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: S2W-26186

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 13 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many errors in individual criminal records have occurred in each of the last five years.

Any errors on the criminalhistory system are corrected as soon as they are found.

As the criminal record isupdated for a number of reasons, for example, to record a new conviction or theoutcome of an appeal, it is not possible to establish how many records havebeen updated because of an error.

Between April 2002 and April2006, Disclosure Scotland has carried out 1.55 million criminal recordchecks. The following table sets out on a year-by-year basis the number andtypes of disputes and whether or not the complaints have been upheld.

	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Total
Total disputes	59	164	173	207	81	684
Total disputes upheld	40	91	112	120	42	405
Accuracy of information	27	74	60	77	41	279
Accuracy of information upheld	21	56	30	52	22	181
Other relevant information	23	68	74	99	29	293
Other relevant information upheld	10	19	49	46	13	137
Identity of record	9	22	39	31	11	112
Identity of record upheld	9	16	33	22	7	87

Question reference: S2W-26030

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 June 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions the First Minister has had with the Advocate General on the continuing independence of judges appointed to the Scottish courts and, in particular, the appointment of clerks to serve them in that role.

Question reference: S2O-09834

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 18 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what level and frequency of assessment and physiotherapy is available to stroke victims.

Question reference: S2W-25192

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 17 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many young people under 16 have entered rehabilitation in respect of drug misuse for each of the last 10 years, broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Drug MisuseDatabase (SDMD) collects information on problem drug users at the point oftheir coming into contact with drug treatment services. The following table showsthe number of new clients aged less than 16 years, who have accessed any drugtreatment and rehabilitation services for the last 10 years, broken down bylocal authority area.

During this period, noclients under the age of 16 came into services specifically described as “residentialrehabilitation”.

It is not possible to saywhy there were increased numbers reporting to services from 2003-4 onwards, butthe reasons are likely to involve a combination of an increased focus on theimportance of completing returns to the national database, as a result of themessage that future funding may be linked to performance; increased efforts tofollow up drops in returns from agencies and to train agencies in the correctcompletion of forms, and more young people coming into treatment.

NewIndividual Patients-Clients Aged Less than 16 Years Old, Reporting to the Scottish Drug Misuse Database by Local Authority Area, 1995-2005

(yearsending 31 March)

Council Area of Residence	1995- 96	1996- 97	1997- 98	1998- 99	1999- 2000	2000- 01	2001- 02	2002- 03	2003- 04	2004- 05
Aberdeen City	13	9	11	1	9	4	4	7	6	2
Aberdeenshire	5	2	4	4	1	4	2	18	22	16
Angus	4	1	9	2	-	5	6	1	1	4
Argyll and Bute	4	-	1	1	-	2	-	-	4	3
East Ayrshire	-	-	-	-	8	7	12	3	1	1
North Ayrshire	-	2	-	1	33	10	16	13	5	2
South Ayrshire	2	-	1	-	-	2	4	4	4	-
Borders	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	18	31
Clackmannanshire	1	-	-	1	1	-	-	-	2	-
Dumfries and Galloway	-	-	-	-	1	1	1	13	8	20
Dunbartonshire East	2	1	1	1	-	-	-	-	2	-
Dunbartonshire West	3	3	4	13	13	5	3	1	14	20
Dundee City	1	3	2	5	2	4	15	10	8	10
City of Edinburgh	4	8	3	7	7	8	15	31	19	17
Falkirk	1	2	-	1	3	3	4	8	17	8
Fife	7	13	10	9	20	26	51	40	70	88
City of Glasgow	26	27	17	28	23	53	12	11	52	19
Highland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	6	18	36
Inverclyde	5	10	3	7	-	7	4	3	-	18
North Lanarkshire	12	2	10	7	3	6	5	5	16	46
South Lanarkshire	6	3	-	2	-	1	2	8	24	10
East Lothain	3	2	7	2	7	3	3	3	1	-
West Lothian	3	2	5	3	3	-	14	28	52	30
Midlothian	5	5	4	1	7	4	10	-	1	6
Moray	5	3	-	-	-	2	-	1	-	-
Orkney Islands	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-
Perth and Kinross	1	2	1	-	-	2	7	5	4	-
Renfrewshire	10	7	13	21	13	16	31	12	14	27
East Renfrewshire	1	-	-	3	2	1	1	-	-	-
Stirling	2	-	1	-	-	-	12	14	26	5
*Scotland	124	106	107	118	156	175	234	245	411	418

Note: *In some cases, the Scotlandtotal is marginally lower than the aggregated local figures because some individualshave presented to services in more than one council area.

Question reference: S2W-25456

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 12 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted of an offence under section 1 of the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 since the Act came into force.

Question reference: S2W-25193

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 12 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many young people under 16 have entered rehabilitation in respect of alcohol misuse for each of the last 10 years, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S2W-25455

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 11 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many sexual offences prevention orders have been (a) applied for and (b) granted since the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 came into force.

We are not aware of anySexual Offences Prevention Orders which have been applied for under the Protectionof Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005.

The following table showsthe number of Sexual Offences Prevention Orders applied for under the SexualOffences Act 2003¹ from 1 May 2004broken down by force.

Force	Applied for	Granted
Strathclyde	6¹	5
Grampian	8²	7
Fife	5³	5
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1
Central Scotland	1⁴	1
Northern	18	18
Lothian and Borders	10⁵	10
Tayside	0	0

Notes:

1. Includes applicationwhich is in progress but not yet granted.

2. Includes application foran interim order which is in progress but not yet granted

3. Includes three fullorders and two interim orders.

4. Central Scotland Policehas one application in progress (with force solicitor being prepared).

5. Includes eight fullorders and two interim orders. Lothian and Borders Police have fiveapplications in progress (with force solicitor being prepared).

Sexual Offences PreventionOrders under the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences(Scotland) Act 2005 are made by the court at the point of disposal whereasSexual Offences Prevention Orders under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 areapplied for by the police subsequent to conviction.

Question reference: S2W-25454

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 11 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many risk of sexual harm orders have been (a) applied for and (b) granted since the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005 came into force.

Question reference: S2W-25195

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 8 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many young people under 16 have been referred to children's panels for alcohol misuse in each of the last 10 years, broken down by local authority area.

Section 52(J) of the Children(Scotland) Act 1995 enables children who may have been misusing alcohol or drugs tobe referred to the children’s reporter. Statistics on referrals are collated andpublished by the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration in line with the statutoryposition and in that light information on alcohol misuse alone is not available.Further information may be obtained from www.scra.gov.uk.

Question reference: S2W-25206

Asked by: Margaret Mitchell, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 April 2006
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 8 May 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many telephone inquiries were placed with visitscotland.com in each of the past three years and, of these, what percentage (a) were processed and (b) led to a booking.

The number of telephone inquiriesreceived and responded to by visitscotland.com in each of the last three years totalled417,000, 461,000, and 427,000 in 2003, 2004, and 2005 respectively. It is importantto note that visitscotland.com exists to provide information to potential visitorsas well as to make bookings, the proportions of bookings generated from these inquiriesover the same three-year period were 10%, 13%, and 15% respectively.