Chamber and committees

It is not possible to provide a break down of disruptions to criminal networks by police board or police force areas as many networks, by their very nature, tend to operate on a national or international basis.

The Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA) publishes Scotland-wide figures in its annual reports. Since its launch in 2000, operations involving the SDEA and the Scottish police service have led to the disruption of the following numbers of criminal networks.

	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05*
Criminal Networks Disrupted	50	73	114	96	48

Note: *Figure for 2004-05 is for the period up to end-September 2004 taken from the SDEA’s Interim Report.

Public Defence Solicitors have the same rights as any other solicitor so long as the accused person qualifies for criminal legal aid. No changes in these rights are proposed.

For the purposes of the independent evaluation submitted to Parliament in September 2001, all persons eligible for criminal legal aid prosecuted in the Edinburgh courts between October 1998 and June 2000, and born in the months of January or February, were directed to use the Public Defence Solicitors’ Office (PDSO), subject to a system of waivers, primarily relating to clients with current related cases being dealt with by other solicitors. The number of cases taken on for clients directed to the PDSO in Edinburgh in each of the three financial years or part year during which direction operated were 305, 856 and 185 (in 1998-99, 1999-2000 and 2000-01 respectively). No clients have been directed to the PDSO since the system of direction was abolished in July 2000.

The following table shows the total number of new cases taken on by the PDSO (whether or not under direction) in each year since it opened and the percentage this represents of the total number of acts of criminal legal assistance in each of those years. Criminal legal assistance includes grants of advice andassistance, assistance by way of representation, summary criminal legal aid andsolemn legal aid, as well as clients represented by duty solicitors.

	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Number of new PDSO cases*	417	1034	1456*	1684*	1538*	1464*
Number of acts of criminal legal assistance	222,348	245,844	260,367	270,162	271,769	278,151
PDSO cases as % of acts of assistance	0.2%	0.4%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%	0.5%

Note: *These figures include cases in which the PDSO acted as duty solicitor on behalf of other solicitors. They therefore differ from those published in the Scottish Legal Aid Board’s annual reports. The PDSO only acted as duty solicitor from July 2000 onwards.

There are no plans for public defence solicitors to be paid on a case-by-case basis.

Expenditure approval was given by Scottish ministers in February 2002 to provide £5 million funding for additional resources to provide the fire service in Scotland with an enhanced operational capacity and a greater level of resilience in response to terrorist incidents. In addition, the Scottish Executive’s spending proposals for 2005–08, announced on 29 September 2004, include a further £1 million per annum in 2006-07 and 2007-08 specifically to assist the service in responding to the increased threat from global terrorism.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-11334, answered on 4 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.

he table sets out funding under the Youth Crime Prevention Fund and the Intensive Support Fund in each year since they started in 2002-03. Around £1.5 million of this investment has gone on capital projects and investments. Budgets will be held level from 2005-06 to 2007-08.

	Youth Crime Prevention Fund	Intensive Support Fund
2002-03 (actual)	£3,447,550	£2,972,744
2003-04 (actual)	£2,423,553	£2,127,084
2004-05 (budget)	£2,624,701	£1,925,556
2005-06 (budget)	£2,608,435	£1,703,045

 

Funding for the provision of youth justice services is at record levels (£63 million in 2005-06) and this level of funding has been maintained in our new spending proposals. Details can be found in table 5.01 of Building A Better Scotland.

Yes. Funding is provided in a number of ways but, given the sensitivity of the activities involved, it is the Executive’s policy not to comment on the levelsof such funding made available.

Final decisions have yet to be taken on the detailed allocation of resources.

The most recent data available on two-year reconviction rates relates to the cohort of offenders who were discharged from a custodial sentence or given a non-custodial sentence in calendar year 2000. Provisional figures on the two-year reconviction rates for the April 2001-March 2002 cohort of offenders are expected to be available by the end of this year.