Chamber and committees

I understand that certain sectors of the fishing industry are having difficulty in retaining crew members. We expect that the impact of the Executive's decommissioning scheme on the viability and profitability of vessels will assist in attracting crews.

The term "registered drug addict" no longer exists. Information on the numbers of people misusing drugs is not held centrally. However the Scottish Executive has commissioned the Centre for Drugs Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow to conduct a prevalence study to estimate the number of problem drug misusers at national and local level. The results of this study will be available shortly.

The following table shows the number of new individual patients reported to the Scottish Drug Misuse Database for the year ending 31 March 2000, as a percentage of the national figure and as a proportion of the population in each area.

Number of New Patients/Clients reported to Scottish Drug Misuse Database 1-4

	No. of New Patients	% of Scotland figures	Proportion of population. 15-54 years
Scotland	11 237	100%	0.4%
By Heath Board of Residence
Argyll and Clyde	1 255	11.2%	0.5%
Ayrshire and Arran	1 181	10.5%	0.6%
Borders	80	0.7%	0.1%
Dumfries and Galloway	199	1.8%	0.3%
Fife	434	3.9%	0.2%
Forth Valley	280	2.5%	0.2%
Grampian	1 348	12.0%	0.5%
Greater Glasgow	3 274	29.1%	0.6%
Highland	124	1.1%	0.1%
Lanarkshire	543	4.8%	0.2%
Lothian	2 012	17.9%	0.4%
Orkney	-	0.0%	0.0%
Shetland	17	0.2%	0.1%
Tayside	550	4.9%	0.3%
Western Isles	14	0.1%	0.1%
Outside Scotland	8	0.1%

1. The definition of "new" is (a) the person is attending the particular service for the first time ever, or (b) the person has attended before but not within the previous six months.

2. Misuse of alcohol is reported to the database only if it is used as a secondary drug.

3. All figures exclude penal establishment inmates.

4. As compliance rates for services in each health board area may vary, and reports will depend on the availability of local services, direct comparisons to estimate prevalence may be inappropriate.

Information on the number of people employed specifically to work directly with young offenders is not collected centrally.Information on the number of staff in local authority social work departments is given in the statistical bulletin Staff of Scottish Local Authority Social Work Departments, 1999, published in January 2001 and is available on the Scottish Executive web site. The bulletin provides a local authority staff breakdown for criminal justice social work, but this does not identify the age of the clients.

A decision to ban or limit industrial fishing must be based on scientific evidence. We are working with colleagues in DEFRA to establish the impact of the industrial fisheries on the marine ecosystem, both in terms of bycatch of other fish and the importance of sandeels as a food source for other species. We have had useful discussions with Danish fisheries managers. We have also placed observers on Danish vessels and at Danish ports. We are currently analysing the collected data and we intend to meet again with Danish managers in due course.

There are some 37 GP Out-of-Hours Co-operatives in Scotland - these are not directly funded by the Executive but an Out-of-Hours Development Fund (£5.742 million for 2001-02) is allocated to health boards to support improvements in out-of-hours services, including the development of out-of-hours co-operatives. Details of the funding of individual out-of-hours co-operatives are not held centrally.

The impact of the budget announcement on planned agricultural and other Rural Development and Environment spending is set out in the reply to question S1W-16765.

The following table contains estimates, by police force area, of the weights of Class A and Class B controlled drugs seized within Scotland in operations involving the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency during the period 1 April 2000 to 31 March 2001.

Force	Class A Weight	Class B Weight	Ecstasy Tablets
	Kilos		Thousands
Dumfries & Galloway Constabulary	-	-	10.0
Central Scotland Police	1.9	13.0	0.3
Fife Constabulary	0.8	-	-
Grampian Police	1.6	-	5.0
Lothian & Borders Police	4.7	177.7	24.9
Northern Constabulary	0.5	20.0	-
Strathclyde Police	22.3	139.6	18.4
Tayside Police	3.3	7.7	8.0
Total	35.1	358.0	66.6

Seizures by individual forces would be additional to these amounts.

There will be no projects abandoned or reduced following the announcement of savings on the justice budget.

All wild birds and certain species of animals are protected under a variety of wildlife-related legislation including, amongst others, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981; the Conservation (Natural Habitats &c) Regulations 1994; the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 and the Conservation of Seals Act 1970. In certain strictly regulated circumstances this legislation permits protected wildlife to be taken or killed under licence. There are no charges made for such licences. Certain species may also be legally killed or taken without a licence during the relevant open season.Given the complexity of the information requested, I shall write to the member separately to provide a detailed breakdown of licences issued in the past three years and shall place a copy of this information in the Parliament Reference Centre.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-15496 on 10 July 2001.