The Scottish Parliament

Question reference: S2W-15915

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 April 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 21 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-13580 by Cathy Jamieson on 28 January 2005, what percentage of recorded incidents of assault of a police officer resulted in convictions in each year from 1994 to 2004, broken down by police force area.

The available information on convictions relates to offences under section 41(1)(a) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967. This section of the 1967 act provides that any person who “assaults, resists, obstructs molests or hinders a constable…” shall be guilty of an offence. Offences which specifically involve an assault on a police officer can not generally be identified separately from other section 41(1)(a) offences in the data held centrally. Similarly, other assaults on police officers which may result in other charges such as serious assault or attempted murder can not be identified separately in the available statistics. It is not therefore possible to make like with like comparisons between the number of convictions and the number of recorded incidents from the data held centrally.

Question reference: S2W-14553

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 February 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how much each of its departments spent on (a) maintenance, (b) renovation, (c) council tax and (d) running costs of residential properties used by ministers and officials in each year since 1999.

Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister, is the only residential property on the Scottish Executive core estate. The table below sets out the expenditure as requested. The Executive does not pay council tax in respect of this property but non-domestic rates. Details of the amounts spent to date on maintenance, renovations, non-domestic rates and running costs (which includes utilities and cleaning) are shown below. On-going “renovation” work appropriate to the age and style of the property includes, re-wiring, installation of an external disabled lift and the adaptation of the toilets to allow disabled access. The pattern of expenditure on maintenance is largely determined by the number of projects in the long term planned preventative maintenance programme agreed with the National Trust for Scotland, to which we are committed under the terms of the lease.

	Maintenance	Renovations	Rates	Running Costs	Total
1999-00	£59,800	£154,000	£4,500	£8,900	£227,200
2000-01	£24,000	£16,500	£5,000	£24,000	£69,500
2001-02	£19,100	£89,900	£7,000	£22,200	£138,200
2002-03	£26,500	£114,300	£7,500	£20,900	£169,200
2003-04	£27,900	£54,100	£8,400	£23,000	£113,400
2004-05 (to date)	£24,700	£22,000	£9,500	£19,500	£75,700

Question reference: S2W-15723

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 April 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) recorded offences and (b) convictions there have been under section 12 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 for cruelty to persons under 16, in each year since 1997.

The available information on crimes recorded by the police of cruelty and unnatural treatment of persons under 16 is given in the following table. The recorded crime statistics collected centrally do not distinguish legislation at the level of detail requested. In consequence the figures given in the table include all crimes of cruelty and unnatural treatment of persons under 16, including crimes recorded under legislation other than that specified in the question or under Common Law.

Number of Crimes Recorded by the Police of Cruel and Unnatural Treatment of Persons Under 16, Scotland, 1997-2003

Year	Number of Crimes Recorded by the Police
1997	1,264
1998	1,263
1999	1,351
2000	1,124
2001	1,301
2002	1,407
2003	1,488

The available information on convictions for cruel and unnatural treatment of persons under 16 is given in the following table.

Number of Persons with a Charge Proved in Scottish Courts for Cruel and Unnatural Treatment of Persons Under 16¹, Scotland, 1997-2003

Year	Number
1997	144
1998	154
1999	142
2000	138
2001	132
2002	156
2003²	194

Notes:

1. Where main offence. All cases involved an offence under section 12 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937 apart from two cases in 1997 and one in 2000 where the main offence involved was the common law offence of cruel and unnatural treatment.

2. Includes estimated data.

The statistics dealing with recorded crime and court proceedings are not directly comparable as a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime involving more than one victim and there is the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course if judicial proceedings. Also a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year.

Question reference: S2W-15722

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 April 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) recorded offences and (b) convictions there have been under section 161 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 for possession of indecent photographs of children, in each year since 1991.

The available information on offences recorded by the police is given in the following table. The recorded crime statistics collected centrally do not distinguish legislation at the level of detail requested. In consequence the figures given in the table include all offences of handling obscene material, including offences relating to indecent photographs of adults or offences involving obscene material other than photographs.

Offences Recorded by Police of Handling Obscene Material, Scotland, 1991–2003

Year	Number of Offences Recorded
1991	391
1992	515
1993	514
1994	248
1995	240
1996	187
1997	108
1998	110
1999	89
2000	157
2001	169
2002	198
2003	402

The available information on convictions for handling obscene material is given in the following table.

Persons with a Charge Proved in Scottish Courts for Handling Obscene Material¹, 1991-2003

Year	Total	Of which Involving an Offence Under Section 52A of Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982³
1991	10	-
1992	8	2
1993	6	-
1994	8	-
1995	8	-
1996	14	1
1997	8	-
1998	17	1
1999	13	1
2000	22	3
2001	21	3
2002	29	8
2003²	70	11

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. Includes estimated data.

