Chamber and committees

Statistics on persons charged by the police are not available centrally. Relevant information on under 18 year olds proceeded against in Scottish Courts for under-age drinking by local authority area is given in the following table.

 

Persons Aged 16 and Under⁽¹⁾ Proceeded Against for Under-Age Drinking ^{(2) (3)}, by Local Authority Area⁽⁴⁾ 2000-01 to 2004-05

Local Authority Area	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Aberdeen City	-	-	-	-	-
Aberdeenshire	-	-	-	-	-
Angus	-	-	-	-	-
Argyll & Bute	-	-	-	-	1
Clackmannanshire	-	-	-	-	-
Dumfries & Galloway	-	-	1	-	-
Dundee City	3	1	1	2	2
East Ayrshire	1	1	2	4	3
East Dunbartonshire	1	-	1	5	2
East Lothian	-	-	-	-	-
East Renfrewshire	-	-	-	1	-
Edinburgh, City of	-	-	-	-	-
Eilean Siar	-	-	-	-	-
Falkirk	-	-	1	1	2
Fife	-	-	2	-	1
Glasgow City	5	11	10	6	9
Highland	-	1	-	1	-
Inverclyde	1	-	1	1	-
Midlothian	-	-	-	-	-
Moray	-	-	-	-	-
North Ayrshire	-	-	1	1	4
North Lanarkshire	4	6	5	4	19
Orkney	-	-	-	-	-
Perth & Kinross	-	-	-	1	-
Renfrewshire	-	2	-	-	-
Scottish Borders	-	-	-	-	-
Shetland Islands	-	-	-	-	-
South Ayrshire	-	-	5	1	1
South Lanarkshire	3	7	2	4	9
Stirling	-	-	1	-	-
West Dunbartonshire	-	1	-	1	1
West Lothian	-	-	-	-	-
Scotland	18	30	33	33	54

1. Includes three 15 year olds: one proceeded against in 2003-04 in Dundee City, the other two proceeded against in 2004-05 in East Ayrshire and Fife.

2. Where main offence.

3. Includes persons aged under 18 proceeded against for buying excisable liquor or consuming in a bar, or for contraventions of bye-laws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in designated places.

4. Incorporates an approximate mapping of sheriff courts into local authority areas.Some sheriff courts will deal with cases from more than one local authority area.Some local authority areas, including East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Midlothian and North Ayrshire, do not contain a sheriff court.

 

Persons Aged 17 Proceeded Against for Under-Age Drinking ^{(1) (2)}, by Local Authority Area⁽³⁾ 2000-01 to 2004-05

Local Authority Area	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Aberdeen City	-	-	-	-	-
Aberdeenshire	-	-	-	1	-
Angus	-	2	-	1	1
Argyll & Bute	3	6	2	2	4
Clackmannanshire	-	-	-	-	3
Dumfries & Galloway	1	-	-	-	1
Dundee City	3	8	7	4	1
East Ayrshire	4	3	4	12	12
East Dunbartonshire	3	3	4	3	5
East Lothian	-	-	-	-	-
East Renfrewshire	-	2	-	2	3
Edinburgh, City of	-	-	-	-	-
Eilean Siar	-	-	-	-	-
Falkirk	1	1	2	2	2
Fife	1	1	-	5	4
Glasgow City	12	44	25	22	24
Highland	-	-	6	1	1
Inverclyde	2	1	4	1	1
Midlothian	-	-	2	-	-
Moray	-	-	-	-	-
North Ayrshire	2	2	1	5	5
North Lanarkshire	14	10	21	26	52
Orkney	-	-	-	-	-
Perth & Kinross	1	-	1	1	-
Renfrewshire	3	-	3	-	2
Scottish Borders	-	-	-	-	1
Shetland Islands	-	-	-	-	-
South Ayrshire	-	-	9	16	1
South Lanarkshire	15	32	14	13	13
Stirling	-	-	2	-	5
West Dunbartonshire	2	3	2	5	2
West Lothian	-	1	1	3	2
Scotland	67	119	110	125	145

1. Where main offence.

2. Includes persons aged under 18 proceeded against for buying excisable liquor or consuming in a bar, or for contraventions of bye-laws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in designated places.

