Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-19786 on 31 October 2005, which lists current concordats between the Scottish Executive and UK Government. Since that date, one new concordat – on the Inquiries Act - has been agreed with the Department for Constitutional Affairs and a copy has been lodged with the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 38604).

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.

There have been no meetings of the full joint ministerial committee (JMC) since  1 February 2004.

The following table provides a complete list of Scottish Executive ministerial attendance at all joint ministerial sub-committee meetings that have taken place since 1 February 2004.

Subject	Date	Venue	Scottish Minister
Europe	3 February 2004	London	Minister for Health and Community Care
Europe	24 February 2004	London	No Scottish Minister was able to participate. Anne McGuire MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland represented Scotland’s interests
Europe	18 March 2004	London	Minister for Justice
Europe	27 April 2004	London	Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care
Europe	27 May 2004	London	Minister for Finance and Public Services
Europe	23 June 2004	London	No Executive Minister was able to participate
Europe	20 July 2004	London	No Executive Minister was able to participate
Europe	14 September 2004	London	Minister for Health and Community Care
Europe	20 October 2004	London	Minister for Parliamentary Business
Europe	29 November 2004	London	Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform
Europe	24 January 2005	London	Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning
Europe	15 March 2005	London	Deputy Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform
Europe	25 May 2005	London	Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform
Europe	14 June 2005	London	Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform
Europe	14 September 2005	London	Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform
Europe	11 October 2005	London	Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning
Europe	14 November 2005	London	Deputy Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform
Europe	17 January 2006	London	Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform

 

The proceedings of joint ministerial committee or sub-committee meetings are published by the UK Government in the form of a communiqué on behalf of all parties. The issues discussed at each meeting are not necessarily disclosed. These can be found at:

http://www.dca.gov.uk/constitution/devolution/jmc.htm.

Tackling fly-tipping in Glasgow is a matter for the relevant bodies. Local authorities and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency can require the removal of illegally dumped waste or remove it themselves. They act within a national framework of law and guidance.

The following table provides details of the number of accused where court proceedings were initiated and a warrant was issued by Glasgow Sheriff Court or Glasgow District Court but the warrant was subsequently withdrawn by the Procurator Fiscal and the case against the accused closed. The table relates to accused recorded in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service”s Case Management Database as having a last marking of “No Further Proceedings – Warrant Withdrawn”. It is possible that there were some accused whose cases were marked as “No Further Proceedings” for other reasons (eg “Accused Dead”, “Accused in Prison” or “Acceptable Explanation Offered”) where a warrant had been issued at some stage during the proceedings, but such cases are not readily identifiable from the information held on the Database.

Accused Marked “No Further Proceedings – Warrant Withdrawn”: Glasgow¹

Year2	Number of Accused	Total Number of Court Appearances During Year Resulting in Grant of Warrant
2002-03	1,825	25,487
2003-04	2,813	20,130
2004-05	1,160	16,808

Notes:

1. The information in this table has been extracted from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service’s Case Management Database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies.

2. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service completed an upgrade of its electronic case management system in April 2002. Only case records created after that date contain complete data which is capable of electronic analysis.

It is not our policy to make public the identity of individuals and organisations that take part in Scottish Executive commissioned research. This is to ensure that responses can not be directly attributed to individuals and to encourage individuals and organisations to participate in research. When schools agreed to participate in the OECD’s PISA 2003 study they were given a written assurance of anonymity: “We take great care to preserve the anonymity of schools that take part in these studies and will not disclose their identity to anyone outwith those involved in the research and your Education Authority”.

The information requested is not available.

The latest available statistics show that 12 breach applications in relation to supervised attendance orders were made to Glasgow City District Court in the year ending 31 March 2004.

Figures for this period are not yet available. The latest available statistics show that for the year ending 31 March 2004 Glasgow City District Court reported a total of 40 financial penalties resulting in a supervised attendance order being imposed for non-payment.

The available information is given in the table. The statistics dealing with recorded crime and court proceedings are not directly comparable for a number of reasons. A person may be proceeded against for more than one crime or offence involving more than one victim, and a crime may be recorded in one year and proceedings taken in a subsequent year. Crimes and offences committed by children will also generally be dealt with through the children’s hearings system rather than courts, while many minor offences such as motoring offences will typically be dealt with by alternatives to prosecution such as police or Procurator Fiscal conditional offers of fixed penalties.

Persons with a charge proved in Scottish courts expressed as a percentage of crimes and offences recorded by the police, 1994-2003:

Year	%
1994	17
1995	17
1996	17
1997	17
1998	15
1999	14
2000	13
2001	13
2002	13
2003	13

 

The figures are as follows:

2000-01	164
2001-02	169
2002-03	210
2003-04	323

These figures are given in the Annual Reports of the Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman for 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04, copies of which are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. numbers 14580, 22484, 28277, 33250). They are also available at http://www.slso.org.uk/reports.html. The figure for 2004-05 will be provided in the Ombudsman’s Annual Report for that year which is to be published in July.

The ombudsman’s current targets are:

(a) To acknowledge new complaints within two working days of receipt and to answer letters about current cases within five working days of receipt.

(b) and (c) to complete 75% of Opinions within eight weeks and 95% of Opinions within 13 weeks.

Targets are set out in the Annual Reports of the Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman for 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04, copies of which are available in the Scottish  Parliament Information Centre (Bib. numbers 14580, 22484, 28277, 33250) or on the ombudsman’s website at http://www.slso.org.uk/reports.html.