3. Offence introduced by section 161 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

The statistics dealing with recorded crime and court proceedings are not directly comparable as a person may be proceeded against for more than one crime involving more than one victim and there is the possibility that the crime recorded by the police may be altered in the course if judicial proceedings. Also a crime may be recorded by the police in one year and court proceedings concluded in a subsequent year.

Question reference: S2W-15724

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 April 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) recorded offences and (b) convictions there have been under section 51 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 for physical punishment of children, in each year since 2003.

Section 51 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 does not create any offences but lists the factors that may be considered where a person claims that something done to a child was a physical punishment carried out in exercise of a parental right or of a right derived from having charge or care of the child. In consequence there can be no recorded crime or convictions resulting from this section of the act.

Question reference: S2W-15626

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 March 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many prisoners have been released under the electronic monitoring scheme since May 2002; what the categories of offences were for which such prisoners had been sentenced; how many such prisoners were electronically tagged in each category, and what the average length of sentence received was in each category.

The measures in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 enabling the Parole Board to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of a release licence came into force on 1 January 2004. To date, one young offender who was sentenced to three years imprisonment for various dishonesty offences and contravention of the Road Traffic Act 1988 has been released with a licence that included a condition to comply with electronic monitoring.

Electronic monitoring is a valuable addition to the licence conditions available to the Parole Board and can help maintain an offender’s risk at an acceptable level. I have urged the Parole Board to consider making greater use of this as an additional safeguard.

Question reference: S2W-15912

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 11 April 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) mean, (b) median and (c) mode level of fines imposed for assaulting a police officer has been in each year since 1997, broken down by police force area

The available information, which relates to convictions under section 41(1)(a) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967, is given in the table. This section of the 1967 Act provides that any person who assaults, resists, obstructs, molests or hinders a constable shall be guilty of an offence. Offences which specifically involve an assault on a police officer can not generally be identified separately from other section 41(1)(a) offences in the data held centrally. Similarly, other assaults on police officers which may result in other charges such as serious assault or attempted murder can not be identified separately in the available statistics.

Persons with a Charge Proved in Scottish Courts for an Offence Under Section 41(1)(a) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967¹, by Police Force Area, 1997-2003: Persons Fined

Police Force Area	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003²
	Number of Persons:
Central	73	43	58	64	77	104	88
Dumfries and Galloway	43	40	29	31	32	32	59
Fife	94	82	59	59	72	62	65
Grampian	187	186	137	95	131	159	202
Lothian and Borders	249	273	191	214	208	213	250
Strathclyde	996	811	612	496	596	632	576
Northern	69	82	64	77	93	84	110
Tayside	107	124	125	101	113	156	139
Scotland	1,818	1,641	1,275	1,137	1,322	1,442	1,489
	Mean ():
Central	223	289	282	260	250	284	256
Dumfries and Galloway	324	268	317	396	352	380	358
Fife	231	188	174	198	238	182	231
Grampian	228	212	240	230	246	283	259
Lothian and Borders	245	243	250	248	260	261	297
Strathclyde	265	258	258	262	267	258	273
Northern	277	302	244	309	335	425	359
Tayside	242	223	227	212	227	211	232
Scotland	255	248	250	256	265	267	278
	Median ():
Central	200	200	250	200	250	250	213
Dumfries and Galloway	300	250	200	400	375	350	400
Fife	213	150	170	180	200	180	200
Grampian	175	178	200	200	200	250	200
Lothian and Borders	200	200	200	200	250	250	250
Strathclyde	250	225	225	225	250	228	250
Northern	250	250	213	225	250	325	288
Tayside	200	178	200	200	200	200	200
Scotland	225	200	200	200	250	250	250
	Mode ():
Central	100	100	250	150	200	100	200
Dumfries and Galloway	350	100	200	400	400	200	400
Fife	250	150	200	200	200	100	200
Grampian	100	100	250	200	100	150	100
Lothian and Borders	200	200	250	200	250	150	300
Strathclyde	250	250	150	150	200	200	250
Northern	250	250	150	200	250	250	250
Tayside	150	150	200	100	150	100	100
Scotland	250	150	150	150	200	200	250

Notes:

1. Where main offence. Average values shown relate to total penalty imposed for conviction.

2. Includes estimated data.

Question reference: S2W-15825

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 April 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-13957 by Cathy Jamieson on 9 February 2005, whether it will publish an updated version of the answer reconciling the totals with the data in the tables.

The following tables have been updated to take account of the finalised data now available for 2003-04. Yearly totals for Scotland are not comparable due to data being unavailable for different courts in different years. The footnotes to the table provide additional information on the limitations of the data.

