Questions and answers

Question reference: S2W-27445

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many males aged under 18 were victims of violent assault in each year since 1999, broken down by (a) age group and (b) police force or NHS area and expressed also as a percentage of the total under-18 male population.

Question reference: S2W-27448

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many females were convicted of drink driving in each year since 1999, expressed also as a percentage of total drink-driving convictions in each year and broken down by police force area.

The available information isgiven in the following tables.

Females with a Charge Provedin Scottish Courts for Drink Driving Offences^1,2:

Number and Percentage ofTotal Persons with a Charge Proved for Drink Driving Offences, by Force Area, 1999-2000to 2004-05

Police Force Area	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
	Number
Central	36	43	29	99	55	70
Dumfries and Galloway	16	26	21	24	24	32
Fife	39	55	38	116	64	71
Grampian	109	81	106	129	130	152
Lothian and Borders	120	123	128	210	198	188
Northern	75	20	72	77	77	88
Strathclyde	215	236	235	415	368	401
Tayside	64	78	68	88	105	110
Scotland	674	662	697	1,158	1,021	1,112
	Percentage
Central	10.6	10.6	11.9	13.1	11.7	15.4
Dumfries and Galloway	9.1	13.6	10.4	10.7	9.4	13.0
Fife	11.9	13.4	11.9	14.5	11.3	14.3
Grampian	10.0	14.8	13.7	13.2	13.3	16.0
Lothian and Borders	10.4	10.9	11.3	12.9	15.3	14.6
Northern	9.4	9.6	11.8	11.1	10.3	12.4
Strathclyde	7.3	8.5	9.0	11.4	12.0	12.7
Tayside	11.6	13.1	10.5	11.3	13.3	15.9
Scotland	9.2	10.6	10.7	12.2	12.5	13.9

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. Includes driving or beingin charge of a motor vehicle while unfit through drink or drugs; driving or beingin charge of a motor vehicle with blood alcohol content above the prescribed limit;failure to provide a breath specimen at the roadside, and failure to provide a breath,blood or urine specimen at a police station.

Question reference: S2W-27442

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many females aged under 18 were (a) cautioned for and (b) charged with violent assault in each year since 1999, broken down by (i) age group and (ii) police force area and expressed also as a percentage of the total under-18 female population.

The available information isshown in the following tables.

Females Under 18 Proceeded¹Against for Serious Assault² in Scottish Courts, by Age Group, 1999-2000to 2004-05

Police Force Area	Number Proceeded Against
Police Force Area	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Central
16 and Under	1	-	-	-	2	2
Aged 17	-	-	1	-	2	-
Dumfries and Galloway
16 and Under	1	-	1	-	-	1
Aged 17	-	-	1	-	1	-
Fife
16 and Under	-	-	1	-	-	-
Aged 17	-	3	1	1	-	-
Grampian
16 and Under	-	-	-	-	-	-
Aged 17	-	-	-	-	-	-
Lothian and Borders
16 and Under	-	-	-	1	5	2
Aged 17	-	-	-	3	3	1
Northern
16 and Under	-	2	-	-	-	-
Aged 17	-	2	1	-	1	-
Strathclyde
16 and Under	1	1	1	2	1	3
Aged 17	5	8	5	8	7	5
Tayside
16 and Under	3	-	-	-	-	-
Aged 17	2	-	-	-	-	-
Scotland
16 and Under	6	3	3	3	8	8
Aged 17	7	13	9	12	14	6

Police Force Area	Percentage of Total Female Population of that Age³
Police Force Area	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Central
16 and Under	0.06	-	-	-	0.12	0.11
Aged 17	-	-	0.06	-	0.11	-
Dumfries and Galloway
16 and Under	0.12	-	0.11	-	-	0.10
Aged 17	-	-	0.11	-	0.12	-
Fife
16 and Under	-	-	0.05	-	-	-
Aged 17	-	0.14	0.05	0.05	-	-
Grampian
16 and Under	-	-	-	-	-	-
Aged 17	-	-	-	-	-	-
Lothian and Borders
16 and Under	-	-	-	0.02	0.10	0.04
Aged 17	-	-	-	0.06	0.06	0.02
Northern
16 and Under	-	0.11	-	-	-	-
Aged 17	-	0.12	0.06	-	0.06	-
Strathclyde
16 and Under	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.02
Aged 17	0.04	0.06	0.04	0.05	0.05	0.04
Tayside
16 and Under	0.13	-	-	-	-	-
Aged 17	0.08	-	-	-	-	-
Scotland
16 and Under	0.02	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.03	0.03
Aged 17	0.02	0.04	0.03	0.04	0.04	0.02

Notes:

1. A person may be proceededagainst more than once.

2. Where main offence.

3. Percentages for “16 and Under”rows are calculated based on the populations of 16 year olds only.

In this table: - = nil.

Question reference: S2W-27450

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many females were convicted of being under the influence of a substance other than alcohol and in charge of a motor vehicle in each year since 1999, broken down by police force area.

The available information isgiven in the following table.

