Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 1531 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S3W-22239

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 23 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 16 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many individuals aged under 18 were (a) arrested and (b) issued with a penalty notice for being drunk and disorderly in each of the last five years.

Information on the number of arrests made by the police is not held centrally, only the number of crimes recorded.

The list of offences eligible for an antisocial behaviour Fixed Penalty Notice is contained in primary legislation. There are a number of drink related offences in the list of offences eligible for a Fixed Penalty Notice and these can be found at Part 11 of the Antisocial Behaviour (Scotland) Act 2004. Note that antisocial Fixed Penalty Notices can only be issued to individuals aged 16 and over.

The Scottish Government does not hold individualised data on any crimes or offences recorded by the eight police forces in Scotland, and as such it is not possible to identify how many of the drink related offences eligible for a Fixed Penalty Notice have been committed by individuals aged under 18.

Question reference: S3W-22232

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 23 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 16 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive (a) how many prosecutions there were and (b) what the average fine was for offences related to driving without insurance in (i) 2007 and (ii) 2008.

Question reference: S3W-22237

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 23 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 16 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what recent estimate it has made of the proportion of criminal activity attributable to people under the age of 16 as (a) victims and (b) perpetrators.

Question reference: S3W-22233

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 23 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 16 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people were convicted for (a) possessing and (b) distributing prohibited (i) weapons and (ii) ammunition in each police board area in each of the last five years.

The available information relating to the crime of handling an offensive weapon is given in the first table below, for the years 2002-03 to 2006-07. Data for 2007-08 will be available on 28 April 2009.

Persons with a charge proved in Scottish courts for handling an offensive weapon⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾, by police force area, 2002-03 “ 2006-07

Offence/police force area	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Central	69	83	95	89	105
Dumfries & Galloway	56	36	48	41	73
Fife	61	51	44	67	102
Grampian	103	118	145	167	155
Lothian & Borders	320	290	342	315	411
Northern	53	47	56	52	98
Strathclyde	1,965	2,121	2,553	2,590	2,392
Tayside	144	129	164	178	198
Scotland	2,771	2,875	3,447	3,499	3,534

1. Where main offence.

2. Handling an offensive weapon covers the crime categories possession of an offensive weapon, restriction of an offensive weapon and having in a public place an article with a blade or point.

The following table shows the additional number of persons with a charge proved under the Firearms Act 1968 relating to the possession, purchase, manufacture or selling of prohibited firearms or ammunition.

Persons with a charge proved in Scottish Courts for offences under the Firearms Act 1968 relating to the possession, purchase, manufacture or selling of prohibited firearms or ammunition⁽¹⁾, by police force area, 2002-03 “ 2006-07

Offence/police force area	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Person possesses, purchases, acquires, manufactures, sells or transfers a prohibited weapon
Central	2	2	0	2	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	1	1	1	1
Fife	0	0	2	1	4
Grampian	1	5	2	3	2
Lothian and Borders	7	4	2	4	3
Northern	2	0	1	0	0
Strathclyde	10	14	14	19	14
Tayside	2	2	1	3	2
Scotland	24	28	23	33	26
Person possesses, purchases, acquires, manufactures, sells or transfers prohibited ammunition
Central	0	1	0	1	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	0	0	0
Fife	1	1	0	0	1
Grampian	0	0	0	0	0
Lothian and Borders	0	0	0	0	0
Northern	0	0	1	0	0
Strathclyde	0	0	0	0	2
Tayside	0	0	0	1	0
Scotland	1	2	1	2	3

1. Where main offence.

Possessing and distributing cannot be identified separately from the data held centrally.

Question reference: S3W-22314

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 16 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it expects the police strength projection study to cost.

Question reference: S3W-22231

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 23 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 15 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) sickness days were taken and (b) working days were lost on average per police officer due to assault in 2007-08, broken down by police board, and what the cost was to each board.

Question reference: S3W-22236

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 23 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 6 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive which business improvement districts have crime prevention as part of their funded strategies.

Question reference: S3W-22234

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 23 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 30 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many premises with a premises licence or a club premises certificate have closed in each of the last three years.

Question reference: S3W-21713

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Adam Ingram on 19 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what funding will be available to support the play aspects of the Early Years Framework.

The Scottish Government is currently working with Inspiring Scotland on a possible venture philanthropy fund to support play. If research shows that such a fund can improve outcomes, the Scottish Government is prepared to invest £4 million over the first two years.

The framework takes an outcome-based approach rather than an input based approach and it will be for community planning partners to decide the best measures to improve outcomes for children in their local area and how they should be delivered and funded from within local resources.

Question reference: S3W-21716

Asked by: Robert Brown, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Adam Ingram on 18 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how it will monitor the success of the play aspects of the Early Years Framework.

Measures of success of all aspects of the early years framework, including play, will be based on outcomes and appropriate indicators, rather than on implementation of specific actions. The Scottish Government and local partners have committed to working together to develop appropriate local indicators, and this will include work on an indicator covering children''s involvement in play and physical activity.