Chamber and committees

The staff member is linemanaged by the Head of the External Liaison Unit and by the Clerk/Chief Executive. Reports on his work are submitted every month to the Corporate Body.

The remit of the member ofstaff, agreed by the SPCB, is, in accord with the recommendations contained inthe European Committee’s 5th Report of 2002 on Scotland’s Representation inthe European Union:

toprovide support for MSPs who serve as delegates to the Committee of the Regionsand the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in Europe, and

tosupport visiting MSPs on parliamentary business.

Themember of staff works in office space leased to Scotland Europa in ScotlandHouse. The SPCB is paying 15,429.48 euros to Scotland Europa for the use ofthis office space from April 2003 until April 2004. MSPs and parliamentarystaff can also use hot-desk facilities in the office space as a part of theagreement with Scotland Europa.

Overall,the anticipated maximum annual running costs for the one year posting are£70,000, which includes the office costs, and the member of staff’s salary,allowances and travel expenses etc.

The SPCB will considerfuture arrangements on the options for, and the practical aspects of,establishing a more permanent Scottish Parliament presence in Brusselsupon receipt of a report by the member of staff in Brussels inearly 2004.

This source does notdistinguish between registered and unregistered services, nor does it hold informationabout the funding of each service.

Registration of care homesfor residential drug rehabilitation purposes and support services (day-care) isa matter for the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care.

Resources to tackle drugmisuse are allocated through a number of different funding streams, much ofwhich cannot be separately identified as it is spent through genericexpenditure programmes e.g. social work services; enforcement and criminaljustice activities, including prisons; prevention and education programmes;employability initiatives and funding to support communities.

However, the following tableshows the main drug-specific allocations to NHS boards and local authorities in2003-04. Decisions on funding for 2004-05 have not yet been finalised.

Note:

*Funding does not includeadditional resources of £500,000 allocated to Greater Glasgow NHS Board to meetthe treatment costs of the Glasgow Drug Court pilot.

This answer provided figuresfor cases of drink-driving for the year April 2001 to March 2002, but it did notinclude figures relating to the Glasgow area due to upgrading work to the computersystem within the Glasgow office. Updated figures have now been obtained, whichinclude data from Glasgow. In the year April 2001 to March 2002, a total of 10,796charges were reported to the procurator fiscal in Glasgow and 97.4% were prosecuted.A decision not to prosecute was taken in only 1.7% of cases.

The balance of 0.9% is accountedfor by cases which were transferred to another court jurisdiction or where theprocurator fiscal was able to include the charge along with another case againstthe same accused person.