Chamber and committees

The information provided by the Scottish Court Service on how many failure to appear warrants were issued for both Solemn and Summary business in the last three years is set out in the following table. Warrants may be issued at different stages in the process, including preliminary and trial diets. An individual may be subject to more than one warrant.

	Year	Month												Total
		Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar
Grampian, Highlands and Islands	1999 -2000	303	442	542	376	420	499	468	541	440	454	502	481	5,468
	2000-01	466	600	580	448	472	609	628	650	462	563	576	606	6,660
	2001-02	499	670	468	481	529	599	633	552	457	633	527	572	6,620
Tayside, Central and Fife	1999 -2000	719	721	660	775	765	876	769	857	713	739	724	836	9,154
	2000-01	750	872	1,016	808	1,134	790	1,017	1,099	779	1,070	941	1,044	11,320
	2001-02	835	1,048	877	956	977	982	1,107	1,165	909	1,028	1,157	1,136	12,177
Lothian and Borders	1999 -2000	627	676	767	702	783	746	815	965	649	666	898	912	9,206
	2000-01	714	808	1,119	1,056	896	895	885	1,224	892	1,096	1,154	924	11,663
	2001-02	774	1,233	1,074	989	1,063	988	1,262	1,267	859	1,038	1,066	1,092	12,705
Glasgow and Strathkelvin	1999 -2000	888	929	1,054	1,101	1,129	1,045	1,018	929	1,013	889	1,061	1,088	12,144
	2000-01	843	963	1,045	843	1,037	1,084	1,128	1,135	711	955	855	949	11,548
	2001-02	946	965	919	919	1,100	992	1,161	1,002	756	1,209	1,013	980	11,962
North Strathclyde	1999 -2000	577	635	694	612	680	726	752	764	595	728	761	717	8,241
	2000-01	678	717	674	718	834	663	804	828	690	726	684	637	8,653
	2001-02	670	677	730	798	781	620	761	699	588	698	671	727	8,420
South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway	1999 -2000	717	616	845	712	689	718	709	838	673	590	966	914	8,987
	2000-01	771	736	865	826	793	718	770	850	717	961	763	859	9,629
	2001-02	742	824	810	866	910	885	890	849	681	818	800	848	9,923

Information is not readily available in the form requested. The following table details the number of cases called for trial at a first or subsequent trial diet and which did not proceed in the last three years. As the table shows in some cases the trial fell because a plea was tendered and accepted on the day of trial.

	Year	Trials Called	Trials which did not proceed to evidence	Of which were concluded e.g. plea accepted, case deserted	Percentage of trials that fell and remained outstanding to trials called
Grampian, Highlands and Islands	1999-2000	2,975	2,623	2,044	19%
	2000-01	2,926	2,680	1,997	23%
	2001-02	3,570	3,275	2,527	21%
Tayside, Central and Fife	1999-2000	5,095	4,424	3,004	28%
	2000-01	5,688	4,914	3,382	27%
	2001-02	6,741	6,022	4,227	27%
Lothian and Borders	1999-2000	5,225	4,535	3,272	24%
	2000-01	5,806	5,289	3,969	23%
	2001-02	6,090	5,548	4,257	21%
Glasgow and Strathkelvin	1999-2000	6,844	6,116	4,251	27%
	2000-01	6,998	6,431	4,457	28%
	2001-02	8,305	7,800	5,458	28%
North Strathclyde	1999-2000	4,710	4,082	3,291	17%
	2000-01	4,613	4,057	3,165	19%
	2001-02	5,251	4,758	3,681	21%
South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway	1999-2000	5,383	4,696	3,280	26%
	2000-01	5,272	4,688	3,369	25%
	2001-02	6,096	5,452	4,053	23%

The Framework Document "Better Homes Stronger Communities" made it clear that a shared aim of the housing transfer was to promote local community empowerment, control and ownership. This was reinforced in both the Stage 1 and Stage 2 consultation documents. A network of local housing associations has been established across the city to be responsible for the day to day management of their housing. In addition, the Glasgow Housing Association will work with local housing organisations who wish to take on the ownership of their own homes if the majority of tenants in the area support this. A draft outline paper on the development of second stage transfers is currently out for consultation.

The Executive has reviewed the small claims limit and has twice laid orders before the Scottish Parliament to increase it to £1,500. On both occasions the orders have been withdrawn following representations to the Justice Committees. The issue remains under consideration.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-26657.

Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that they comply with their statutory responsibilities and are expected to do so. In this instance I understand Glasgow City Council regret the delay and its consequences. Audit Scotland has been discussing the causes of the delay with the council and we will be monitoring the council's performance in relation to the 2002 accounts.

We have made a commitment to undertake such a review after work preparing the Local Government in Scotland Bill has been completed. It is therefore too soon to say what changes to the regulations might be proposed.

The compliance standards expected are set out in the National Objectives and Standards for Social Work Services in the Criminal Justice System, part 2, Service Standards, Community Service, paragraphs 75 to 100. These standards set out disciplinary procedures in the event of the following specific grounds for non-compliance comprise:failure to attend for work;lack of punctuality;failure to report as required by the Community Service Officer;failure to notify a change of address without delay;failure to notify a change in employment circumstances without delay, andfailure to perform work to a satisfactory standard.Disciplinary procedures will normally involve giving the offender a chance to explain or rectify the failure and may lead to a formal warning. After a second failure, breach proceedings will normally follow, although a measure of flexibility has been built to allow the development of effective local practice and to reflect the individual circumstances of cases.

No. I have no plans to introduce an amendment to the bill, which would have this effect.

Breach applications made to the courts in 2000-01 in respect of Community Service Orders amounted to around one in every four orders. There is always scope for improvement but the breach rate is not dissimilar to that found for other community disposals.