Females with a Charge Provedin Scottish Courts for Being in Charge of a Motor Vehicle Under the Influence ofDrink/Drugs^1,2, 1999-2000 to 2004-05.

Police Force Area	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Central	-	-	-	-	1	-
Dumfries and Galloway	-	-	-	2	2	-
Fife	-	-	-	-	-	-
Grampian	-	-	2	1	-	-
Lothian and Borders	-	1	-	2	1	-
Northern	-	-	-	-	-	-
Strathclyde	1	1	2	6	1	4
Tayside	-	1	1	-	1	1
Scotland	1	3	5	11	6	5

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. The relevant legislation,Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, does not distinguish between whether a personwas under the influence of drink or drugs while in charge of a motor vehicle. Caseswhich involved persons being convicted of being under the influence of drugs whilein charge of a motor vehicle cannot therefore be identified separately from thecharge information held on the Justice Department’s court proceedings database.

Question reference: S2W-27443

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many males aged under 18 were (a) cautioned for and (b) charged with violent assault in each year since 1999, broken down by (i) age group and (ii) police force area and expressed also as a percentage of the total under-18 male population.

The available information isshown in the following tables.

Males Under 18 Proceeded¹Against for Serious Assault² in Scottish Courts, by Age Group, 1999-2000to 2004-05

Police Force Area	Number Proceeded Against
Police Force Area	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Central
16 and Under	1	-	-	-	7	7
Aged 17	3	3	3	5	8	8
Dumfries and Galloway
16 and Under	-	1	1	1	-	-
Aged 17	1	-	2	5	2	2
Fife
16 and Under	-	1	3	4	1	2
Aged 17	8	2	6	9	2	12
Grampian
16 and Under	-	-	1	3	5	3
Aged 17	9	5	4	3	7	6
Lothian and Borders
16 and Under	7	3	11	12	10	9
Aged 17	8	9	3	30	27	12
Northern
16 and Under	1	1	-	-	3	1
Aged 17	3	3	2	1	3	2
Strathclyde
16 and Under	25	17	23	30	25	33
Aged 17	52	40	55	49	54	44
Tayside
16 and Under	4	4	6	6	3	3
Aged 17	7	14	5	10	7	4
Scotland
16 and Under	38	27	45	56	54	58
Aged 17	91	76	80	112	110	90

Police Force Area	Percentage of Total Male Population of that Age³
Police Force Area	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Central
16 and Under	0.06	-	-	-	0.38	0.37
Aged 17	0.17	0.17	0.17	0.27	0.41	0.43
Dumfries and Galloway
16 and Under	-	0.11	0.10	0.10	-	-
Aged 17	0.12	-	0.23	0.50	0.21	0.20
Fife
16 and Under	-	0.04	0.13	0.16	0.04	0.08
Aged 17	0.36	0.10	0.27	0.38	0.08	0.52
Grampian
16 and Under	-	-	0.03	0.09	0.15	0.09
Aged 17	0.27	0.15	0.12	0.09	0.21	0.18
Lothian and Borders
16 and Under	0.14	0.06	0.21	0.22	0.19	0.16
Aged 17	0.16	0.18	0.06	0.58	0.50	0.22
Northern
16 and Under	0.06	0.05	-	-	0.15	0.05
Aged 17	0.17	0.17	0.11	0.05	0.16	0.10
Strathclyde
16 and Under	0.18	0.12	0.15	0.20	0.17	0.22
Aged 17	0.37	0.29	0.39	0.33	0.36	0.29
Tayside
16 and Under	0.16	0.16	0.23	0.24	0.12	0.12
Aged 17	0.27	0.56	0.19	0.39	0.27	0.16
Scotland
16 and Under	0.12	0.09	0.14	0.17	0.16	0.17
Aged 17	0.29	0.25	0.25	0.34	0.33	0.27

Notes:

1. A personmay be proceeded against more than once.

2. Where mainoffence.

3. Percentagesfor “16 and Under” rows are calculated based on the populations of 16 year oldsonly.

In this table:- = nil.

Question reference: S2W-27461

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many motorists convicted of a speeding offence were (a) female and (b) male in each year since 1999.

The available information isgiven in the following table.

Persons with a Charge Provedin Scottish Courts for Speeding Offences^1,2, by Sex, 1999-2000 to 2004-05

	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Female	1,739	1,118	1,233	1,423	1,959	2,174
Male	13,543	8,290	8,748	8,405	10,732	11,328
Total	15,282	9,408	9,981	9,828	12,691	13,502

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. Includes motorway and clearwayoffences.

Question reference: S2W-27449

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many individuals convicted of drink driving in each year since 1999 had been involved in a road traffic accident whilst under the influence of alcohol at the time of being charged, broken down by police force area.

Question reference: S2W-27515

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 14 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost to each local authority has been of administering housing benefit in each year since 1999.

