Questions and answers

Question reference: S4W-11653

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 10 January 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many hours per week on average prisoners spend working.

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

The amount of hours a prisoner is engaged in purposeful activity hours varies depending on individual prisoner needs and therefore would be different per prisoner and would vary on a weekly basis. Also remand and civil prisoners and those excluded on medical grounds are not legally obliged to undertake work.

Notwithstanding the above and based on the average prison population for 2012-13, from the period 1 April 2012 to 31 October 2012, sentenced prisoners spent on average 21 hours per week undertaking purposeful activity.

Purposeful Activities includes:

Work

Vocational Training

Education

Programmes and Approved Activities

Social Care

Links Services

Other Interventions

Physical Education

Addictions support/counselling.

Question reference: S4O-01679

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 January 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 January 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact that proposed budget reductions will have on colleges in North East Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-11649

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 19 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many cases of animal cruelty have been recorded in each year since 2008-09 and how many were successfully prosecuted, broken down by police force area.

Please note that police recorded crime statistics are not directly comparable with statistics on action taken against offenders, as one offence may lead to several persons being charged. Equally, an offender may be charged with several offences. In addition, an offence could be recorded in one financial year, but action could be taken in another.

The offence categories included in these tables all involve cruelty to animals. However, other offence categories exist that will include small proportions of animal cruelty offences.

Offences of animal cruelty recorded by the police, 2008-09 to 2011-12, broken down by police force area

Cruelty to animals (excluding dogs) including killing and maiming cattle

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Central	3	7	2	0
Dumfries and Galloway	3	5	1	5
Fife	0	1	4	15
Grampian	6	2	0	3
Lothian and Borders	15	8	6	6
Northern	45	5	4	5
Strathclyde	10	6	4	4
Tayside	4	3	1	2
Scotland	86	37	22	40

Source: Scottish Government Recorded Crime in Scotland.

Cruelty to dogs

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Central	1	9	4	14
Dumfries and Galloway	5	0	1	3
Fife	0	0	0	1
Grampian	5	5	6	10
Lothian and Borders	11	3	11	21
Northern	0	1	0	2
Strathclyde	6	6	3	2
Tayside	0	4	4	3
Scotland	28	28	29	56

Source: Scottish Government Recorded Crime in Scotland.

Cruelty to wild animals

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Central	6	2	3	7
Dumfries and Galloway	2	2	3	1
Fife	2	2	0	1
Grampian	8	8	14	8
Lothian and Borders	0	6	3	3
Northern	1	0	8	4
Strathclyde	1	1	4	0
Tayside	0	6	5	2
Scotland	20	27	40	26

Source: Scottish Government Recorded Crime in Scotland.

Total offences of animal cruelty

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Central	10	18	9	21
Dumfries and Galloway	10	7	5	9
Fife	2	3	4	17
Grampian	19	15	20	21
Lothian and Borders	26	17	20	30
Northern	46	6	12	11
Strathclyde	17	13	11	6
Tayside	4	13	10	7
Scotland	134	92	91	122

Source: Scottish Government Recorded Crime in Scotland.

People prosecuted for offences of cruelty to animals, 2008-09 to 2011-12, broken down by police force area

Cruelty to animals including killing and maiming cattle^1,2

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Central:
Not Guilty	1	1	1	2
Guilty	4	13	7	7
Dumfries and Galloway:
Not Guilty	3	3	1	1
Guilty	4	11	5	10
Fife:
Not Guilty	0	0	4	2
Guilty	2	5	5	4
Grampian:
Not Guilty	4	1	0	3
Guilty	6	7	5	6
Lothian and Borders:
Not Guilty	2	3	7	3
Guilty	9	10	14	15
Northern:
Not Guilty	0	2	2	1
Guilty	7	7	7	1
Strathclyde:
Not Guilty	9	16	8	10
Guilty	37	55	34	50
Tayside:
Not Guilty	1	1	0	3
Guilty	4	1	2	3
Unknown:
Not Guilty	1	0	0	0
Scotland	94	136	102	121

Source: Scottish Government: Criminal Proceedings in Scotland.

Cruelty to wild animals¹

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Central:
Guilty	0	0	0	2
Dumfries and Galloway:
Guilty	2	1	1	0
Fife:	0	0	0	0
Grampian:
Guilty	1	2	0	1
LothianandBorders;
Not Guilty	0	0	0	1
Northern:
Not Guilty	1	0	0	0
Guilty	1	0	0	0
Strathclyde:
Not Guilty	0	1	0	0
Guilty	3	0	0	0
Tayside:
Guilty	1	0	1	0
Scotland	9	4	2	4

Source: Scottish Government: Criminal Proceedings in Scotland.

