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-24149

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 2 June 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many court fines were imposed in each of the last five years, broken down by sheriffdom.

The number of court fine accounts registered in the sheriff court in the last five years are as follows:

Sheriffdom	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Grampian Highland and Islands	9,560	9,104	8,538	7,858	7,229
Lothian and Borders	8,497	8,371	8,841	8,010	6,771
Glasgow and Strathkelvin	4,473	5,097	5,223	5,112	3,834
Tayside Central and Fife	13,253	10,941	11,207	9,904	8,384
South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway	10,381	9,748	9,608	8,924	7,696
North Strathclyde	7,357	7,171	7,009	6,674	5,723
Totals	53,521	50,432	50,426	46,482	39,637

Question reference: S3W-22123

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 6 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many television channels are available to prisoners in prison and how many of these channels are directly related to educational provision.

Question reference: S3W-21741

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 27 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how much has been collected in fiscal fines imposed since the implementation of summary justice reforms and in how many cases (a) no payment has been made and (b) payments are overdue.

From the 36,038 fiscal penalties registered and accepted (including deemed acceptance), with a total value of £3.7 million, between 10 March 2008 and 31 December 2008, the Scottish Court Service (SCS) has collected £1.3 million.

59% of all fiscal penalties have been either paid in full or are being paid by instalments. Where any instalments have fallen into arrears, SCS will take enforcement action to bring payments back on track. Of the 36,038 fiscal penalties, 16,528 (46%) have been fully paid or being paid by instalments. A further 4,769 (13%) have had instalments paid but fallen into arrears. 14,741 (41%) have not been paid and are being targeted for enforcement action.

The percentage rate as to accounts accepted and accounts in arrears for the periods from March 2008 to December 2008 are shown below:

Period	Arrears	Paid in Full/Within Agreed Arrangements
March to June 2008	49%	51%
July to September 2008	58%	42%
October to December 2008	56%	44%

The above figures reflect the position as at 6 March 2009 for fiscal penalties (fines, compensation and a combination of both) accepted (including deemed acceptance) up to 31 December 2008 as reporting data for January and February 2009 would include a number of accounts registered but not yet accepted or deemed accepted.

Question reference: S3W-21740

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Frank Mulholland on 24 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases have resulted in fiscal fines being imposed since the implementation of summary justice reforms and what the total value is of these fines.

Question reference: S3W-22122

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 24 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what provision is made in prisons for voluntary participation by prisoners in educational courses and what the nature is of such courses.

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

The Scottish Prison Service provides a range of educational and employability courses and programmes in all prisons, which are themed around learning for work, life, health and leisure. Many of the courses and programmes lead to formal certification.

Participation in these opportunities is voluntary and available to all convicted prisoners.

The primary focus of the educational provision is to address basic skills needs such as literacy and numeracy and also to increase the skills capabilities of prisoners to enhance their employability prospects on release from prison. The teaching and training is delivered through the learning centres, vocational training (VT) units and working environments in each prison.

Question reference: S3F-01566

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Salmond on 19 March 2009

To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government intends to take to make the law more effective in respect of the confiscation of assets of criminals.

Question reference: S3W-21529

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 16 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, of the 1,134 alcohol off-sales test purchase operations carried out between February 2008 and January 2009, how many resulted in alcohol being sold to (a) an underage person and (b) an underage person for the second time; what action was taken against the licensees in each of these cases, and how many licences were forfeited.

Within Off-sales premises subject to alcohol test purchase between February 2008 and January 2009 alcohol was sold to:

(a) an underage person on 172 occasions, and

(b) and underage person for the second time on 13 occasions.

Information on prosecution decisions in relation to alcohol test purchase cases is not routinely available because the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) case management system records charges and does not flag up specifically charges which result from test purchase operations. However, as recorded in the response to question S3W-20050 on 5 February 2009, a COPFS study in 2008 looked at 69 cases known to involve test purchase of alcohol and identified the outcomes of those cases.

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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Question reference: S3O-05871

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 February 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive when the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing last met the Scottish Ambulance Service.

Question reference: S3W-20050

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Current Status: Answered by Frank Mulholland on 5 February 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many offences of selling alcohol to under-18s have been detected in the last 12 months as a result of the national roll-out of the test purchasing of alcohol; how many of these have resulted in (a) prosecution and (b) conviction of licensees operating (i) on-sales and (ii) off-sales premises as defined by the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976, and how many prosecutions for these offences are pending.

Information available from police forces indicates that between December 2007 and January 2009, 187 reports to the Procurator Fiscal involving alcohol test purchase operations were made, four of which concerned on-sale premises.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) case management system does not identify which reported contraventions of the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976 concerning the sale of alcohol to under-18s arose from alcohol test purchasing operations. In the last year for which figures are available, April 2007 to March 2008, 619 charges under the provisions of the 1976 Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976 concerning the sale of alcohol to under-18s were reported by the police.

To assist with a review of the operation of test purchases, a COPFS study in 2008, using information available from police forces, looked at 69 cases known to involve test purchase of alcohol and identified the outcomes of those cases as at June 2008 as follows.

No. of Reports to Procurators Fiscal	Direct Measure Issued	Prosecution	Convictions	No Further Proceedings	Prosecution in Process
69	25	44	29	10	5

Question reference: S3F-01445

Asked by: Bill Aitken, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Salmond on 5 February 2009

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government will take in light of reports that a breach of bail is committed every 47 minutes.