The information requested iscontained in the following table:

Housing BenefitAdministration - Net Expenditure¹

Local Authority	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04²	2004-05 ⁽²⁾
Scotland	17,913	20,077	22,351	23,481	13,658	12,143
Aberdeen City	904	927	1,456	1,466	1,410	1,315
Aberdeenshire	321	545	895	973	896	950
Angus	350	352	509	565	396	464
Argyll and Bute	265	233	286	335	259	30
Clackmannanshire	155	146	4	140	102	111
Dumfries and Galloway	139	328	331	403	423	0
Dundee City	816	919	1,010	1,467	1,456	1,528
East Ayrshire	903	1,014	825	1,071	341	148
East Dunbartonshire	86	81	141	217	18	-44
East Lothian	261	298	297	366	72	2
East Renfrewshire	270	232	236	261	138	211
Edinburgh City	5,030	5,943	4,779	4,012	3,529	3,407
Eilean Siar	63	75	119	137	92	139
Falkirk	401	393	692	733	456	573
Fife	872	1,128	1,062	1,446	808	1,279
Glasgow City	2,914	2,974	3,060	3,074	-276	-508
Highland	725	1,012	985	1,150	830	778
Inverclyde	154	136	265	262	171	66
Midlothian	293	271	576	591	136	213
Moray	117	151	227	265	189	245
North Ayrshire	208	256	514	544	277	52
North Lanarkshire	9	-148	-89	486	-522	-274
Orkney Islands	32	39	46	60	84	120
Perth and Kinross	216	252	317	241	102	129
Renfrewshire	753	709	968	837	561	110
Scottish Borders	180	237	264	205	84	191
Shetland Islands	133	121	102	114	76	62
South Ayrshire	128	48	641	559	202	217
South Lanarkshire	389	415	439	257	598	439
Stirling	441	463	503	235	110	128
West Dunbartonshire	275	236	226	364	201	-21
West Lothian	110	291	665	645	439	83

Source: Asreported on the Local Financial Return LFR 9 for Housing.

Notes:

1. NetRevenue Expenditure to be financed by Grants,RSG, Council Tax and NDR.

2. Thesudden decrease in net expenditure from 2002-03 onwards is due to the abolitionof the specific grant for HB Administration. The grant transferred to an"other government grant" and so counts towards net expenditure. Thisitem is deducted from expenditure from 2003-04 onwards and leads to negativefigures for some councils.

Question reference: S2W-27464

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Robert Brown on 14 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many children were placed for adoption in each year since 1999.

This information is notcollected centrally in precisely this form. The number of children who wereadopted by non-relations in the years 1999–2005 is set out in the following table(but this does not include children who were placed for adoption but where anadoption order was not in the event made). Such children will have been placed withthe adopters by an adoption agency. Children adopted by relations (almostalways step-parents) will not usually have been placed with them by an adoptionorder.

Year	Number of Children Adopted by Non-Relations
1999	238
2000	198
2001	264
2002	235
2003	283
2004	239
2005	283

Source: General RegisterOffice for Scotland Vital Events Reference Tables.

Question reference: S2W-27465

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 July 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 14 August 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many public appointments made by Scottish ministers were of individuals with known or declared membership of the Labour or Liberal Democrat parties in each year since 1999, expressed also as a percentage of the total number of public appointments.

I refer the member to thequestion S2W-13115 answered on 2 February 2005 which provided thisinformation for the period from 1 April 2001 until 31 March 2004 and explainedwhy the annual data for the preceding period was not available. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Regular returns on politicalactivity were supplied to the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments for periods preceding 31 May 2004 and, since 1 June 2004, havebeen provided to the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland. This information has been submitted by the Executive for inclusion in the Commissioners’ annual reports. The followingtable contains data taken from these returns and details the number of boardmembers of public bodies regulated by the Commissioner who, on appointment orreappointment between 1 April 2004 and 31 May 2006, have declared political activityon behalf of all parties:

	1 April 2004 – 31 May 2004	1 June 2004 – 31 May 2005	1 June 2005 – 31 May 2006
Total number of appointments made in period (including reappointments)	78	179	172
Total number of appointees declaring party political activity	12	33	23
Conservative	2 made to Executive NDPBs (2% of all new appointments and reappointments). 1 made to an NHS Body (1% of all new appointments and reappointments).	5 made to Executive NDPBs (3%).	2 made to Executive NDPBs (1%)
Labour	5 made to NHS Bodies (6% of all new appointments and reappointments).	11 made to Executive NDPBs (6%). 1 made to a NHS Body (0.5%).	7 made to Executive NDPBs (4%) 7 made to NHS Bodies (4%)
Liberal Democrat	0	3 made to Executive NDPBs (2%).	3 made to Executive NDPBs (2%) 2 made to NHS Bodies (1%)
SNP	2 made to Executive NDPBs (2% of all new appointments and reappointments).	2 made to Executive NDPBs (1%).
Other	2 made to Executive NDPBs (2% of all new appointments and reappointments).	10 made to Executive NDPBs (6%). 1 made to an NHS Body (0.5%)	2 made to a Nationalised Industry (1%)

The Executive continues topublish details of the declared political activity of all current regulatedMinisterial appointments on its public appointments website which can be foundat:

www.scotland.gov.uk/government/publicbodies.

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