Chamber and committees

The lights above desks in the MSP building have not been permanently switched off. The lighting controls in the area have been amended to allow the lights above researcher''s desks to be switched off by the central lighting system when the desks are mostly likely to be unoccupied; previously these lights were on 24 hours a day. This will reduce electricity use in the building and contribute towards our environmental policy to improve energy efficiency. These changes will reduce electricity and maintenance costs and will pay for themselves in approximately three years.

All members and their staff were informed by e‘mail of the changes which were due to be made to the area, but it is accepted that more detail could have been provided and consultation on the details of the changes undertaken. The evolving needs of building users will be taken into account and the lights programmed accordingly.

The Parliament''s consumption of energy needs to be managed responsibly and the support of all building users in achieving our energy reduction targets is appreciated.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government does not hold centrally the information requested.

I am however able to provide information on the number of British Sign Language interpreters registered with the Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters (SASLI), by region, as at 31 December 2007

Area	Interpreters	Trainees
Aberdeen and Moray	Registered: 4	Trainee: 1
Tayside	Registered: 3
Fife	Registered: 3
Edinburgh	Registered: 9	Trainee: 2
Highland	Registered: 6
Glasgow	Registered: 18	Trainee: 6
Ayrshire	Registered: 5	Trainee: 1
Dumfries and Galloway	Registered: 1
Central Scotland	Registered: 4
Outwith Scotland	Registered: 2
Total	Registered: 55	Trainee: 10

Note: Registered Interpreters are interpreters who have been assessed and registered by the association as fit to practice in all domains.

Associate Interpreters are interpreters who have been granted membership of the association and are undertaking the post registration associates program leading to full registration.

This information is not held centrally. The police recorded crime statistics do not identify whether the crimes recorded were made known to them by members of the public.

The information requested cannot be shown separately, but is contained in the figures shown below.

Number of Election Offences Recorded by Police Force Area, 2000-01 to 2006-07.

Police Force	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Central	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Fife	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Grampian	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Lothian and Borders	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Northern	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Strathclyde	0	1	0	5	1	0	0
Tayside	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
All Scotland	0	1	0	6	1	0	0

 

The available information is given in the following table.

Number of Crimes of Fraud Recorded by the Police by Police Force Area, 1999-2000 to 2006-07

Police Force	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Central	632	694	871	1,152	1,235	781	1,077	633
Dumfries and Galloway	478	293	440	514	460	1,066	212	262
Fife	1,348	1,747	1,130	1,333	1,279	1,296	866	710
Grampian	3,840	3,260	2,936	1,922	1,349	1,630	1,120	727
Lothian and Borders	5,456	6,217	5,087	4,325	4,630	7,242	2,241	1,741
Northern	675	965	971	940	674	934	744	566
Strathclyde	6,983	6,227	5,370	4,844	4,711	4,200	3,873	3,781
Tayside	1,208	640	590	798	939	1,158	941	912
All Scotland	20,620	20,043	17,395	15,828	15,277	18,307	11,074	9,332

 

We are giving careful consideration to the issues that would be raised by the introduction of the sco abbreviation so that, should the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) call for proposals for new generic top-level domain names, the Scottish Government will be able to make an informed decision about whether to support an sco abbreviation.

The numbers of charges of fraud reported to Procurators Fiscal by police forces in each financial year since 2002-03 are shown in the following table. A further 2,161 such charges were reported to Procurators Fiscal by Specialist Reporting Agencies.

Charges: Fraud etc

Police Force	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	Total
Central Scotland Police	931	866	981	909	633	4,320
Dumfries and Galloway Police	442	343	540	97	122	1,544
Fife Constabulary	802	901	819	702	571	3,795
Grampian Police	919	660	709	554	354	3,196
Lothian and Borders	2,800	2,010	3,069	2,096	1,300	11,275
Northern Constabulary	853	487	697	645	341	3,023
Strathclyde Police	3,546	3,319	2,733	2,573	2,040	14,211
Tayside Police	879	845	1,175	845	739	4,483
British Transport Police	176	215	51	49	23	514
Ministry of Defence Police	26	69	53	16	88	252
Total	11,374	9,715	10,827	8,486	6,211	46,613

Notes:

1. The information in the table has been extracted from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service's case management database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency, the database will record details only of the amended charge.

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

3. The information in the table is restricted to charges involving fraud, attempted fraud, fraud (board and lodging), fraud (credit/debit card), fraud (electronic means), fraud (taxi fare/vehicle/vessel etc fare) and fraudulent schemes.

4. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service completed an upgrade of its electronic case management system in April 2002. Only case records created after that date contain complete data which is capable of electronic analysis.

5. The table reflects the position at 20 March 2008.

IT incidents have been categorised since December 2005. The table below shows the number of IT incidents logged with the Helpdesk per month where the user has been unable to connect to the Parliament remotely due to capacity issues.

	2005	2006	2007	2008
January		8	3	7
February		17	5	35
March		29	20	102
April		1	0
May		0	0
June		48	1
July		2	0
August		10	1
September		2	0
October		6	7
November		1	4
December	4	0	6

 

Draft regulations which will require puppy and kitten dealers to be licensed by local authorities will be laid in Parliament shortly after the Easter recess. These draft regulations will need to be approved by resolution of the Parliament before they can be made (the affirmative procedure).