Chamber and committees

Number of NHS DentalPractices in East Kilbride Parliamentary Constituency¹; at 31 March

Source: ISD Scotland.

Note: 1. The number of dentalpractices with a postcode in the East Kilbride parliamentary constituency, where there was at leastone dentist providing NHS general dental services at 31 March.

We do not hold information onindividuals’ progression after the evaluation of a role.

The SPS does not hold data onthis. Generally staff would move on to pay protection unless they were assignedto another role at their substantive pay band following evaluation of the role theyoccupied.

There have been 230 job evaluationswithin this period.

Centrally held information onhospital admissions does not explicitly identify knife attack victims. However,table 1 identifies those patients admitted to hospital as an emergency after beingassaulted by sharp objects.

Table 1: Numberof Patients^1,2 Admitted as an Emergency to Hospital with a Diagnosisof Assault by a Sharp Object³; by NHS Board of Treatment and DischargedDuring the Years Ending 31 March 2002-06⁴

Notes:

1.The basic unit of analysis shown in the table is the number of patients. These arederived from linked records on discharges from non-obstetric and non-psychiatrichospitals (SMR01) in Scotland.

2.The same patient may have several admissions to hospital in the course of a yearor number of years. They will be counted once in each financial year.

3.Up to six diagnoses (one principal, five secondary) are recorded on SMR01 returns.All six positions diagnoses have been used to identify assault by sharp object.The following external cause code from the International Statistical Classificationof Diseases and Other Health Related Problems, tenth revision (ICD10): X99 Assaultby sharp object.

4.Data for financial year 2005-06 are considered to be around 99 percent complete.

This Government made a commitmentto review knife crime law and enforcement. Arising from this review were proposalsfor changes to the law set out in First Minister’s five point plan in November 2004.These have been taken forward through:

Police etc. Act which came intoforce on 1 September and doubled the maximum sentence for carrying a knife tofour years; increased to 18 the minimum age at which non-domestic knives may bebought, and removed current restrictions on police powers of arrest where a weaponis carried in public, and

The Custodial Sentences and WeaponsBill introduced into Parliament on 3 October which restricts thesale of non-domestic knives through a licensing scheme and ban the general saleof swords (with the exemptions for legitimate religious, cultural and sporting purposes).

The Executive has funded theroll-out across Scotland (from April 2006) of the Violence Reduction Unit to driveforward the Safer Scotland anti-violence campaign, including the knife amnesty.Enforcement on knife crime is a priority for the Violence Reduction Unit. The Executiveprovided the Violence Reduction Unit with £100,000 to purchase 1000 hand held metaldetectors (May 2006).

Over 12,500 weapons were surrenderedthrough the knife amnesty during June 2006 with a further 1,000 weapons subsequentlytaken off the streets through the enforcement phase (ran for a 5 week period immediatelyafter the amnesty).

An education phase of the SaferScotland campaign was launched on 24 August 2006which seeks to highlight to schoolchildren the dangers of carrying a weapon. LordAdvocate also announced new guidelines for prosecutors in May that mean those carryingand using a knife are more likely to receive a very severe punishment.

The following table shows thenumber of charges for drink and drug driving offences reported to the Crown Officeand Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in each year since 2002 and how many of thosewere marked “no proceedings”.

Charges for Drink and Drug DrivingOffences (See Notes)

Where several related chargesare reported to the Procurator Fiscal, sometimes it will be more appropriate toproceed with a different charge, such as causing death by dangerous driving, orcausing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs, andfor the drink or drug driving charge to be technically marked for “no proceedings”.The most common reason for drunk or driving charges being marked “no proceedings”,other than for that technical reason is because there is insufficient admissibleevidence.

Notes:

1. The information in the tableabove has been extracted from the COPFS Case Management Database. The database isa live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submittedto Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a ProcuratorFiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency the database will recorddetails only of the amended charge.

2. The database is charge-based.The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the numberof individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.

3. COPFS completed an upgradeof its electronic case management system in April 2002. Only case records createdafter that date contain complete data which is capable of electronic analysis.

Prosecution is a matter for theCrown Office Procurator Fiscals Office who do not routinely inform the SPS of suchcases.

Persons Proceeded Against inScottish Courts for Possession of Methylamphetamine¹, 2001-02 to 2004-05

Note: 1. Where main offence.Figures may be underestimates as information on drug type is not known for somepossession offences.

Persons with a Charge Provedin Scottish Courts for Possession of Methylamphetamine¹, 2001-02 to 2004-05

Note: 1. Where main offence.Figures may be underestimates as information on drug type is not known for somepossession offences.