Chamber and committees

Road traffic offences can be dealt with via police conditional offers, fiscal fixed penalties issued by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) or by prosecution through the courts.

Information about the number of individuals given more than one police conditional offer for a motor vehicle offence is not held centrally.

In 2008-09, there were 1,786 fiscal fixed penalties in response to driving-related charges by Grampian police force. Of these, 57 were given a further fiscal fixed penalty for a driving related offence within one year. Data on repeat fiscal disposals for the 2009-10 cohort are not yet available.

The dataset used to determine the reconviction rate for court disposals excludes the majority of motor vehicle offences (the exception being the more serious offences involving death by dangerous/careless driving). During 2008-09, there were no relevant cases recorded in Grampian involving a reconviction for a similar offence within one year. Data on repeat court disposals for the 2009-10 cohort are not yet available.

Information about court and non-court disposals is derived from separate data sources which would require substantial work to enable them to be linked together. In future, we will investigate the feasibility of integrating these two sources as part of developing our analysis for the next reconvictions statistical publication. The dates of all Scottish Government Official and National Statistics publications are pre-announced, and the up to date list of future publications can be found at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Search/Forthcoming.

Information about 2010-11 convictions is not currently available. Analysis of previous offending history will be developed as part of Reconviction Rates in Scotland: 2008-09 and 2009-10 Offender Cohorts. This will include assessing the feasibility of integrating information on non-court disposals (such as fiscal fines) with court convictions data, as currently these two datasets are separate and require substantial work to be linked together. The dates of all Scottish Government Official and National Statistics publications are pre-announced, and the up to date list of future publications can be found at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Search/Forthcoming.

The following table provides a breakdown of the number of Dog Control Notices served by each local authority within the Grampian area since the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 came into force on 26 February 2011.

I have asked John Ewing, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

Not every prison runs every programme; the Violence Prevention Programmes are not normally run at either HMPs Aberdeen or Peterhead. The bulk of delivery of this programme over the period in question was in Edinburgh, Glenochil, Polmont and Shotts, however, two prisoners did receive intensive Violence Prevention Programme interventions at HMP Peterhead during 2009-10.

In 2009 there were 96 patients treated with a diagnosis of malnutrition. NHS Grampian have confirmed this increased to 100 patients in 2010, but that this figure is provisional until all patient records held on their new IT Patient Management System have been fully updated.

Malnutrition is defined as patients who, on admission, are diagnosed with either anorexia nervosa, nutritional deficiencies (e.g. vitamin A, thiamine or calcium deficiencies), nutritional anaemia’s and malnutrition related diabetes mellitus.Information on whether these conditions were fully treated at the time of patient discharge is not available.

The First Minister has met with banking representatives on a number of occasions since 6 May 2011 including Lloyds Banking Group on 17 May, RBS on 29 June and Tesco bank on 1 July.

The First Minister considers ensuring the availability of finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to be essential to achieving our core purpose of sustainable economic growth. As well as meeting with banking representatives the First Minister also chairs the Financial Services Advisory Board (FiSAB). This has helped inform and facilitate the extensive range of Scottish Government endeavours to ensure SMEs have access to lending, which include direct action with the establishment of the Scottish Investment Bank.

Access to finance for SMEs has been a problem for some time and despite making numerous representations to Alistair Darling and the previous administration during their time in office, we were unable to convince the former UK Administration to take positive action. Most recently, on 27 July, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth wrote to the Chancellor, demanding that he take action to improve access to finance as the lack of affordable finance is constraining the recovery in Scotland.

It is not possible from centrally held information to identify how many people suffered an injury as a result of alcohol or other substance abuse.

From acute hospital discharges it is possible to supply information on people with both an injury diagnosis and an alcohol or other substance abuse diagnosis. However, this will only show an association and cannot quantify to what extent the alcohol/substance abuse has contributed to the injury. Tables 1 and 2 present this information for Grampian Health Board. Other substance abuse has been defined as a drug-related diagnosis.

This information will underestimate the total number of injuries as patients could be treated in other settings e.g. accident and emergency. It is not possible from centrally held information to identify these people.

The recording of alcohol-related problems may vary from hospital to hospital, where one hospital may record an alcohol diagnosis as well as an injury, another hospital may (due to differing coding practices) not record the alcohol-related problem.

TTable 1: General Acute Inpatient Discharges^1,2,3 with both an Alcohol-Related Diagnosis and an Injury Diagnosis, in any Position, from Hospitals in Grampian Health Board of Treatment; 2007-08 to 2009-10^P

Table 2: General Acute Inpatient Discharges^1,2,3 with both a Drug-Related Diagnosis and an Injury Diagnosis, in any Position, from Hospitals in Grampian Health Board of Treatment; 2007-08 to 2009-10^P

Source: ISD Scotland (SMR01), Ref: IR2011-01876, Date Extracted: Aug 2011.

^PProvisional, ^RRevised.

Notes:

1. Excludes mental illness hospitals, psychiatric units and maternity hospitals. Transfer cases have been excluded.

2. Discharges where an injury diagnosis and a drug-related diagnosis are recorded in primary or secondary reasons for admission to hospital.

3. Figures in this table relate only to those individuals who are treated as inpatients in an acute hospital. They do not include individuals managed as outpatients.

Data on the number of people screened for bowel cancer, as part of the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme, in NHS Grampian are shown in the following table.

Notes:

1. The number screened is those individuals who responded to the invitation and returned a Faecal Occult Blood test kit to the Scottish Bowel Screening Centre in Dundee.

2. The numbers for 2010 are not complete as information was uploaded to ISD in early November 2010, and so the actual number of individuals screened in 2010 is not yet known.

There is a six month compliance period for returning the kits; the above numbers are those individuals that returned the kits within those years, not the number that were sent the kits in those years. Individuals who were sent kits from July 2010 onwards may still respond.

Published information on headcount and whole time equivalent of medical staff and nursing and midwifery staff, broken down by NHS board at 30 September 2008, 2009 and 2010 can be found on the workforce statistics website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2011-06-28/Overall%20staff%202011.xls.

The exact information requested on the number of nurses and doctors employed in the accident and emergency wards of hospitals in NHS Grampian is not centrally available.

Published information on headcount and whole time equivalent of medical staff by specialty, including emergency medicine, broken down by NHS board at
30 June 2011 and can be found on the workforce statistics website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2011-08-30/HCHS_by_specialty_J2011.xls.

Headcount and whole-time equivalent of nursing and midwifery staff, broken down by NHS board at 30 June 2011 can be found on the workforce statistics website at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2011-08-30/Nursing_and_Midwifery_SIP_J2011.xls.

These data are not available by specialty.