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.

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Question reference: S3W-30923

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 28 January 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many complaints of sexual assault in which the alleged victim was aged 10 and under have (a) been made and (b) resulted in proceedings in each of the last three years.

Question reference: S3W-30755

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 January 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 January 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how much is spent per day on food for patients in (a) Glasgow Royal Infirmary, (b) Glasgow’s Western Infirmary and (c) the Southern General Hospital.

Question reference: S3W-30812

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 18 January 2010
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 26 January 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many patients have been treated at (a) Glasgow’s Western Infirmary, (b) the Southern General Hospital, (c) Glasgow Royal Infirmary and (d) Stobhill Hospital due to falls on snow or ice since 15 December 2009.

The number of people who have been treated for fall-related injuries during the recent severe winter weather in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde hospitals is not available from centrally collected, validated statistics.

According to provisional management information, during the period 1 January to 4 January 2010 there were approximately 59% more orthopaedics related attendances at accident and emergency departments in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde when compared to the same period last year.

Official statistics on accident and emergency attendances is published on the Acute Hospital Care section of ISD''s website at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/4024.html.

The next publication is scheduled for 24 February 2010 and will include data up to 31 December 2009.

The subsequent publication is scheduled for 25 May 2010 and will include data up to 31 March 2010.

Question reference: S3W-29939

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 December 2009
Current Status: Answered by Frank Mulholland on 18 January 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have appeared in the High Court of Justiciary in the last three years and how many pled guilty at the first diet and received the appropriate discounted sentence in accordance with the Bonomy reforms.

The tables below shows how many accused were indicted to the High Court, and how many High Court cases were dealt with by plea or by trial in each financial year since 2006.

Information in relation to discounted sentences is not available.

	FY 2006-07	FY 2007-08	FY 2008-09
Accused indicted in the High Court	1,320	1,092	1,118

Notes:

1. The number of cases dealt with in a year does not match the number of accused “ a case may contain more than one accused.

2. The information for this question 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. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency the database will record details only of the amended charge.

3. The database is charge-based. The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.

	FY 2006-07		FY 2007-08		FY 2008-09
High Court Case Disposals - Total	839		787		639
Cases dealt with by early plea	134	16%	126	16%	107	17%
Cases dealt with by plea at preliminary hearing	295	35%	243	31%	158	25%
Cases disposed of by plea at trial	81	10%	95	12%	78	12%
Cases disposed of by trial	329	39%	323	41%	296	46%

Note: 4. Cases dealt with by early plea refers to cases dealt with in terms of section 76 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

Question reference: S3W-29674

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 December 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 14 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many sentenced foreign nationals were released from prisons in each of the last 12 months.

I have asked Willie Pretswell, Acting Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

There have been a total of 766 liberations of sentenced Foreign Nationals since
1December 2008. The following table gives a breakdown by month.

Month	Number of Liberations
December 2008	77
January 2009	54
February 2009	59
March 2009	51
April 2009	93
May 2009	72
June 2009	48
July 2009	67
August 2009	55
September 2009	72
October 2009	68
November 2009	50

Question reference: S3W-29352

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 10 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is regarding charging by local authorities in respect of licensing fees and whether it will issue guidance to an authority of which the licensing fee regime appears to operate at a significant surplus to the amount expended.

In determining any fee, the Licensing (Fees) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 require a licensing board to have regard to the desirability that the total fees payable are broadly equivalent to the expenses incurred in administering the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 during that period.

The government expects where any fee increase has exceeded expenditure, the licensing board should seek to provide a reduction in the subsequent annual fees. This is the position the government have stated publicly, including when the Justice Committee considered the fee regulations.

Question reference: S3W-29223

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 3 December 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many complaints have been investigated by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission since its inception.

For the first full year of business the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission''s complaint figures are as follows.

