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.

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. .p

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 following table shows spend with our recruitment advertising supplier, TMP, on recruitment advertising media for civil service recruitment and public appointments. Agencies may have used other recruitment advertising suppliers but that spend is not available centrally. The information on recruitment advertising spend by position advertised could only be calculated at disproportionate cost and therefore is not provided.

Scottish Government Core (by Directorate General)

	2007-08 (May to March)	2008-09	2009-10 (April to December)
Economy	Note 1	76,986	32,201
Education	Note 1	83,083	52,583
Environment	Note 1	86,813	80,270
Health	Note 1	153,015	93,991
Justice and Communities	Note 1	131,233	56,420
Finance and Corporate Services	Note 1	130,877	28,815
Permanent Secretary	Note 1	34,793	14,632
Central and other spend	Note 1	108,133	5,020
Total for Scottish Government Core	930,041	804,933	363,932
Scottish Government Main Agencies
Scottish Public Pensions Agency	1,243	28,751	2,179
Student Awards Agency for Scotland	3,050	9,803	4,399
HM Inspectorate of Education	Note 2	19,865	17,311
Accountant in Bankruptcy	No spend recorded	2,882	7,476
Social Work Inspection Agency	Note 2	865	0
Transport Scotland	57,097	227,622	110,861
Scottish Housing Regulator	Note 5	40,051	0
Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland	10,921	2,467	Note 3
Communities Scotland	3,834	Note 3	Note 3
Total for Scottish Government Agencies	76,145	332,306	142,226
Grand Total	1,006,186	1,137,239	506,158

Notes:

1. Due to the way information is collected it is not possible to split the Scottish Government Core information by directorate for all years or by directorate general (DG) for 2007-08.

2. In 2007-08, recruitment advertising orders for some agencies were placed through the Scottish Government core and the spend is included in the core figure.

3. As a result of the simplification exercise Mental Health Tribunal and parts of Communities Scotland integrated into the Scottish Government core during this period after which any recruitment spend will be included in the relevant DG area. Some Mental Health Tribunal recruitment spend is reported against Scottish Government Health DG during 2008-09.

4. Information is provided for the Scottish Government Core and those Agencies for which information is collected centrally by Scottish Government HR, excluding non‘ministerial departments, and against which spend is recorded. All spend is ex VAT and as invoiced direct by TMP during the appropriate period.

5. Scottish Housing Regulator did not exist until April 2008.