Number of District Court Fines Fully Remitted, 1999-2000 to 2003-04

District court	1999-2000¹	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Aberdeen City	146	33	94	52	157
Aberdeenshire	61	28	79	18	26
Angus	27	6	5	3	20
Argyll and Bute	162	60	54	38	50
Clackmannanshire	12	1	3	2	1
Dumfries and Galloway	28	-	11	9	N/A
Dundee City	38	25	30	52	25
East Ayrshire	116	13	68	-	N/A
East Dunbartonshire	16	6	5	-	2
East Lothian	-	5	2	4	5
East Renfrewshire	-	2	-	-	-
Edinburgh, City of	408	N/A	240	175	107
Eilean Siar	-	19	N/A	N/A	N/A
Falkirk	42	14	11	5	25
Fife	225	117	137	57	N/A
Glasgow City	385	141	43	79	17
Highland	180	125	19	27	74
Inverclyde	31	23	31	28	33
Midlothian	2	5	12	10	16
Moray	2	1	19	4	29
North Ayrshire	59	13	24	24	18
North Lanarkshire	425	250²	645³	656⁴	69 ⁵
Perth and Kinross	80	126	79	211⁶	40
Renfrewshire	255	143	49	61	131
Scottish Borders	41	5	5	1	2
South Ayrshire	2	6	44	30	129
South Lanarkshire	106	41	21	24	11
Stirling	32	40	N/A	N/A	N/A
West Dunbartonshire	436	55	22	78	22
West Lothian	36	154	154	37	69
Scotland	3,353	1,457	1,906	1,685	1,078

Notes:

"N/A" denotes data not available.

1. Includes partly remitted fines – a separate breakdown of fully and partly remitted fines was not collected for 1999-2000.

2. Coatbridge only.

3. Includes fully and partly remitted fines, registered fines and compensation orders.

4. Includes fully and partly remitted fines; excludes partly remitted fines for Coatbridge; includes remitted registered fines and compensation orders for Motherwell.

5. Motherwell only.

6. Includes partly remitted fines.

Number of District Court Fines Partly Remitted, 2000-01 to 2003-04¹

District Court	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Aberdeen City	26	17	21	113
Aberdeenshire	21	31	13	6
Angus	15	10	4	11
Argyll and Bute	25	22	17	21
Clackmannanshire	2	4	-	2
Dumfries and Galloway	12	6	3	N/A
Dundee City	69	-	70	31
East Ayrshire	8	37	-	N/A
East Dunbartonshire	5	2	2	-
East Lothian	1	1	-	-
East Renfrewshire	3	-	-	-
Edinburgh, City of	N/A	38	10	13
Eilean Siar	-	N/A	N/A	N/A
Falkirk	10	6	8	34
Fife	38	42	34	N/A
Glasgow City	40	39	50	23
Highland	103	18	3	39
Inverclyde	9	19	12	18
Midlothian	-	5	6	4
Moray	-	1	-	13
North Ayrshire	36	36	36	30
North Lanarkshire	10²	N/A³	N/A³	N/A
Perth and Kinross	57	N/A	N/A³	26
Renfrewshire	129	57	59	104
Scottish Borders	1	3	3	1
South Ayrshire	2	46	18	114
South Lanarkshire	36	7	12	6
Stirling	7	N/A	N/A	N/A
West Dunbartonshire	26	22	30	12
West Lothian	4	6	25	48
Scotland	695	475	436	669

Notes:

“N/A” denotes data not available.

1. The numbers of fines which were partly remitted in 1999-2000 are included with the number of fully remitted fines in the first table – a separate breakdown of fully and partly remitted fines was not collected for that year.

2. Coatbridge only.

3. See footnote to corresponding figure of fully remitted fines in the first table.

Question reference: S2W-15812

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 07 April 2005
Current Status: Answered by Elish Angiolini on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-7842 by Elish Angiolini QC on 25 February 2005, whether it will publish an updated version of the answer reconciling the totals with the data in the table.

The original answer to question S2W-7842 has been corrected to remove the error in the final column. A copy of the corrected table is as follows:

Financial Year 2002-03

Police Force	Number of Cases	No Proceedings on Account of Delay by Reporting Agency	Proceeded to Trial: Evidence led from Witnesses	Reports Resulting in a Conviction	Pending Cases
Central Scotland Police	14,879	264	407	6,547	647
Dumfries and Galloway Police	7,640	60	189	3,718	319
Fife Constabulary	14,776	221	386	6,135	1,173
Grampian Police	18,019	213	552	10,365	1,316
Lothian and Borders Police	34,934	1,482	1,484	15,485	1,664
Northern Constabulary	13,437	142	464	6,534	556
Strathclyde Police	148,175	12,921	5,674	46,661	13,071
Tayside Police	23,115	97	970	11,908	1,527
British Transport Police	1,692	9	40	466	134
Other	64	2	8	10	8
Total	276,731	15,411	10,174	107,829	20,415

Notes:

1. Delay by reporting agency figures now also include those marked no-pro time-bar as being time-barred upon receipt.

2. “Reports Resulting in a Conviction” includes cases where accused pleaded guilty before trial.