Total number of people prosecuted for animal cruelty^1,2

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Central:
Not Guilty	1	1	1	2
Guilty	4	13	7	9
Dumfries and Galloway:
Not Guilty	3	3	1	1
Guilty	6	12	6	10
Fife:
Not Guilty	0	0	4	2
Guilty	2	5	5	4
Grampian:
Not Guilty	4	1	0	3
Guilty	7	9	5	7
Lothian and Borders:
Not Guilty	2	3	7	4
Guilty	9	10	14	15
Northern:
Not Guilty	1	2	2	1
Guilty	8	7	7	1
Strathclyde:
Not Guilty	9	17	8	10
Guilty	40	55	34	50
Tayside:
Not Guilty	1	1	0	3
Guilty	5	1	3	3
Unknown:
Not Guilty	1	0	0	0
Scotland	103	140	104	125

1. Where main offence.

2. May include offences related to cruelty to dogs.

Source: Scottish Government: Criminal Proceedings in Scotland.

Question reference: S4W-11652

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 18 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many prisoners have worked in Scottish Prison Service Industries production workshops in the last year.

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

“Attendance at SPS Industries production workshops is recorded on the Prisoner Records system (PR2), however the system is designed to record the number of purposeful activity hours across the SPS under the general heading of Scheduled Activity. This is recorded on PR2 across a number of differing workparties covering production, skills, services and placements.

However at present the reporting processes are unable to differentiate between these workparties for determining prisoner attendance.

The amount of hours a prisoner is engaged in purposeful activity hours varies depending on individual prisoner needs and therefore would be different per prisoner and would vary on a weekly basis. Also remand and civil prisoners and those excluded on medical grounds are not legally obliged to undertake work.”

Question reference: S4W-11650

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 13 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have been fined under the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 for selling alcohol to a person who is drunk.

Question reference: S4W-11651

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 13 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of prisoners serving a sentence for knife offences has previously been to prison for knife offences.

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

The information requested is shown in the following tables:

Prisoners convicted of the main crime of possessing an offensive weapon or having in a public place an article with a blade or point: at 31 March 2012

Possession of an offensive weapon

57

Having in a public place an article with a blade or point

157

Number with previous custodial convictions
No conviction for crime in these categories	1
Previous conviction for crime in these categories	201
No custodial conviction since 2000	12

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services, data derived from the Scottish Prison Service PR2 management information system

Notes:

1. For persons convicted of more than one criminal act, the main crime or offence is the most serious, assumed to be that for which the longest sentence was imposed. The figures above will therefore not include convictions for more serious crimes which involved the use of a knife.

2. The figures shown are drawn a live administrative IT system, and although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, they are subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. So while the statistics shown have been checked as far as practicable, they should be regarded as approximate and not necessarily accurate to the last whole number shown. The statistics are also updated and quality assured on an on-going basis, and the figures shown here may therefore differ slightly from those produced previously.

Question reference: S4W-11654

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 03 December 2012
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 12 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many individuals have disputed information from a criminal record check carried out by Disclosure Scotland since 2010, broken down by whether the dispute was based on (a) identity, (b) accuracy or (c) irrelevancy.

The information is provided in the Disclosure Scotland Annual Report and Annual Accounts that is laid before the Scottish Parliament by Scottish Ministers in October each year. Copies are available in the Scottish Parliament’s Reference Centre, SPICe.

The Disclosure Scotland Annual Report and Annual Accounts for 2009-10 (Bib number 51957) show the information at page 22. The Disclosure Scotland Annual Report and Annual Accounts for 2010-11 (Bib number 53384) has the information at page 11. The Disclosure Scotland Annual Report and Annual Accounts for 2011-12 (Bib number 54332) has the information at pages 12 and 13.

The Annual Reports and Annual Accounts for the years 2009-10, 2010-11 and
2011-12 are also published on the Disclosure Scotland website at: http://www.disclosurescotland.co.uk/publications/documents/DSAnnualReportandAccounts20092010.pdf;

http://www.disclosurescotland.co.uk/publications/documents/DisclosureScotlandAnnual_Report_2011.pdf; and

http://www.disclosurescotland.co.uk/publications/documents/DisclosureScotlandAnnualReportfinal31August2012assignedbyAuditScotland_000.pdf.

Question reference: S4W-11371

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 December 2012

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-11002 by John Swinney on 20 November 2012, whether it will provide the information that was requested and confirm when it will announce the three projects that will pilot social impact bonds.

Question reference: S4W-11002

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 November 2012
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 20 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government when it will announce the three projects that will pilot social impact bonds.

The Scottish Government is engaging with a range of partners and stakeholders, including funders, investors, third sector providers and service commissioners to explore options for developing and testing innovative social investment models. This collaborative approach is looking at how resources including funding might be better aligned and targeted towards supporting preventative measures that deliver positive and long-term changes to people’s lives.

Question reference: S4W-11003

Asked by: Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 November 2012
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 20 November 2012

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-00906 by John Swinney on 16 June 2011, what progress it has made on identifying, developing, delivering and resourcing three pilot social impact bond projects.

Chamber and committees