Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-11758.

The Scottish Executive has issued an information pack "ClickThinking - Personal Safety on the Internet" to all Scottish schools and to a wide range of other bodies dealing with children. A thousand copies were also sent to police stations through the Scottish Executive Crime Prevention Unit. The pack gives guidance to children and young people, their parents or carers, teachers and others who work with young people on using the Internet in a safe and informed way; and includes a set of resources for schools and families.

All schools and education authorities have been encouraged to produce policies for the safe and ethical use of the Internet. In order to facilitate this development the Scottish Executive are organising a conference in February 2001 for education authorities to ensure a common understanding of security issues. As far as home use is concerned, the responsibility lies with parents, and ClickThinking includes advice directed at families. The pack can be found on the Internet at www.scotland.gov.uk/clickthinking.

The information requested is not available.

This information is already available, and is given in Opencast Coal Mining Statistics, published annually by the Planning Officers' Society. A copy of the latest edition, covering 1998-99, is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. no. 9875).

A number of studies have already been undertaken on these issues. The Executive currently has no plans to initiate specific research in this area, although the need for further work is kept under constant review.

No. National planning policy guidance already sets out a detailed framework against which new proposals must rigorously be assessed.

In evaluating schools' arrangements for the care and welfare of pupils and for programmes of personal and social education, HMI consider a number of aspects of abuse prevention covering child protection issues, drug misuse and, more generally, health education.

Diversion is the referral of an accused to the supervision of a social worker, psychiatrist, psychologist or mediator for the purposes of support, treatment or other action as an alternative to prosecution. It has its formal origins in Second Report of the Stewart Committee on Alternatives to Prosecution. The object of diversion is to obtain, in a case in which prosecution would otherwise be justified, a disposal which, having regard to the personal circumstances of the accused, is more satisfactory on humanitarian grounds than prosecution or which may prevent the re-occurrence of offending conduct through early or intensive intervention outwith the court. Diversion arrangements are local and therefore vary throughout the country. Procurators fiscal hold very detailed guidelines which address the different models available but it is possible to state here the three essential features of the guidance which are common to all arrangements. Those features are:

1. In considering diversion, as in considering any other option, procurators fiscal are instructed to have regard to the whole circumstances including the gravity of the offence and the interests of the victim.
2. People rather than cases are diverted. Subject to a long-standing Lord Advocate's direction that offenders who breach Sex Offender Orders should not be considered for diversion, no other category of crime is automatically excused from a diversion scheme. As a general rule, however, the more serious the criminal conduct, the more likely it is that prosecution rather than diversion should take place.
3. Before an accused is considered for diversion there must be sufficient evidence to prosecute. Where the procurator fiscal receives a case and decides not to prosecute, for whatever reason, but considers that the accused would nevertheless benefit from social work intervention, then he may still bring the case to the attention of the Social Work Department, but such cases do not form part of a diversion scheme.

Under the "deferred prosecution" model, with diversion to the Social Work Department (which represents the most common arrangement), the process is generally as follows:

1. the procurator fiscal decides that a case is worthy of prosecution but considers that diversion should be canvassed;
2. the procurator fiscal contacts the Social Work Department and, if appropriate, sends to them a copy of the police report;
3. the Social Work Department check their own records from which they may be able to decide whether they consider the accused would be a suitable candidate for assessment for diversion;
4. the Social Work Department reports their view to the procurator fiscal as to suitability for assessment;
5. the procurator fiscal writes to the accused asking if he is willing to participate in the assessment process;
6. if within seven days the accused says that he is not willing to participate (and thus opts out) the procurator fiscal should notify the Social Work Department and thereafter reconsider the case for prosecution;
7. if the accused does not opt out then the Social Work Department will arrange to interview the accused;
8. within 21 days, the Social Work Department provides a written report to the procurator fiscal on the outcome of the interview;
9. the procurator fiscal decides whether to divert or prosecute and intimates his decision to both the Social Work Department and the accused;
10. no later than three months thereafter, the Social Work Department will submit a progress report to the procurator fiscal. If diversion is proceeding satisfactorily then intimation that no proceedings are to be taken is made to the accused. If diversion is not proceeding satisfactorily the accused is be prosecuted without further delay :

on completion of diversion the Social Work Department will submit a final report to the procurator fiscal in order that success or otherwise may be monitored.

The Attrition of Sexual Offences in the Criminal Justice System was a feasibility study, completed in June 1999, which provided preliminary findings from a pilot sample. Since then, consideration of the responses to the consultation paper Towards A Just Conclusion indicated that the priority was to produce legislative proposals to improve the protection of victims in sex offence cases. We have now published our proposals for restrictions on cross-examination of complainers in sex offence cases and will be working on further proposals to protect other vulnerable victims.We are committed to taking forward, in the New Year, related research on vulnerable witnesses and an investigation of the treatment of sexual offence witnesses in court. We will keep the requirement for further research under review. Additionally, we are working on new information technology systems which should make it easier to track individual cases and aid future research.

I refer Mr Paterson to my answer to question S1W-11531.