3. ”Pending Cases” includes cases which do not have a status of “closed” in our case management system as at 1 June 2004. It includes cases where criminal proceedings have started but not yet concluded, cases where there is an outstanding warrant and cases which have resulted in conviction but the sentence has been deferred or proceedings have been re-activated because of a breach of community order or a current appeal. It is therefore possible that a case will also be recorded in another column in this table.

Question reference: S2W-15852

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 08 April 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 April 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many persons had a charge proved for the crimes of dishonesty (a) housebreaking, (b) theft by opening a lockfast place, (c) theft of a motor vehicle, (d) shoplifting, (e) other theft, (f) fraud and (g) other offences in each year since 1997, broken down by police force area.

The available information is given in the following tables.

Persons with a Charge Proved in Scottish Courts for Selected Offences¹, by Police Force Area, 1997- 2003

Offence/Police Force Area	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003²
Housebreaking
Central	159	102	139	109	160	154	150
Dumfries and Galloway	99	118	105	109	104	97	86
Fife	347	297	330	292	334	268	275
Grampian	497	469	470	429	415	351	363
Lothian and Borders	486	369	331	388	347	416	353
Northern	125	106	104	71	102	76	103
Strathclyde	1,288	1,293	1,358	1,096	1,075	1,122	1,004
Tayside	274	223	184	192	174	251	198
Total	3,275	2,977	3,021	2,686	2,711	2,735	2,532
Theft by Opening a Lockfast Place
Central	113	91	81	55	66	73	73
Dumfries and Galloway	26	23	18	28	25	17	39
Fife	192	159	158	147	135	134	120
Grampian	182	192	141	171	137	134	122
Lothian and Borders	320	269	228	175	242	202	171
Northern	42	39	33	40	28	37	30
Strathclyde	1,075	928	892	768	765	757	633
Tayside	142	101	107	113	103	118	101
Total	2,092	1,802	1,658	1,497	1,501	1,472	1,289
Theft of a Motor Vehicle
Central	89	85	67	77	60	72	55
Dumfries and Galloway	34	28	24	24	31	54	64
Fife	119	126	112	114	148	106	100
Grampian	169	178	168	172	137	113	124
Lothian and Borders	349	290	223	218	217	261	222
Northern	46	40	48	56	65	57	78
Strathclyde	1,135	948	858	692	594	635	568
Tayside	205	158	142	96	124	128	84
Total	2,146	1,853	1,642	1,449	1,376	1,426	1,295
Shoplifting
Central	270	257	391	477	641	595	481
Dumfries and Galloway	93	109	135	195	176	212	234
Fife	306	384	451	480	518	446	424
Grampian	947	1,133	803	814	894	969	852
Lothian and Borders	1,286	1,258	1,166	1,194	1,172	1,335	1,173
Northern	217	213	216	163	208	254	239
Strathclyde	3,185	3,586	3,777	3,412	3,728	4,311	3,802
Tayside	890	671	710	684	786	809	788
Total	7,194	7,611	7,649	7,419	8,123	8,931	7,993
Other Theft
Central	385	292	281	245	260	271	212
Dumfries and Galloway	224	243	201	184	180	199	140
Fife	348	311	335	270	273	253	242
Grampian	558	552	457	468	441	363	397
Lothian and Borders	847	828	638	637	636	629	525
Northern	284	209	176	172	169	175	194
Strathclyde	2,899	2,927	2,819	2,198	2,019	1,681	1,435
Tayside	415	339	353	319	306	305	342
Total	5,960	5,701	5,260	4,493	4,284	3,876	3,487
Fraud
Central	77	75	81	66	76	88	106
Dumfries and Galloway	85	65	78	48	46	52	53
Fife	152	106	90	108	110	80	80
Grampian	213	234	151	171	156	134	132
Lothian and Borders	395	435	292	270	288	378	335
Northern	76	92	103	69	60	71	71
Strathclyde	870	829	726	581	619	528	525
Tayside	142	138	114	145	135	120	120
Total	2,010	1,974	1,635	1,458	1,490	1,451	1,422
Other Dishonesty Offences
Central	103	137	100	82	120	117	91
Dumfries and Galloway	82	62	61	34	46	53	51
Fife	141	109	106	87	129	100	98
Grampian	351	353	307	189	196	230	195
Lothian and Borders	412	348	328	310	327	344	258
Northern	95	85	74	51	64	70	80
Strathclyde	1,508	1,474	1,242	925	872	814	730
Tayside	297	242	210	186	207	185	252
Total	2,989	2,810	2,428	1,864	1,961	1,913	1,755

Notes:

1. Were main offence.

2. Includes estimated data.

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