Chamber and committees

The information available is given in the following table.

 

Average Fine (£) for Possession of Selected Drugs¹, by Sheriff Court², 2007-08 - 2008-09

	2007-08		2008-09
Sheriff Court/Drug	Number of Fines	Average	Number of Fines	Average	% Change in Average Fine
Edinburgh
Cannabis	19	132	32	155	17
Heroin	41	172	51	204	19
Cocaine	41	190	58	219	15
Amphetamines	1	150	2	150	0
Ecstasy	37	231	32	216	-6
Haddington
Cannabis	4	206	1	300	46
Heroin	3	200	4	190	-5
Cocaine	1	100	1	400	300
Ecstasy	1	140	0	-	n/a
Linlithgow
Cannabis	10	212	22	112	-47
Heroin	3	187	15	205	10
Cocaine	7	254	6	266	5
Amphetamines	1	170	3	192	13
Ecstasy	3	360	1	700	94

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2.  Including Justice of the Peace courts.

The government is committed to strengthening its links with the People''s Republic of China.

The China Plan is reviewed on a regular basis with the government''s delivery agents, other government bodies and key stakeholders to ensure that its objectives and targets are delivered by 2011.

The detailed information requested is currently being collated and I will write to the member as soon as this is available. A copy of the response will be placed in the Scottish Parliament''s Information Centre (Bib. number 51073).

Data on staff employed in non-departmental public bodies and government agencies are published on a quarterly basis by the Office for National Statistics and are available at the following web address:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Product.asp?vlnk=13615

Figures for Scotland are in the excel spreadsheet Civil Service Employment. The latest data published is for the fourth quarter of 2009.

In 2007 the Scottish Government redefined the public body landscape as part of its Simplification Programme and in October 2007 it published a comprehensive baseline list of 199 national devolved public bodies. Progress towards achieving the government''s target to reduce the number of public bodies by 25% is being measured against the baseline list. The Simplification Programme Tracker provides details of the changes across the public body landscape and is available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/simplification-programme/SimplificationTracker.

Historical information on national devolved public bodies is also available on the Public Bodies pages of the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/pubs/Information.

A list of current national devolved public bodies is available in the National Public Bodies Directory at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/about/Bodies.

The following table shows the number of charges of (a) assault and (b) assault to injury where the initial decision taken by the Procurator Fiscal was to deal with the offending behaviour by means of a direct measure in April 2010.

The number of persons issued with a direct measure for assault to injury in April was 35. The total number of direct measures issued in the month of April 2010 was 7,571, and therefore the percentage of direct measures issued for assault to injury is less than 0.5% of the total issued that month.

Office	Direct Measures Issued		Charges Reported
	Assault	Assault to Injury	Assault	Assault to Injury
Aberdeen	11	1	159	72
Airdrie	5	-	59	59
Alloa	-	-	20	11
Arbroath	1	-	14	14
Ayr	-	1	41	45
Banff	1	1	7	4
Campbeltown	2	-	6	1
Cupar	1	-	21	18
Dingwall	2	-	7	2
Dornoch	1	-	1	-
Dumbarton	2	-	70	16
Dumfries	6	5	22	22
Dundee	14	5	69	32
Dunfermline	4	3	47	37
Dunoon	2	-	15	-
Duns	-	-	3	6
Edinburgh	13	8	151	145
Elgin	2	1	30	20
Falkirk	7	-	136	23
Forfar	3	-	26	-
Fort William	1	-	3	2
Glasgow	20	1	484	136
Greenock	-	-	22	8
Haddington	1	2	12	25
Hamilton	1	-	73	103
Inverness	3	-	78	9
Jedburgh	2	2	11	10
Kilmarnock	5	-	75	52
Kirkcaldy	1	1	91	39
Kirkcudbright	2	2	3	4
Kirkwall	2	-	8	-
Lanark	-	1	18	2
Lerwick	-	-	12	-
Livingston	2	1	42	46
Oban	-	-	7	2
Paisley	1	-	61	35
Perth	5	-	47	22
Peterhead	4	-	33	18
Portree	-	-	1	-
Rothesay	-	-	1	-
Selkirk	1	-	9	12
Stirling	-	-	40	25
Stonehaven	-	-	8	2
Stornoway	1	-	16	-
Stranraer	-	1	10	9
Tain	-	-	18	-
Wick	2	-	19	5
Grand Total	131	36	2,106	1,093

Note: 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. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency, the database will record details only of the amended charge.

