Chamber and committees

I responded to the member’sletter on 28 February 2007.

Information on offence locationis not recorded in the available statistics on convictions.

The deployment of firearms isan operational matter for Chief Constables. The following table gives informationprovided by forces for the number of operations against persons known or believedto be armed.

Police Force	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Central	9	6	15	10	8	1	6	3	1	3
Dumfries and Galloway	9	4	3	6	3	15	11	6	4	4
Fife	16	5	8	5	5	6	8	13	5	9
Grampian	11	11	13	17	11	11	6	6	6	1
Lothian and Borders	87	153	130	66	94	96	165	197	181	150
Northern	5	3	2	7	10	5	0	1	4	3
Strathclyde	38	95	77	17	14	24	103	131	117	203
Tayside	15	15	8	13	5	5	1	1	3	1

Source: Her Majesty’s Inspectorateof Constabulary.

The level of detail requestedis not available from the statistics collected centrally. The total numbers of allthese types of accident offence where a charge was proved in court are given intable 19 of statistical bulletin Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts 2004-05published by the Scottish Executive in April 2006, a copy of which is availablein the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 39481). Statistics oncriminal proceedings concluded in 2005-06 are due for publication on 21 March 2007.

Whilst the requested informationis not held centrally, identifying and reducing the threats posed by the criminalpossession and use of firearms in Scotland is a major focus for Scottish forces and their law enforcementpartners.

The information requested isnot held centrally. Statistics were, however, kept during the national knife amnestylast year, as detailed in the following table.

Police Force	Number of Knives (Domestic and Non-Domestic) Recovered During the National Amnesty, June 2006	Number of Other Weapons Recovered During the National Amnesty, June 2006
Central	495	74
Dumfries and Galloway	403	43
Fife	599	59
Grampian	794	52
Lothian and Borders	1,626	214
Northern	419	91
Tayside	866	102
Strathclyde	5,083	1,621
British Transport Police	92	4
Ministry of Defence	8	0

 

Information in relation to guiltypleas and convictions for offences arising from incidents of domestic abuse is notseparately identifiable in the available statistics.

The following table shows thenumber of deaths for which obesity was recorded as the underlying cause of death,by NHS board for each of the last 10 years.

Obesity itself is rarely recordedas an underlying cause of death, although it may have been involved in the developmentand/or exacerbation of frequently recorded conditions such as heart disease anddiabetes.

Deaths from Obesity ^1,2, byNHS Board Area ³, 1996-2005

	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Scotland	24	19	22	17	21	27	35	33	22	26
Argyll and Clyde (former)	2	-	-	2	1	4	2	-	2	6
Ayrshire and Arran	1	1	1	-	3	-	3	7	2	2
Borders	1	1	-	-	-	1	1	-	1	-
Dumfries and Galloway	1	-	-	-	1	2	4	2	2	-
Fife	4	-	-	2	1	-	1	2	1	-
Forth Valley	-	2	3	3	-	4	4	-	1	2
Grampian	2	1	1	2	2	1	-	1	1	2
Greater Glasgow (former)	3	3	3	3	5	3	4	3	2	1
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	4	3	3	5	6	7	6	3	4	6
Highland (former)	-	2	2	-	-	2	-	-	1	2
Highland	1	2	2	-	-	2	-	-	1	3
Lanarkshire	4	4	2	4	1	3	3	9	1	3
Lothian	5	5	5	1	3	4	8	5	5	5
Orkney	1	-	1	-	-	-	1	-	-	-
Shetland	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1
Tayside	-	-	4	-	3	2	3	4	3	2
Western Isles	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	-	-	-

Source: GROS.

Notes:

1. Recorded as theunderlying cause of death.

2. 1996 - 99: ICD9 code 278.0; 2000 - 05: ICD10 codeE66.

3. Argyll and Clyde NHS Board was disbanded in March2006. The area covered by the former Argyll and Clyde NHS Board was splitbetween the new Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Highland NHS Boards.

The information requested isset out in the following table.

SE PPP Commitments as a Percentageof Departmental Budgets¹

Year	Justice²	Education	Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning	Finance and Central Services	Scottish Executive Total
2007-08 (estimate)	-	7.2	0.9	0.8	0.6

Notes:

1. The Departmental ExpenditureLimits (DEL) budget has been used which includes both operating and capital budgets.

2. A figure for 2007-08is not available.

The PPP commitments of the ScottishExecutive fall into two categories: the unitary charge for the Executive’s own PPPprojects and the support funding provided to local authority PPP projects. In thecase of the latter, the full unitary charge has not been shown as only the fundingprovided by the Executive is a commitment for the Executive.

The table only includes 2007-08as the Executive’s spending plans have only been formally approved at present upuntil that year.

The Scottish CourtService has not ceased the operation of any courts during this period. Two sheriffcourts have, however, been relocated to alternative premises, shared with localauthorities, within the towns in which they operate, resulting in the closure ofold court buildings. These are Rothesay (2004) and Peebles (2005).

The Scottish CourtService has not created any entirely new courts during the period, although it hasextended various buildings and acquired annexes to accommodate increased businessin the existing courts. The new Mercatgate court building was opened in Aberdeenin 2005 as an annexe to Aberdeen Sheriff Court, and additional court buildings werealso opened in Dundee (2003) and Hamilton (2006). All other changes have been extensionsto existing buildings.