectarianism on 22 June to discuss issues relating to sectarianism including the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill.

The actions set out in the Action Plan on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland, introduced by the last Scottish Labour-led administration, have been completed and this document is therefore historic. There are no plans to use this as the basis for future Scottish Government work to tackle sectarianism.

(a) There have been 29,545 charges reported to the Procurator Fiscal under section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 between the time this section of the act came into force (6 October, 2010) and 30 September 2011.

Source – Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Services.

(b) Information on convictions for 2010-11 will not be available until publication of the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2010-11 Statistical Bulletin. This is due to be published in December 2011.

Source – Justice Analytical Service.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-03238 on 25 November 2011. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

A total of 166 football banning orders have been issued on conviction between 1 September 2006 and 31 October 2011. Of these, 12 have been issued in relation to racist behaviour, and 62 in relation to sectarian behaviour.

Between 1 May and 31 October 2011, 159 cases requesting football banning orders (FBO) have been submitted to the Procurators Fiscal across the country. To date, 23 of these cases have passed through the Scottish legal system, of which 19 resulted in conviction and 10 had an FBO attached. A further 31 FBOs have been issued by the courts since 1 May which relate to offences reported prior to that date.

A detailed breakdown of the figures by sheriff court is set out in the following table.

I met with Action for Churches Together in Scotland on 14 June to discuss issues relating to sectarianism including the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill.

I met with the Scottish Inter-Faith Council on 15 September to discuss issues relating to sectarianism including the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the total number of public sector procurement contracts awarded in Scotland and cannot, therefore, specify the proportion of contracts that have been awarded through Public Contracts Scotland.

The Public Contracts Scotland portal was launched in October 2008, since which a total of 3,583 contracting opportunities were published on the site in Financial Year 2009-10, and 6,539 contracting opportunities were published in Financial Year 2010-11.

I have asked John Ewing, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

Before 1 August 2011, this information was not collected on a comprehensive basis.

Since the introduction in public sector prisons on 1 August of the new national literacy and numeracy screening and levelling tool, until 30 September, 74% of prisoners who opted to be assessed under this tool were assessed as lacking in functional numeracy.

Private sector prisons, HMP Addiewell and HMP Kilmarnock will adopt the new national screening tool from 1 November.