Chamber and committees

The information held centrally cannot provide a breakdown of the number of police officers by local authority. With regard to the number of whole-time equivalent police officers by police force area, I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-4664 on 17 October 2007 for the years from 1998 to 2006. 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.

The relevant figures for 2007 are given in the Police Quarterly Strength Return, copies of which are held in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 43307).

The informationrequested is set out in the following tables:

(a) Spend perHead on Health (£)

1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
856	904	974	1,063	1,231	1,342	1,418	1,610	1,741	1,837

 

(b) Spend perHead on School Education (£)

1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
425	446	480	601	660	704	771	830	890	1,023

 

(c1) Spendper head on Justice (£)

1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
170	171	182	194	205	223	235	270	292	291

 

(c2) Spend perHead on Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (£)

1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
9	10	10	11	13	16	17	17	18	20

 

(d) Spend perHead on Transport (£)

1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
36	35	52	72	92	104	146	160	160	321

 

(e) Spend perHead on Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (£)

1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
350	360	400	400	410	450	460	520	520	550

 

The information is shown in thefollowing table. It should be noted that there will be slight differences from thedata provided in the response to question S2W-24534 mainly as a result of the ScottishGovernment restructuring last year and the rebasing of real terms numbers to 2007-08prices.

	1996-97 Outturn (£ Million)	1997-98 Outturn (£ Million)	1998-99 Outturn (£ Million)	1999-2000 Outturn (£ Million)	2000-01 Outturn (£ Million)
OFM	153	157	146	145	143
Finance and Sustainable Growth (inc Local Government)	8,526	7,972	7,762	7,985	8,083
Health and Wellbeing	6,031	5,971	6,118	6,197	6,563
Education and Lifelong Learning	1,623	1,714	1,697	1,867	2,066
Justice	1,053	1,065	1,046	1,124	1,137
Rural Affairs and the Environment	282	314	309	299	295
Administration	224	191	199	209	213
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal	63	60	64	64	67
General Register Office of Scotland	3	7	6	6	12
National Archives of Scotland	7	6	4	5	7
Off of the Scottish Charity Regulator	-	-	-	-	-
Forestry Commission (Scotland)	-	-	-	25	41
Food Standards Agency	-	-	-	-	4
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body	-	-	8	56	77
Audit Scotland	-	-	-	-	5
Total Budget	17,964	17,456	17,357	17,982	18,713

 

	2001-02 Outturn (£ Million)	2002-03 Outturn (£ Million)	2003-04 Outturn (£ Million)	2004-05 Outturn (£ Million)	2005-06 Outturn (£ Million)
OFM	162	162	177	193	203
Finance and Sustainable Growth (inc Local Government)	8,693	9,264	10,025	9,754	10,223
Health and Wellbeing	7,363	7,951	7,955	8,474	8,838
Education and Lifelong Learning	2,339	2,417	2,303	2,489	2,601
Justice	1,248	1,230	1,286	1,457	1,520
Rural Affairs and the Environment	404	403	518	482	521
Administration	250	220	229	246	254
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal	76	91	94	92	91
General Register Office of Scotland	5	8	7	5	9
National Archives of Scotland	9	11	10	7	6
Off of the Scottish Charity Regulator	-	-	-	-	-
Forestry Commission (Scotland)	27	45	47	50	52
Food Standards Agency	7	5	7	8	11
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body	162	170	204	177	66
Audit Scotland	5	6	7	9	5
Total Budget	20,750	21,624	22,868	23,445	24,399

 

	2006-07 Prov. Outturn (£ Million)	2007-08 Budget (£ Million)	2008-09 Plans (£ Million)	2009-10 Plans (£ Million)	2010-11 Plans (£ Million)
OFM	220	253	241	247	250
Finance and Sustainable Growth (inc Local Government)	10,809	10,980	12,215	12,463	12,756
Health and Wellbeing	9,376	9,652	9,296	9,538	9,519
Education and Lifelong Learning	3,029	3,047	2,349	2,363	2,388
Justice	1,501	1,534	1,610	1,637	1,622
Rural Affairs and the Environment	514	603	491	495	493
Administration	241	245	219	218	218
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal	102	98	103	108	107
General Register Office of Scotland	8	12	10	13	19
National Archives of Scotland	9	11	9	8	8
Off of the Scottish Charity Regulator	3	3	3	3	3
Forestry Commission (Scotland)	73	75	70	72	72
Food Standards Agency	11	10	10	10	11
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body	71	71	73	73	73
Audit Scotland	11	10	7	7	7
Total Budget	25,977	26,680	26,707	27,256	27,548

