Chamber and committees

Responsibility for the national minimum wage is reserved to the UK Government. Such questions should be addressed to the Department of Trade and Industry.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-34072 today. 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/search_wa.

Following a Grading, Structure, Efficiency and Pay Review and with the agreement of the Parliamentary Staff Trades Union Side, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) introduced a new pay and grading structure for parliamentary staff from 1 April 2002. The salary scales introduced under the new structure were determined by reference to various salary surveys covering both private and public sector organisations. The SPCB salary scales are in line with the surveyed market median, making the SPCB a median employer.The lowest rate of pay for an SPCB employee is £12,000 per annum. Compared to the minimum wage of £4.20 per hour our minimum salary is nearly 50% higher than the minimum wage. Since the SPCB offers salaries in line with the surveyed market median, the lowest salary offered compares favourably with those organisations whose salaries are aligned with the surveyed lower quartile.

We are currently considering the report from the consultants commissioned by sportscotland to review their property portfolio and examine the scope for possible indoor and outdoor facilities that will be a focus for the development of selected sports. I hope to make an announcement soon about how we propose to take this forward.

The Scottish Executive does not hold any information on the average weekly gross wage in Orkney and Shetland. The New Earnings Survey, which collects information on average gross weekly earnings for full-time staff on adult rates, does not have published information for Orkney and Shetland as the standard error of the gross earnings for this area exceeds 5%, which is outside the publication threshold.

The Scottish Executive maintains close links with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and works closely with the UK National Statistician. The Scottish Executive is a member of the New Earnings Survey (NES) users group and is being consulted on the Distribution of Earnings Review which may result in changes to the NES sampling frame in 2004-05.The ONS has given the following statement: "The National Statistics Quality Review of the Distribution of Earnings Statistics (Report No.14) has made recommendations for improvements to the New Earnings Survey. These include extending the coverage of the sample frame for the survey, and reducing known response biases. A project within the Office for National Statistics to deliver these recommendations is now under way. This project allows key users to be consulted on all aspects of the redesign of the survey. Defining the particular needs of devolved administrations will be an important part of the consultation. The project will investigate the basis of sampling and estimation used for the survey and will then make recommendations for the most cost efficient approach to delivering quality estimates of earnings and hours of work."

There is no universally accepted definition of an alcohol-related death. The following information relates to deaths certified as due to alcoholic liver disease, alcoholic cardiomyopathy and mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol.Deaths Due to Alcoholic Liver Disease, Alcoholic Cardiomyopathy and Mental and Behavioural Disorders Due to Alcohol in 1998-2001

Year	Number
1998	912
1999	1,013
2000	1,129
2001	1,220

Source: General Register Office for Scotland.Notes:Alcohol-related conditions are defined using the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases 9th and 10th Revisions (ICD9 and ICD10).Information on the number of registered alcoholics is not held centrally.

It is not possible to give precise figures on premature deaths resulting from tobacco use. However, it is estimated that each year more than 13,000 people in Scotland die from smoking related diseases, including lung cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke.Information on the percentage of people smoking in recent years is provided in the table. Figures for the year 2002 are not currently available.Percentage of Adults Smoking by Age Group

Age Years	1999-2000	2001
16-34	34.6%	33.2%
35-44	33.0%	32.8%
45-59	32.0%	30.6%
60 and over	21.0%	19.4%
All	29.8%	28.4%

Source: Scottish Household Survey.

Scottish Executive criminal statistics cover recorded crimes rather than persons arrested. Within those statistics, supply or possession of heroin cannot be separately identified from the numbers of all recorded crimes for illegal supply or possession of drugs.The available information on convictions for drug offences is given in the following Table 1. Estimates for the proportion relating to heroin in 2001 are not yet available.Table 1: Persons with a Charge Proved, Where the Main Crime was a Drugs Offence, Scotland, 1997-2001. Total Number and Estimated Percentage Relating to Heroin

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Supply and trafficking	1,621	1,627	1,559	1,284	1,314
Percentage heroin1	13	18	29	31	N/A
Possession	5,384	5,291	4,841	4,099	4,340
Percentage heroin1	6	10	15	14	N/A

Note:1. Estimated from Home Office data. Figures are provisional.The figures provided on the total number of persons with a charge proved for drug offences are derived from the Scottish Executive Justice Department's court proceedings database. This database does not currently hold information on the type of drug involved in such convictions.The Home Office collects data separately on drug offenders, including information on the type of drug involved in court convictions and fiscal fines. The coverage of this data is known to be incomplete. For example, the Home Office data are currently estimated to cover about 91% of total Scottish convictions for drug offences in 2000. However, it is possible to make use of this information to estimate the proportion of convictions involving different types of drug.Information on drug-related deaths is published by the General Register Office for Scotland. Figures relating to heroin are grouped with morphine in the statistics and are given in the following Table 2.Table 2: Heroin/Morphine^1,2-Related Deaths, Scotland, 1997-2001

1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
74	121	167	196	216

Notes:1. When a number of drugs are identified in a body it is not always possible to tell which of them made the major contribution to death. The information on heroin/morphine corresponds to the number of deaths where heroin/morphine was mentioned on the death certificate or was identified following investigation.2. It is believed that for the overwhelming majority of cases where morphine has been identified in post-mortem toxicological tests its presence is a result of heroin use.

Scottish Executive criminal statistics cover recorded crimes rather than persons arrested. Within those statistics, supply or possession of cannabis cannot be separately identified from the numbers of all recorded crimes for illegal supply or possession of drugs.The available information on convictions for drug offences is given in the following table. Estimates for the proportion relating to cannabis in 2001 are not yet available.Persons with a Charge Proved, Where the Main Crime was a Drugs Offence, Scotland, 1997-2001. Total Number and Estimated Percentage Relating to Cannabis

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Supply and trafficking	1,621	1,627	1,559	1,284	1,314
Percentage cannabis1	58	60	58	53	N/A
Possession	5,384	5,291	4,841	4,099	4,340
Percentage cannabis1	78	79	77	78	N/A

Note:1. Estimated from Home Office data. Figures are provisional.The figures provided on the total number of persons with a charge proved for drug offences are derived from the Scottish Executive Justice Department's court proceedings database. This database does not currently hold information on the type of drug involved in such convictions.The Home Office collects data separately on drug offenders, including information on the type of drug involved in court convictions and fiscal fines. The coverage of this data is known to be incomplete. For example, the Home Office data are currently estimated to cover about 91% of total Scottish convictions for drug offences in 2000. However, it is possible to make use of this information to estimate the proportion of convictions involving different types of drug.Information on drug-related deaths are published by the General Register Office for Scotland. In a recent review, Reducing drug related deaths (2000), The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs reports that there is no literature evidence of acute death directly due to toxicity from cannabis.