Data on recycling rates for domestic/household and municipal waste in each local authority area in 2009-10 is currently not available. We are expecting the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency to publish this data in late September this year (2010).

The available information is given in the following table.

Section 41(1)(a) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 provides that any person who assaults, resists, obstructs, molests or hinders a constable shall be guilty of an offence. Offences which specifically involve an assault on a police officer can not generally be identified separately from other section 41(1)(a) offences in the data held centrally.

Following the introduction of the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act in 2005, a new distinct crime classification of minor assault of an emergency worker was created. Section 1(1) includes offences by a person who assaults, obstructs or hinders a constable, member of the fire brigade or person acting for the Scottish Ambulance Service Board. These cannot be disaggregated into the type of emergency worker from the information held centrally, but have been included in the following table.

Other assaults on police officers which may result in other charges such as serious assault or attempted homicide cannot be identified separately in the available statistics and so are not included.

Persons with a Charge Proved in Scottish Courts for Assaulting a Police Officer^1,2 in Lothians Region by Sheriff Court and Disposal, 2004-05 to 2008-09

Sheriff Court/Main Results  of Proceedings	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09
Edinburgh
Custody	43	45	42	42	54
Community sentence	29	55	54	50	57
Monetary	119	140	174	166	148
Other	25	24	38	25	45
Total	216	264	308	283	304
Haddington
Custody	4	4	5	5	3
Community sentence	4	4	6	5	8
Monetary	6	11	8	18	24
Other	2	2	0	1	5
Total	16	21	19	29	40
Linlithgow
Custody	13	6	16	14	13
Community sentence	13	12	14	17	16
Monetary	26	22	32	26	22
Other	2	8	3	6	5
Total	54	48	65	63	56
Lothians3
Custody	60	55	63	61	70
Community sentence	46	71	74	72	81
Monetary	159	180	219	213	200
Other	29	34	41	32	58
Total	294	340	397	378	409

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. Main offences relating to offences under the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 section 41(1)(a), and the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 section 1(1).

3. Includes a small number of cases where court unknown.

The Annual Population Survey (APS) is the official source for data on people not in education, employment or training. Table 1 shows the latest estimates from the APS, covering the period October 2008 to September 2009, of the numbers of people aged 16 to 19 not in education, employment or training in the Lothians region. Data is provided for the latest year and the previous year to allow for comparison. It has not been possible to break down these estimates by local authority area because the sample sizes in each of the local authorities are too small to provide reliable estimates.

APS data for the 2009 calendar year (January to December) will be released on 24 June 2010.

Table 1: Number of People Aged 16 to 19 not in Education, Employment or Training, Lothians Region, 2008-09

Year	Level
October 2007 to September 2008	4,400
October 2008 to September 2009	5,900

Source: Annual Population Survey, October to September datasets.

Note:

1. Estimates are rounded to nearest hundred.

2. The survey sample sizes for these estimates are small; hence the estimates are subject to a high amount of sampling error.

Table 1 provides estimates of the ratio of public sector expenditure to GDP for Scotland for the years 2002-03 to 2007-08. Comparable figures for earlier years are not available.

Table 1 “ Total Managed Expenditure as a Percentage of GDP, Scotland

>	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
TME as % of GDP	40.4%	41.7%	41.4%	40.6%	41.2%	39.7%

Source: Scottish Total Managed Expenditure is derived as the sum of current expenditure, current expenditure accounting adjustment, capital expenditure and capital expenditure accounting adjustment as reported in table 3.1 of GERS 2006-07 and GERS 2007-08. Scottish GDP is reported in table 3.2 of GERS 2006-07 and GERS 2007-08. Scottish GDP includes an illustrative geographical share of North Sea GDP.

Comparable figures for the UK are published by HM Treasury and are reported in table 2.

Table 2 “ Total Managed Expenditure as a Percentage of GDP, UK

>	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
TME as % of GDP	38.6%	39.4%	40.5%	41.2%	40.9%	41.1%

Source: HM Treasury - Public Finances Databank, 24 March 2010.