Notes:

1. This Table updates the informationpreviously provided in the comparative trend data which was published on the ScottishGovernment website in October 2004 (and updated in the response to question S2W-24534).While the data is mostly comparative over the period, and can in many cases be reconciledwith previously published information, it does not accurately reflect the accounts.This data should, therefore, only be used as a tool for identifying trends in expenditure.A more accurate reflection of expenditure trends over the last 10 years or so canbe found in Annex B of Scottish Budget: Spending Review 2007.

2. All numbers are on a cashand accruals basis (i.e. capital charges have been excluded).

3. NHS (Scotland) andScottish Teacher’s pension income and expenditure has been excluded from calculations

4. As CAP Market Support andEuropean Structural Funds budgets are offset in DEL, from 2006-07 onwards, by fundingfrom Europe, for comparative purposes the expenditure has been omitted from thistable for all years.

5. Other one-off expenditurehas also been excluded.

6. Transfers between portfolioshave where possible been made for all years on the basis of the 2007-08 positionfor comparability.

7. Figures at 2007-08 pricesusing GDP deflators as at 20 December 2007.

The Scottish Government believesthat Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) 6 Renewable Energy provides a sound nationalpolicy context for addressing onshore wind development and there are no plans toreview it.

Since the publication of SPP6and to facilitate its implementation, ministers have confirmed that additional supportand guidance will be made available to planning authorities. A team of consultantswere appointed by the Scottish Government at the beginning of 2008 for a periodto 12 months to provide expert advice and support on the preparation of supplementaryplanning guidance for wind farms, including spatial frameworks. To further assistthe authorities, national guidance on the preparation of the authorities’ supplementaryplanning guidance will be issued in the near future.

The Scottish Government believes that Scottish Planning Policy (SPP6) Renewable Energy provides a sound national policy context for addressing onshore wind development. We want to see the SPP''s provisions taken forward urgently, with local authorities engaging with communities and other parties in the preparation of locational strategies in the form of supplementary planning guidance. These local frameworks should provide greater certainty for developers and local communities and speed up the decision process. We see this approach as striking the right balance between national and local responsibilities.

Under planning legislationthere are no powers to prevent planning applications being made. However, the preparationof up-to-date policies by planning authorities which reflect Scottish Planning Policy6 Renewable Energy should provide greater certainty for developers and local communities.

Each application fora wind farm is determined on its own merits. Scottish Planning Policy 6 RenewableEnergy provides that consideration should include a wide range of factors includingimpacts on landscape, communities and tourism, and cumulative impacts of other proposalswhich have been built, given permission or are the subject of a valid application.

There are no localtargets for onshore wind farm developments. Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) 6, RenewableEnergy confirms that the target for the percentage of Scotland’s electricity tobe generated from renewable sources should not be regarded as a cap.

Development plan policiesfor wind farms should be based on the principle that wind farms should be accommodatedwhere the technology can operate efficiently and environmental and cumulative impactscan be addressed satisfactorily.

A wide ranging review which mighttake years to produce results is not appropriate in this case. Membership of thetaskforce has deliberately been restricted to the government, university principalsand the chair of the Scottish Funding Council to ensure a short, sharp exercisethat produces tangible outputs.

The government does not see thetaskforce’s identification of challenges and next steps as being the end of theprocess. There will be an opportunity for wider engagement with a range of stakeholdersbeyond this. In particular, NUS and CHESS have been specifically asked to providean input to the next meeting in February. I also intend to discuss the student perspectiveat an event in the spring.

The government is firmly committed to access to higher education being based on the ability to learn rather than the ability to pay. The issue of student contributions is excluded from the scope of the taskforce.