Chamber and committees

The board judges each case onits own merits and applies the ordinary meaning of the terms employed. In particular,the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of hardship is “severe suffering or privation”.The standard to be met before payment can be made from the Legal Aid Fund in suchcases is therefore very high.

I refer the member to the questionS2W-9736, answered on 12 August 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questionsare available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The following table gives informationprovided by police forces for the number of police officers authorised to use firearms.Information on the number of armed response vehicles is not held centrally.

Number of OfficersAuthorised to use Firearms

	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Central Scotland	44	41	49	48	49
Dumfries and Galloway	52	53	50	34	36
Fife	57	53	58	64	67
Grampian	115	104	102	115	119
Lothian and Borders	119	102	114	117	111
Northern	54	63	62	68	66
Strathclyde	200	187	227	248	220
Tayside	60	69	56	56	53

Source: Her Majesty’s Inspectorateof Constabulary.

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

The available information is given in the following table:

Calculated Time-Served Factors by Sentence Length, 2003

Sentence Length	Time Served in Days
Less than 3 months	11
3 months to less than 6 months	32
6 months to less than 1 year	83

 

These figures are calculated for each sentence length group as follows: (average daily population*365)/(number of receptions). These figures will underestimate the total amount of time spent in prison as the time spent on remand, which counts towards the sentence length, is not included in these figures.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to respond. His response is as follows:

Such information is not available. The average annual cost per prisoner place in 2003-04 was given in the SPS Annual Report and Accounts, a copy of which is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 34075).

This is a matter for the relevant transport operators and the airport owner. The information requested is not held centrally.

All civil servants are required to act in accordance with the terms of the Civil Service Code, including their contact with MSPs. The Civil Service Code states that the constitutional and practical role of the civil service is to assist the duly constituted government of the day, with integrity, honesty, impartiality and objectivity. Specific guidance on contacts with MSPs is available for Scottish Executive staff, which refers to the principles of the Civil Service Code. The Scottish Executive staff directory has been available to MSPs and their staff since April 2001, through the Scottish Parliament intranet site. Currently there are no plans to change policy on MSPs having contact with civil servants.

Because the methodology used to estimate the number of “excess winter deaths” uses data for a complete 12 month period (August to July), information for the winter of 2004-05 is not yet available.

The latest information available may be found in the answer to question S2W-11282 answered on 11 November 2004. 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/webapp/wa.search.

While firearms legislation is reserved, we are working closely with the UK Government to tackle gun crime. In 2004, we brought in new laws to protect the public from the misuse of air weapons and increased penalties for the illegal possession or distribution of prohibited firearms.