3. Incorporates an approximate mapping of sheriff courts into local authority areas.Some sheriff courts will deal with cases from more than one local authority area.Some local authority areas, including East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Midlothian and North Ayrshire, do not contain a sheriff court.

Under-age drinking is not aspecific ground on which children are referred to the Children’s Reporter underthe Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (the Act). Information provided is for thenumber of children referred to the Children’s Reporter only on ground (j) of Section52(2) of the Act - “has misused alcohol or any drug, whether or not acontrolled drug within the meaning of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971” - where theReporter’s decision has been to arrange a children’s hearing. Children found tobe drinking while underage may be referred to the Reporter on a number ofgrounds, including lack of parental care and/or offending, as set out in section52 of the act. The decision whether or not to arrange a hearing will be basedon a complete assessment of the circumstances of the child from the backgroundreports of various agencies.

ChildrenProgressing to a Children’s Hearing where the Child was Referred under Section52(2)(j) of the Children (Scotland) Act1995

Age	2003-04	2004-05
Under 8	0	0
8	0	<5
9	0	<5
10	<5	<5
11	<5	<5
12	10	11
13	41	33
14	71	56
15	100	61
16	<5	<5
Total	219	160

Notes:

1. Children referred undersection 52(2)(j) are referred because of concerns about their safety. It is notpossible to separate alcohol and drug misuse because of the nature of thisground for referral.

2. It is only possible to providethis breakdown for 2003-04 and 2004-05 since the introduction of the SCRAReferral Administration Database (RAD).

3. Children may be recordedas two ages in any one year and are counted in both.

4. It is not meaningful to attempt to breakthe figures down further by local authority. Figures below five are required tobe anonymised due to data protection requirements. The majority of figureswould therefore simply state “>5”.

Information on the numberand salary of departmental directors and deputy directors in local authoritiesis not held centrally.

I replied to the questionS2W-26077 on 1 August 2006. All answersto written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website,the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I have asked Tony Cameron,Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is asfollows:

The number of people whohave absconded from prison in each of the last 15 years is contained in the followingtable:

Year	Absconds
1990-91	119
1991-92	142
1992-93	134
1993-94	148
1994-95	100
1995-96	115
1996-97	123
1997-98	58
1998-99	43
1999-2000	51
2000-01	52
2001-02	52
2002-03	56
2003-04	56
2004-05	80

Of these prisoners there arecurrently 10 prisoners unlawfully at large.

The data on how long eachindividual prisoner was at large is not available.

The following table containsa list of the Grant Aided Expenditure (GAE) allocations to local authorities (andan all Scotland total) for pre-school education in 2004-05.

This information is availableon the Scottish Executive website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/18209/GB0405.

It should be noted that thesefigures are not budgets or spending targets but part of the more complex local governmentfunding formula used to allocate one block grant figure to each council. It is upto each council to decide how best to allocate their resources based on their localneeds and priorities.

	GAE for Pre-School Education (£000)
Scotland	146,264
Aberdeen City	5,116
Aberdeenshire	7,644
Angus	3,313
Argyll and Bute	2,718
Clackmannanshire	1,474
Dumfries and Galloway	4,813
Dundee City	4,074
East Ayrshire	3,372
East Dunbartonshire	2,953
East Lothian	2,696
East Renfrewshire	2,737
Edinburgh, City of	11,053
Eilean Siar	894
Falkirk	3,996
Fife	9,488
Glasgow City	16,013
Highland	6,987
Inverclyde	2,208
Midlothian	2,387
Moray	2,930
North Ayrshire	3,749
North Lanarkshire	9,411
Orkney Islands	689
Perth and Kinross	4,175
Renfrewshire	5,013
Scottish Borders	3,426
Shetland Islands	1,023
South Ayrshire	2,860
South Lanarkshire	8,611
Stirling	2,741
West Dunbartonshire	2,798
West Lothian	4,901

 

Grant aided expenditure allocationsfor pre-school education are not made on a “per child” basis. There are a numberof factors and indicators used in the formula for allocation including projectionsof numbers of three and four year olds and an element for rurality.

