Chamber and committees

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:I understand that the director has conducted an investigation to ascertain whether there are changes which require to be made ahead of any determination which may be produced by the current Fatal Accident Inquiry.

The Media and Communications Group's out-turn spend in 2001-02 was £3,052,479. The current spend for 2002-03, (as at 31 January 2003), is £2,964,876. We anticipate the total spend in 2002-03 to be in the region of £3.6 million. The effectiveness and efficiency of the group is currently being examined in a Best Value Review.

The numbers of cases involving alleged contravention of environmental protection legislation referred to the Procurators Fiscal Service by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency are set out in the table.

	2001-02	2002-03 (to date)
Cases Referred to Procurator Fiscal Service	70*	43
Cases that Proceeded to Court	44	7
Still On-Going	6	22
(i) Number Led to Convictions	37	7
(ii) Percentage Led to Convictions	84%	100%

Note:*A reassessment of 2001-02 statistics has resulted in a slight alteration to the figures quoted in response to question S1W-25070.

The information requested for the period April 2002 to end December 2002 is as follows:April 2002 to December 2002

Total Reports Received	Total No Proceedings	Delay Police or Reporting Agency	Delay PF	Lack of Court Resources	PF Staff Shortage	Time-Bar
224,779	37,776	11,533	141	0	2	1,861
As % of Total Reports	17%	5%	0.06%	0%	0%	0.8%

There is strict guidance on use of these no proceedings categories by procurators fiscal when marking cases. In particular, the "time-barred" category is only to be used when the offences are time-barred at the time the report is received from the police or other reporting agency.While the overall proportion of cases marked no proceedings has remained steady, the proportion marked no proceedings because of delay in reporting by the police has increased since 2001-02, largely because of reporting problems in the Strathclyde Area. This is attributable by the police to a number of factors around an increase in detection rates, reporting policies, technology and resources. It is a temporary problem, which has been identified and is being addressed by the police, in partnership with the Area Procurators Fiscal in Strathclyde.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is committed to agreeing targets covering the progress of cases through the criminal justice system as set out in target 1 for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Building a Better Scotland - Spending Proposals 2003-2006; What the money buys. We are actively engaged in discussions with the police and the Scottish Court Service to agree such targets for the next financial year and, as the first stage of that process, have agreed to work in partnership with them in fulfilment of the Scottish Court Service's new target to dispose of all summary criminal cases within 20 weeks from first calling in court to sentence.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:Kilmarnock Prison Services Limited.

Spending plans for non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) as a share of total managed expenditure is as shown in the following table:

	2000-01(£ Million)	2001-02(£ Million)	2002-03(£ Million)
NDPBs	2,109	2,138	2,120
Total Managed Expenditure	17,997	19,893	21,098
%	12	11	10

In order to provide comparable information, the information given is drawn from stage 1 of the Budget Process for each of the relevant years.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:Performance points have not been applied in 13 such cases referred to the police because, so far as can be ascertained, there were no court proceedings and consequently no convictions. A trial is under way in one case and investigations are on-going in another 11 cases. It is not possible to say why there were no proceedings in the 13 cases, for the reasons given in the answer to question S1W-33537 on 11 February 2003. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:The information requested is shown in the following table.Performance Points - Year 4, Quarter 3

2.1 (a)	Absconds	0
2.1 (b)	Temporary Release: Inadequate Risk Assessment	0
2.1 (c)	Release of Prisoner in Error	0
2.1 (d)	Failure to Provide Accurate Daily Report	0
2.1 (e)	Failure to input basic Details into Prisoner Records	0
2.1 (f)	Failure to Process Accurate Warrant Details	10
2.1 (g)	Discovery within Prison of Smuggled-in-Items	175
2.1 (h)	Key/Lock Compromise	0
2.2 (c)	Incident of Concerted Indiscipline	20
2.2 (d)	Incident of Hostage Taking	0
2.2 (e)	Incident of Roof Climbing	0
2.2 (f)	Incident of Self Harm	15
2.2 (g)	Incident of Class 'A' Drugs	400
2.2 (h)	Incident of Drugs Other than Class 'A'	60
2.2 (i)	Contingency Planning Exercise (non-completion)	0
2.2 (j)	Fire Evacuation Exercise (non-completion)	0
2.2 (k)	Failure to Comply with Agreed Reporting Procedures	10
2.2 (l)	Tool/Implement Loss (Recovered)	4
2.2 (m)	Tool/Implement Loss (Not recovered)	12
2.3 (a)	Failure to Provide Timeous Medical Assistance	0
2.3 (b)	Failure to see Medical Officer on Admission	0
2.3 (c)	Failure to Provide Meal	0
2.3 (d)	Failure to Comply with Health & Safety and Hygiene Requirements/Legislation	0
2.3 (e)	Failure to Respond to Prisoner Complaint Timeously	0
2.3 (f)	Substantiated Complaints against Staff	0
2.3 (g)	Failure to Comply with Cleaning Schedule	0
2.3 (h)	Failure to Repair (Equipment and Services)	0
2.3 (i)	Failure to Repair (Accommodation & other Areas of Prison	0
2.4 (c)	Failure to Deliver Education Hours (76-95%)	0
	Failure to Deliver Education Hours (66-75%)	0
	Failure to Deliver Education Hours (56-65%)	0
	Failure to Deliver Education Hours ( Less than or equal to 55%)	0
2.4 (f)	Failure to Provide Sentence Planning	0
2.4 (g)	Failure to Provide Prisoner Compacts	0
2.4 (h)	Failure to Deliver Offending Behaviour Programmes	0
2.5 (a)	Failure to Deliver Pre-Release Programmes	0
2.5 (b)	Visits - Failure to Start within 20 mins. of Visitor Arriving	4
2.5 (c)	Prisoner Not Visited by Legal Advisor	0
2.6	Failure to Report/Incorrect Reporting of any Performance Measure	0

We have made no commitment to continue to fund BNSF pathfinder schemes after the programme ends in 2003-04. We are considering how the regeneration resources identified in the 2003-06 budget can be used to take forward our commitments in the Community Regeneration Statement and further announcements will follow in due course.