Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-31664 on 2 March 2010. 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-31664 on 2 March 2010. 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-31664 on 2 March 2010. 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.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-31664 on 2 March 2010. 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.

VAT/PAYE registrations are released annually by the Office for National Statistics. VAT/PAYE registrations per 10,000 resident adults are now used to monitor the business start-up rate in Scotland.

VAT/PAYE registrations are currently only available from 2002 to 2008 - VAT/PAYE registrations for 2009 will be published in November 2010. The following table shows VAT/PAYE registrations per 10,000 resident adults in Scotland from 2002 to 2008.

VAT/PAYE Registrations per 10,000 Resident Adults, Scotland, 2002-08

Year
2002	35
2003	37
2004	35
2005	41
2006	36
2007	43
2008	38

Source: Business Demography 2008, Office for National Statistics, Mid-Year Population Estimates, General Register Office for Scotland.

The registration figures for 2007 were particularly high, and it is likely that these figures partly reflect the impact of changes in tax rules in April 2007 surrounding managed service companies.

VAT/PAYE registrations do not represent a complete picture of start-up activity as only companies with an annual turnover above the VAT threshold or who have employees on a Pay As You Earn (PAYE) scheme are required to register.

More information on monitoring business start-ups in Scotland, including information on the recent change in source from VAT only registrations to VAT/PAYE registrations, is available from the Scotland Performs website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/About/NotesSP/TechnicalNotesSPNI2.

The specific information is not available centrally.

Information, although limited, is available on the number of hospital stays where operations/procedures were not carried out following admission to hospital. The number of cancelled operations or procedures by NHS Lothian in 2007-08 and 2008‘09 and for the period 1 April to 30 September 2009 (the latest available data) is provided in the following table. To provide context, we have also included information on total number of hospitals stays as well as the rate of cancellation.

It is not possible from centrally held data to identify specific reasons for the cancellations. Operations may be cancelled due to a number of reasons such as a particularly high level of emergency admissions, staff sickness, patient is unfit for treatment on admission or the patient has failed to follow pre-admission advice such as fasting before admission.

NHSScotland: Number of Cancelled Operations/Procedures^1,2, Acute Inpatient/Day Case Discharges and rate of Cancellation

Date	Cancelled Operations/Procedures	Total Number of Hospitals Stays	Rate of Cancellation
2007-08	1,579	166,672	0.9%
2008-09	1,672	169,840	1.0%
1 April to 30 September 2009	781	83,758	0.9%

Source: ISD Scotland “ Information derived from data collected on discharges from non-obstetric and non-psychiatric hospitals (SMR01) in Scotland.

Notes:

1. Up to six diagnoses (one principal and five secondary) are recorded on SMR01 returns. All six diagnosis positions have been used to identify cancelled operations. The following International Statistical Classifications of Disease and Related Health problems 10 revision (ICD-10) code has been used to identify cancelled operations/procedures z53: person encountering health service specific procedure not carried out.

2. Cases where an operation or procedure was cancelled prior to the patient being admitted to hospital are not included.

Information on the gender of victims is not held centrally.

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.

There were 38, 50 and 40 persons given a custodial sentence of six months or less, in the three financial years 2005-06 to 2007-08, where a domestic aggravator code has been recorded against the offence, in the Lothians region. The Lothians region has been defined using an approximate mapping of sheriff courts into local authority areas. Some sheriff courts will deal with cases from more than one local authority area, and Midlothian does not contain a sheriff court.

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.

The following table shows the number of charges under Section 52(1) of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 (wilfully or recklessly destroy or damage property), where the initial decision taken by the Procurator Fiscal was to deal with the offending behaviour by means of a direct measure from September to December 2009.

Court proceedings were taken for 2208 charges during the same period.

The figures include only those direct measures that were affected by the provisions in the Criminal Proceedings etc (Reform) (Scotland) Act 2007.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) database does not contain information to identify local authority areas and individual jurisdictions do not always match such areas. As a result, the information has been split by Procurator Fiscal Offices.

Charges: Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, Section 52(1) - Direct Measures Issued^1,2

Procurator Fiscal Office	September 2009	October 2009	November 2009	December 2009
Aberdeen	23	10	13	11
Airdrie	4	1	1	3
Alloa	5	4	3	2
Arbroath	2	-	3	2
Ayr	2	1	5	-
Banff	5	1	1	-
Campbeltown	-	1	1	2
Cupar	3	2	3	2
Dingwall	-	-	2	1
Dornoch	-	1	-	-
Dumbarton	18	5	2	6
Dumfries	2	5	3	4
Dundee	5	3	6	5
Dunfermline	14	18	3	8
Dunoon	-	-	2	2
Duns	-	-	-	2
Edinburgh	10	16	6	10
Elgin	-	-	2	2
Falkirk	6	20	5	8
Forfar	-	1	1	-
Fort William	-	-	2	-
Glasgow	23	21	25	34
Greenock	2	1	3	-
Haddington	-	1	-	2
Hamilton	8	2	6	9
Inverness	2	9	4	24
Jedburgh	-	-	-	3
Kilmarnock	4	4	9	2
Kirkcaldy	14	20	11	7
Kirkcudbright	1	1	-	-
Lanark	1	5	1	-
Lerwick	1	-	1	1
Livingston	9	10	6	2
Lochmaddy	-	-	1	-
Oban	-	-	1	1
Paisley	8	6	9	7
Peebles	1	1	-	-
Perth	3	1	4	2
Peterhead	1	8	5	4
Rothesay	2	2	1	-
Selkirk	11	-	1	-
Stirling	-	2	5	3
Stonehaven	-	-	4	2
Stornoway	1	1	-	1
Stranraer	-	2	1	-
Tain	-	1	-	1
Wick	3	5	1	3

Notes:

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.

2. 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.

Regulations are not submitted by Scottish Government directorates to the Regulatory Review Group. The Regulatory Review Group is an independent industry led group which advises the Scottish Government on all aspects of better regulation. Its remit includes:

resolving specific problems and regulations that are causing business concerns;

formulating a strategic approach and developing processes to improve the regulatory landscape, and

acting as an independent and informed monitor, helping to co-ordinate, review and judge the Scottish Government and its regulatory agencies'' Better Regulation performance.

The Scottish Serious Organised Crime Group Mapping Project was established in April 2008. Led by the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency in partnership with the Scottish Government all Scottish police forces, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, HMRC, and other agencies the project aimed to contribute to a safer and stronger Scotland by identifying the scale and impact of serious organised crime on Scotland, with a view to taking more effective action against this threat.

Detailed information from the mapping project is not held centrally but a summary of the results are available on the SCDEA website:

http://www.scdea.police.uk/Other-publications/Mapping%20Summary%20Report.pdf?sksearchtext=mapping.

Serious Organised Crime Groups are not restricted by borders and many groups operate across all eight police forces in Scotland.