Figures for the GAE allocationsfor 2004-05 for each local authority are provided in the answer to questionS2W-26631 on 20 June 2006. They are available on the Scottish Executive websiteat:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/18209/GB0405

All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website the search facilityfor which can be at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Net revenue expenditure datais not provided by local authorities on a per child basis. Information on net revenueexpenditure by local authority is provided in the answer to question S2W-26632 on20 June 2006. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:http://www.scotish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The net revenue expenditure onpre-primary education in 2004-05 is shown in the following table.

The net revenue expenditure figuresinclude a range of expenditure types, for example nursery schools, child care servicesand other under fives provision not located in primary or special schools.

Net revenue expenditure figuresand grant aided expenditure (GAE) allocations are not directly comparable. GAE allocations make up the more complex local governmentfunding formula used to allocate one block grant figure to each council. It is upto each council to decide how best to allocate their resources based on local needand priorities. A number of GAE allocationsare relevant to the types of expenditure included in pre-primary education.

	£000
Scotland	242,225
Aberdeen City	7,115
Aberdeenshire	9,115
Angus	4,390
Argyll and Bute	4,403
Clackmannanshire	2,904
Dumfries and Galloway	6,510
Dundee City	6,877
East Ayrshire	7,111
East Dunbartonshire	4,103
East Lothian	4,246
East Renfrewshire	5,518
Edinburgh, City of	15,019
Eilean Siar	1,467
Falkirk	6,046
Fife	16,355
Glasgow City	39,165
Highland	8,370
Inverclyde	4,827
Midlothian	4,294
Moray	3,687
North Ayrshire	6,357
North Lanarkshire	15,998
Orkney Islands	805
Perth and Kinross	5,027
Renfrewshire	10,464
Scottish Borders	4,222
Shetland Islands	1,296
South Ayrshire	4,504
South Lanarkshire	11,709
Stirling	4,862
West Dunbartonshire	6,855
West Lothian	8,604

Source: LFR 1 (Education) Returns.

Information on the number ofyoung people undergoing rehabilitation as a result of alcohol misuse is not heldcentrally.

Information on young people undergoingrehabilitation as a result of drug misuse has been drawn from the Scottish Drug Misuse Database (SDMD) which collects informationabout people at the point of their coming into contact with drug treatment services.Table 1 shows the number of new clients aged less than 16 years, who accessed drugtreatment and rehabilitation services in the year 2004-05, by age, and local authorityarea. There were no clients under the age of 8 years.

Table 1: New Individual Patients/ClientsAged 16 Years and Under, Reported to the Scottish Drug Misuse Database by LocalAuthority area, 1 April 2004 to 31 March 2005

Council Area of Residence	Age (in Years)
	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	Total
Aberdeen City	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	3
Aberdeenshire	-	-	-	-	1	4	2	9	4	20
Angus	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	4	3	7
Argyll and Bute	-	-	-	-	-	-	3	-	2	5
East Ayrshire	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1
North Ayrshire	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	3	5
South Ayrshire	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Borders	-	-	-	1	2	7	11	10	5	36
Clackmannanshire	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1	-	-	1	4	6	7	2	22
Dumbartonshire East	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
Dumbartonshire West	-	-	-	-	-	6	5	9	4	24
Dundee City	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	7	6	16
City of Edinburgh	-	1	-	-	2	1	7	6	6	23
Falkirk	-	-	-	-	-	3	2	3	7	15
Fife	-	-	-	-	3	15	27	43	12	100
City of Glasgow	-	-	-	-	-	4	6	9	9	28
Highland	-	-	-	-	-	3	10	23	11	47
Inverclyde	-	-	1	-	1	2	6	8	3	21
North Lanarkshire	-	-	1	2	4	3	14	22	13	59
South Lanarkshire	-	-	-	-	1	1	2	6	8	18
East Lothian	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
West Lothian	-	-	-	-	2	1	13	14	10	40
Midlothian	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	1	1	4
Moray	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Orkney Islands	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Perth and Kinross	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Renfrewshire	-	-	-	-	1	2	4	20	10	37
East Renfrewshire	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
Shetland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Stirling	-	-	-	-	-	1	2	2	3	8
Western Isles	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	2
Scotland	1	2	2	3	18	62	126	204	130	548

Note: In some cases, the Scotland totalis marginally lower than the aggregated local figures because some individuals havepresented to services in more than one council area.