Chamber and committees

Support is provided tofamilies experiencing difficulties with contact issues through funding of thefour national family support organisations - Relate Scotland, Family MediationScotland, Stepfamily Scotland and Scottish Marriage Care - as well as 13 localfamily mediation services. Family support work aims to reduce conflict and healrelationships where possible and where parental relationships have broken downirretrievably to support parents in developing child contact and maintenancearrangements which protect the health and best interests of children.

These figures are not availablecentrally. However, the Scottish Court Service (SCS) is working with Justice AnalyticalServices to improve the accuracy and level of detail of the civil judicial statisticsit collects, and as part of this work SCS has recently begun recording more informationabout craves in actions raised. This will enable researchers to identify all courtactions initiated in 2008 onwards in which child contact is craved by the pursuer,and therefore which records to access for further information.

The proposed pilot projects wereto run in two sheriff courts and therefore agreement was reached with relevant sheriffson the terms of reference. Voluntary sector bodies - Scottish Women’s Aid, FamiliesNeed Fathers and Children 1st - were given the opportunity to comment before the procurementprocess began.

Pilot projects to place a FamilyContact Facilitator in two sheriff courts were developed and terms of referenceagreed with sheriffs. Unfortunately, the procurement exercise did not attract atender which met the specifications. It was therefore not possible to let the contractand proceed with the pilot.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-7911 on 17 January 2008. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

We intend to allocate the majorityof resources in the Drugs Misuse budget within the Justice portfolio for the period2008-09 to 2010-11 to health boards to fund drug treatment and rehabilitation services,with a small amount being retained to fund centrally determined projects. A decisionon the breakdown of funding will be made following parliamentary approval of thebudget, and monies for 2008-9 will be released to health boards at the beginningof the 2008-09 financial year.

We have appointedIPSOS Mori to conduct an independent evaluation of the free school meal trial forprimary 1 to 3 pupils. We will take into account the findings of the evaluationincluding the change in uptake of free school meals by primary 1 to 3 pupils andany other changes in attitudes and behaviours in relation to free school meals andhealthy eating that are evident within the trial period. We expect to receive thereport on the evaluation next summer. These findings will be set within the contextof the wider research literature and evidence base on school meals and healthy eatingby children and families.

The CrownOffice and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) is the sole public prosecution authorityin Scotland. It is for the Procurator Fiscalto decide, in the public interest, on the appropriate summary court where prosecution in court is merited. As ismade clear in the COPFS Prosecution Code, the general rule is that cases shouldbe taken in the lowest competent court unless there is some good reason for prosecutingin a higher court.

A copy of the code is available on the COPFS websiteat:

www.copfs.gov.uk/publications/2001/05/prosecutioncode.

The Safer Communitiesbudget includes funding for community safety, for tackling antisocial behaviour,and for tackling drug misuse.

Up to and includingthe current year, the bulk of funding for community safety and for tackling antisocialbehaviour has been transferred in year to fund local authorities’ activities inthese fields. From 2008-09, this element of the budget has been incorporated intothe overall local government finance settlement.

The total packagefor funding for local government for 2008-11 will be £34.7 billion, representingan increase of 12.6% across the period.

Local GovernmentFunding for 2008-11

	Funding Granted
2008-09	£11,137.3 million	4.6% increase on 2007-08
2009-10	£11,600.4 million	4.2% increase on 2008-09
2010-11	£11,992.6 million	3.4% increase on 2009-10

 

The Safer Communitiesbudget in future years includes £2.8 million per year, to support nationally determinedprojects on community safety and antisocial behaviour.

The element of theSafer Communities budget which relates to tackling drug misuse consists of £29.5million/£32 million/£32.8 million for the period 2008-09 to 2010-11. This representsa 14% increase against the comparable baseline. As at present, it is intended thatthe majority of resources within this budget will be released to health boards tofund drug treatment and rehabilitation services, with a small amount being retainedto fund centrally determined projects.

The draft budget containsprovision for the continued operation of the existing drug courts in Fife and Glasgow. The position of these is due to be reviewedin spring 2009 against the progress made with the summary justice reforms. Meantimethere are no plans for further drug courts and no budget provision has thereforebeen made, which would allow for extended coverage.