Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S3W-23879

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have (a) applied to become police constables and (b) been accepted into the probationer police constable scheme in each of the last 10 years, broken down by age at time of application.

Question reference: S3W-23882

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what the successful completion rates have been for probationer police constables in each of the last 10 years, broken down by course.

The information requested is not held centrally. For the available information on probationer police constables, broken down by course, I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-21097, on 12 March 2009. 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.

Question reference: S3W-23880

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 26 May 2009

The statistics on the number of people who applied to become police constables and those recruited to Scottish police forces, broken down by gender for the last 10 years, are given in the following table:

Year	Numbers of Formal Applications Submitted to Join the Police			Numbers of Police Officers Recruited During the Year
Year	Total	Male	Female	Total	Male	Female
1998-99	3,025	2,187	838	368	263	105
1999-2000	4,052	2,956	1,096	483	343	140
2000-01	8,820	6,490	2,330	1,053	714	339
2001-02	6,182	4,666	1,516	770	558	212
2002-03	5,773	4,222	1,551	850	582	268
2003-04	5,590	3,980	1,610	966	660	306
2004-05	5,956	4,354	1,602	1,107	736	371
2005-06	5,168	3,593	1,575	941	629	312
2006-07	4,139	2,928	1,211	784	509	275
2007-08	4,573	3,218	1,355	805	555	250

Question reference: S3W-23318

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 27 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 15 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that mandatory drug testing for everybody arrested by the police has the potential to allow for more localised targeting of drug misuse campaigns and support.

Question reference: S3W-23317

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 27 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 14 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what its response is to the comment of the director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow, as reported in The Scotsman on 27 April 2009, that mandatory drug testing for everybody arrested by the police is “one of the best ways of finding out what kind of drugs people are taking in the wider population”.

The police, together with their local partners, are best placed to identify local trends in drug use. Among other things, this can help ensure localised targeting of drug misuse campaigns.

It should be noted that information obtained through the pilot study of drug testing of arrestees in Fife and Strathclyde cannot be assumed to be representative of all arrestees in those areas, since only those interviewees who voluntarily consented received urine tests.

Question reference: S3W-22861

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many requests have been made to the Scottish Court Service by local authorities to revoke community service orders due to a backlog or an inability to meet demand in the last 12 months, broken down by local authority.

Question reference: S3W-23319

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 27 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 13 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will report to the Parliament on the major review of research that it is conducting in the drugs area.

Question reference: S3W-23315

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 27 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 8 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what its assessment is of research conducted by the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow in 2000 that found that 70% of people detained by the police had drugs in their system; whether it considers that this proportion has changed significantly in the last nine years, and, if so, what action it intends to take.

The research conducted by the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow in 2000 made a contribution to the debate on the voluntary drug testing of arrestees. However, it was a pilot study limited to Strathclyde and Fife, and only interviewees who voluntarily consented received urine tests. The result cannot, therefore, be assumed to be representative of all arrestees in Fife and Strathclyde or throughout Scotland at that time. Scottish Government commissioned social research evaluating the current pilots of Mandatory Drug Testing of Arrestees will be published on 12 May 2009. This evaluation will inform decisions on whether or not Mandatory Drug Testing of Arrestees should be rolled-out across Scotland, but will not produce figures that can be compared with the 2000 pilot study.

Question reference: S3W-22877

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 8 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment it makes of calls from Northern Constabulary for increased powers to impose curfews on young people who repeatedly commit crime or behave in an antisocial manner.

Question reference: S3W-22879

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 8 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, following reports from Northern Constabulary of a rise in youth crime in Inverness, whether it is aware of any similar increases in youth disorder and, if so, what action it intends to take.

National data from the Scottish Children''s Reporter Administration shows a decrease in the number of children referred on offence grounds from 16,490 in 2006-07 to 14,506 in 2007-08, its lowest level since 2002-03.

The Scottish Government remains committed to working with partners to address the causes and effects of offending by young people, as outlined in the partnership framework Preventing Offending by Young People - A Framework for Action (Bib. number 46408), which was published in June 2008. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice met with representatives from Northern Constabulary on 14 April 2009 to discuss their concerns and officials are now working directly with Northern Constabulary to take this forward.