Chamber and committees

This follows discussions with a number of residents at the public exhibitions in January, consideration of the issues they have raised and subsequent correspondence.

The Scottish Government does not hold individualised data on any crimes or offences recorded by the eight police forces in Scotland, and as such does not hold information on the victims of crimes or the location at which the crime took place. As such it is not possible to identify how many people were attacked on Lothian Buses in 2008.

The number of discharges for alcohol poisoning in acute hospitals treated in NHS Lothian in 2007-08 are as follows. These figures may include some patients who may be resident elsewhere.

Notes:

1. x Indicates the number is not shown as either the number is too minimal or is to mask another number to prevent disclosure.

2. Information Services Division have recently held an in-depth review of its core alcohol-related code set, therefore these figures may not be directly comparable with previously published figures.

In 2006-07, the latest year for which data is available, there were 8,838 instances of people under 18 who were convicted of crimes/offences in Scottish courts. As some people were convicted on more than one occasion in 2006-07, this equated to 5,153 individual people.

Three thousand, one hundred and eighty-six of these individuals had not been convicted of any previous crime/offence in the period back to 1 April 1997, leaving 1,967 people who had committed at least one other crime/offence prior to their most recent one. Among the repeat offenders, the numbers convicted of two, three, four, five to ten and over 10 crimes/offences in the period back to 1 April 1997 were, respectively, 982, 453, 217, 312 and three.

Data for 2007-08 will be available from 28 April 2009.

The Antisocial Behaviour Framework Promoting Positive Outcomes: Working Together to Prevent Antisocial Behaviour In Scotland (Bib. number 47915) was launched on 19 March 2009 and commits the Scottish Government, COSLA and other national partners to developing a new framework for collating and reporting local data on tackling antisocial behaviour. This will replace the previous six monthly reporting regime and will bring together those data sets which best reflect local action to tackle antisocial behaviour.

Table 2 shows the provisional number of patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals and mental illness units with an alcohol-related diagnosis in 2006-07 by the specified age groups in the Lothian NHS board area. 2006-07 is the year for which the most up to date figures are available.

Table 1: The number of patients from General Acute Hospitals in NHS Lothian with an Alcohol-Related Diagnosis by age, 2007-08:

Source: ISD Scotland (SMR01), date 16 April 2009.

Table 2: The number of patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals and mental illness units in NHS Lothian with an alcohol-related diagnosis by age group, 2006-07:

Source: ISD Scotland (SMR04), date 16 April 2009.

Note: Information Services Division (ISD) have recently held an in-depth review of its core alcohol related code set. Therefore these figures may not be directly comparable with previously published figures.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-21942 on 19 March 2009. All answers to 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.

Since 1 April 2008, whilst creditor petitions are still considered by the sheriff, the Accountant in Bankruptcy has responsibility for debtor applications and records all awards of bankruptcy by sheriffdom area.

The following table provides the number of bankruptcies for the last quarter of 2008 (1 October to 31 December). There has been a significant increase in the number of people becoming bankrupt in Scotland during this financial year compared to previous years due to the bankruptcy reforms contained in the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc. (Scotland) Act 2007, which were implemented on 1 April 2008.

Further information, including the annual reports, is available on the Accountant in Bankruptcy''s website at www.aib.gov.uk.

2008-09 3rd Quarter

Dentists are not obliged under their NHS terms of service to advise NHS boards of any waiting lists they may hold. NHS Lothian may hold information on those waiting to register with its salaried dental service.

The number of patients registered with a dentist under NHS arrangements in NHS Lothian has increased from 441,511 in September 2007 to 508,190 in September 2008.

The information requested is shown in the following table:

Mean Time Served by Prisoners Admitted to HMP Edinburgh whose Main Crime was for Handling Offensive Weapons

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services.

The figures are for prisoners admitted to HMP Edinburgh. However, they may have served part of their sentence in, and been liberated from, another prison.

Figures only refer to prisoners whose main crime comes under the category of handling offensive weapons. In the case of multiple crimes/offences, the main crime is the one that attracts the longest sentence.