Complaints Dealt With Under the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 Transitional Order
General enquiries (predominantly about legal complaints)	2,481
Complaints received	2,237
How The 2,237 Complaints Were Dealt With
Not eligible for investigation	624
In process of being assessed to see if eligible for investigation	134
Investigated or in process of being investigated by the SLCC	49
Referred to the Law Society of Scotland for investigation as a conduct complaint under 2007 Act	44
Referred to the Law Society of Scotland for investigation under Transitional Powers	1,366
Referred to the Faculty of Advocates for investigation as a conduct complaint under 2007 Act	2
Referred to the Faculty of Advocates for investigation under Transitional Powers	18
Total	=SUM(ABOVE) 2,237
Complaints Dealt With By The SLCC Under The Old Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman''s Powers
Complaints received	138
Complaints investigated or in process of being investigated	155 (this differs from the number above as it includes complaints received pre 1.10.08)

Question reference: S3W-28829

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 19 November 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of domestic violence there have been in each of the last three years, broken down by sheriffdom and manner of disposal.

The available information is given in the following table.

Persons Convicted for an Offence¹ with a Domestic Aggravator^{4, 5} Recorded, by Sheriffdom², 2005-06 to 2007-08

Sheriffdom/Result	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Glasgow and Strathkelvin
Custody	159	157	149
Community sentence	278	309	239
Monetary	391	452	362
Admonished	305	433	366
Other	13	15	5
Total	1,146	1,366	1,121
Grampian, Highland and Islands
Custody	10	32	37
Community sentence	18	70	105
Monetary	80	207	198
Admonished	38	91	108
Other	2	16	19
Total	148	416	467
Lothian and Borders
Custody	45	60	64
Community sentence	90	108	109
Monetary	278	314	282
Admonished	125	170	169
Other	12	11	11
Total	550	663	635
North Strathclyde
Custody	80	99	107
Community sentence	145	166	151
Monetary	361	412	425
Admonished	203	258	248
Other	5	7	5
Total	794	942	936
South Strathclyde D and G
Custody	123	130	157
Community sentence	248	245	232
Monetary	546	517	478
Admonished	400	493	436
Other	11	3	6
Total	1,328	1,388	1,309
Tayside, Central and Fife
Custody	34	36	59
Community sentence	69	89	128
Monetary	143	174	223
Admonished	66	105	140
Other	6	3	5
Total	318	407	555
High Court
Custody	7	7	6
Community sentence	4	2	0
Admonished	1	0	0
Total	12	9	6
Scotland
Custody	458	521	579
Community sentence	852	989	964
Monetary³	1,800	2,076	1,968
Admonished	1,138	1,550	1,467
Other	49	55	51
Total	4,297	5,191	5,029

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. For High Court cases, information on the sheriffdom is not available.

3. Total for 2005-06 contains one case where the court is unknown.

4. The recording of aggravators has improved over time therefore caution is needed when comparing changes over time. 2005-06 is the first year where it has been considered that the use and recording of domestic abuse aggravator codes from the Scottish Government Court Proceedings database has been of sufficient coverage to be used.

5. The data recording codes for aggravators changed on 10 March 2008. The new codes will be reconciled against the existing codes when the 2008-09 data is available in March 2010.

Question reference: S3W-27923

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 October 2009
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 28 October 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what the change in Scotland’s consumption of alcohol has been since 2003 and what has contributed to this change.

Alcohol consumption can be measured in a number of ways. The Scottish Health Survey records usual weekly consumption and consumption on the heaviest drinking day in the previous week. Measures of consumption include the mean number of units drunk and the proportions drinking above and below various unit thresholds.

The proportion of men drinking over the weekly recommended limit (21 units) declined from 34% in 2003 to 30% in 2008. The equivalent figures for women (based on 14 units) were 23% and 20% respectively. Although the overall decline in men''s average weekly unit consumption was statistically significant, it was at the very margin of being so. The decline for women was not significant. Further years of data will need to be collected before firm conclusions can be reached about weekly drinking trends.

In relation to daily consumption, in 2008, 44% of men had drunk more than four units on their heaviest drinking day in the previous week and 27% said they drank more than eight units. The mean units consumed were 6.2. 36% of women reported drinking more than three units on the heaviest drinking day in the past week and 18% drank more than six units. The mean units consumed were 3.5. Levels of daily consumption were very similar in 2003 and 2008, with no significant differences. As with the weekly drinking trend figures, more years of data will need to be collected before any clear patterns can be identified.

Question reference: S3W-27986

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 October 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 27 October 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has set aside to settle human rights cases.