Chamber and committees

This is a matter for the British Transport Police. The information requested is not held centrally.

The available information on primary and secondary school pupils who were temporarily excluded for more than 2 weeks in each of the last five academic years is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 54074).

This information is not available from pupils who have been removed from the register (also known as permanent exclusion), as there is no fixed time period attached to their removal.

Historical data on the number of campus-based police officers in Scotland is not available. Deployment of officers to schools is a decision for police forces in discussion with local authorities. The following table shows current numbers of campus based officers or school link officers as they are known in some areas, across Scottish police force areas.

The requested information is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 54074).

The Honey Bee Health Strategy is a living document which is entering into its third year of a ten year plan.

A Strategy Implementation Group has been established and meets annually to discuss priorities and agree actions. Two sub-groups meet regularly throughout the year to take specific tasks forward and report back to the Strategy Group for review. To date several actions within each of the outcomes have been delivered successfully.

Further information is provided in the answer to S4W-07889 on 26 June 2012. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

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

This information is not available.

The Scottish Prison Service, up to the NHS transition on 1 November 2011, operated a manual health care records system and the retrieval and collation of this type of data was therefore problematic. No routine central collation of this data was sought from Establishments. The Prisoner Health Care Records transferred to the NHS health boards as part of the transition arrangements.”

The information requested on Historic Scotland’s visitor numbers is provided in the following tables:

Table 1: Paid for admission sites in Scotland open all year

Table 2: Paid for admission sites in West Scotland open all year

Note: Dumbarton Castle is the only paid for admission site in West Scotland open all year

Table 3: Free admission sites in Scotland open all year

Note: Glasgow Cathedral is the only free admission site in Scotland open all year where visitor numbers are recorded

Table 4: Paid for admission sites in Scotland open in summer only

Table 5: Paid for admission sites in West Scotland open in summer only

Note: Newark Castle is the only paid for admission site in West Scotland open in summer only

Table 6: Free admission sites in Scotland open in summer only

Note: St Serf's Church is the only free site in Scotland open in summer only where visitor numbers are recorded.

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

Before 1 August 2011, information on literacy and numeracy needs was not collected on a comprehensive basis.

A national literacy and numeracy screening tool was introduced in public sector prisons on 1 August 2011. Since its introduction, until 30 April 2012, 68% (4184) of prisoners who opted to be assessed under this tool were assessed as lacking in functional literacy; 85% (4097) were assessed as lacking in functional numeracy.

Information by gender will be collected for public sector prisons from 1 August 2012. Information by age is not yet collected.

Information on literacy and numeracy needs of those in private sector prisons will be collected from 1 August 2012.

While our website contains some international comparative data, the Statistics Finland site links into a wider range of internationally comparative data via the EU Statistics organisation, EUROSTAT. This is available for EU member states as a result of their legal obligations to produce statistics, and would be similarly available to an independent Scotland which was an EU member.

We are continually improving the range and impact of statistics in Scotland. Priorities are set by seeking and balancing the needs of existing and potential users of statistics, and we are happy to consider what Statistics Finland do on their international database alongside other ideas for improvement based on best practice internationally.

This information is not held centrally.