Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S2W-13873

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 10 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-13056 by Hugh Henry on 24 January 2005, how many crimes of carrying a knife were recorded in (a) Scotland, (b) Aberdeen, (c) Dundee, (d) Edinburgh, (e) Glasgow and (f) Stirling in each year since 1997.

The available information for the relevant crime categories in the ScottishExecutive Justice Department classification of crimes and offences is given for the years 1997 and 1998 in the following tables. For information for the years 1999 to 2002, I refer the member to the answer given to S2W-1085 answered on 22 July 2003. For the equivalent information for 2003, I refer the member to the answer to S2W-11534 on 11 November 2004. 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.

Crimes of Possession of an Offensive Weapon and Having in a Public Place an Article with a Blade or a Point, Recorded by the Police in 1997 and 1998

1997	Possession of an Offensive Weapon¹	Having in a Public Place an Article with a Blade or Point	Total
Scotland	4,079	1,901	5,980
Aberdeen	145	56	201
Dundee	209	86	295
Edinburgh	190	142	332
Glasgow	1,112	653	1,765
Stirling	41	13	54

1998	Possession of an Offensive Weapon	Having in a Public Place an Article with a Blade or Point	Total
Scotland	4,342	2,397	6,739
Aberdeen	134	46	180
Dundee	273	71	344
Edinburgh	213	142	355
Glasgow	1,279	941	2,220
Stirling	49	12	61

Note: 1. Knives cannot be identified separately from other types of offensive weapon in the data held for this crime category.

Question reference: S2W-13851

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 9 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what weight will be given to the number of cancelled train services when assessing the performance of First ScotRail.

The ScotRail franchise agreement contains a number of benchmarks against which the operator’s performance is measured and assessed. Included in these benchmarks is a limit on the number of services which may be cancelled in any given period. Failure to meet the performance benchmarks will lead to penalty payments being imposed on the operator and could ultimately lead to breaches of the contract and default by the franchisee.

Question reference: S2W-13236

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 8 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has regarding the number of CCTV cameras that were installed during each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Information is held centrally on CCTV cameras funded through the CCTV and Make Our Communities Safer Challenge Competitions which ran consecutively over a six year period ending in March 2002. We awarded funding of £10.3 million through these competitions for the installation of 2,102 cameras as shown in the followingtable.

Year	Number of Cameras
1996-97	341
1997-98	383
1998-99	208
1999-2000	226
2000-01	720
2001-02	224

Question reference: S2W-13872

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 8 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-13055 by Hugh Henry on 24 January 2005, how many people were sentenced to custody as a result of convictions for carrying a knife in (a) Scotland, (b) Aberdeen, (c) Dundee, (d) Edinburgh, (e) Glasgow and (f) Stirling in each year since 1997.

The available information is given in the table.

Custodial convictions in Scottish Courts for handling an offensive weapon¹, by selected area, 1997 to 2002

Area	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002³
Possession of an offensive weapon²
Aberdeen	2	3	5	4	9	3
Dundee	10	13	14	7	6	8
Edinburgh	13	19	18	19	17	19
Glasgow	99	85	112	121	140	123
Stirling	2	2	-	-	1	2
Scotland	213	207	214	254	292	257
Having in a public place an article with a blade or point
Aberdeen	2	1	6	1	8	5
Dundee	7	14	8	10	17	12
Edinburgh	38	35	28	29	32	38
Glasgow	138	115	134	155	128	178
Stirling	6	2	1	-	3	2
Scotland	330	298	296	348	359	417
Total
Aberdeen	4	4	11	5	17	8
Dundee	17	27	22	17	23	20
Edinburgh	61	54	46	48	49	57
Glasgow	237	200	246	276	268	301
Stirling	8	4	1	-	4	4
Scotland	543	505	510	602	651	674

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. Knives cannot be identified separately from other types of offensive weapon in the data held for this crime category.

3. Figures may be underestimates due to time taken to record details of some court proceedings.

Question reference: S2W-13845

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 7 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the total cost was of administering social inclusion partnerships in each year since 1999.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The total amounts claimed for administering social inclusion partnerships in each year from 1999 up to 2003-04 are shown in the table below. Figures for the current financial year are not yet available.

Year	Total Administration Costs (£)
1999-2000	845,407
2000-01	952,490
2001-02	1,045,911
2002-03	1,194,720
2003-04	1,242,249

Question reference: S2W-13241

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many police officers it expects to be employed in 2014-15.

While recruitment of police officers is an operational matter for chief constables, the most recent spending review in 2004 provided for sufficient resources to deliver our Partnership Agreement commitment to increase the number of police officers during this parliamentary session. Police numbers in future years, including 2014-15, will of course be dependent on the outcome of future spending reviews and the future decisions of chief constables.

Question reference: S2W-13591

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 7 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage share of (a) male and (b) female births were children registered with (i) a single forename, (ii) two forenames, (iii) three forenames, (iv) four forenames, (v) more than four forenames and (vi) no forename in each of the last five years.

The information requested is presented in the table:

Male births registered 2000-04

	Number of Forenames
	1	2	3	4	5+	None
2000	16.83%	66.76%	15.14%	1.14%	0.13%	-
2001	16.74%	66.64%	15.45%	1.03%	0.13%	0.00%¹
2002	16.65%	66.18%	15.93%	1.09%	0.14%	-
2003	16.55%	66.17%	16.00%	1.14%	0.13%	-
2004²	16.64%	65.36%	16.63%	1.21%	0.16%	-

Female Births Registered 2000-04

	Number of Forenames
	1	2	3	4	5+	None
2000	24.45%	63.35%	11.29%	0.76%	0.14%	-
2001	25.01%	63.35%	10.81%	0.73%	0.10%	-
2002	24.53%	63.47%	11.12%	0.79%	0.08%	-
2003	23.94%	63.41%	11.64%	0.88%	0.13%	-
2004²	23.94%	63.20%	11.90%	0.84%	0.12%	-

Notes:

1. For one birth, no forename was reported.

2. Provisional.

Question reference: S2W-13590

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 7 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) male and (b) female births there were in each of the last five years.

The information requested is presented in the table:

Number of Births Registered 2000-04

	Males	Females
2000	27,196	25,880
2001	26,786	25,741
2002	26,218	25,052
2003	26,906	25,526
2004*	27,768	26,186

*Provisional.

Question reference: S2W-13592

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 7 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what the maximum number is of (a) forenames, (b) characters in all forenames combined, (c) characters in surnames, (d) characters in forenames and surnames combined that computer systems can record when births are registered.

Question reference: S2W-13251

Asked by: Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 January 2005
Current Status: Answered by Nicol Stephen on 4 February 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many road miles were covered in each of the last five years for which figures are available by (a) private vehicles, (b) commercial vehicles and (c) other powered vehicles.

Estimates of the total volume of traffic on the roads of Scotland, and of other parts of Great Britain, are prepared by the Department for Transport. The latest year for which these estimates have been produced is 2003. Table 6.3 of Scottish Transport Statistics number 23/2004 edition, copies of which are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 33706), gives the figures which are available, for each year from 1993 to 2003 inclusive. The table shows the total distance (expressed in terms of millions of kilometres) covered by each of the different types of vehicle for which these estimates are available.