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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-30055

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what funding it has provided for the rehabilitation of offenders addicted to (a) alcohol and (b) drugs in each year since 1999.

The Scottish Executive has providedfunding to local authorities for the rehabilitation of offenders with substancemisuse problems in two main ways:

The following figures are forsection 27(1) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 which provides funding both for those offenderssubject to community disposals and those discharged from custody, excluding thecosts of specific court orders such as Drug Treatment and Testing Orders or drugcourts. Information for years 1999-2000 and 200-01 is not available.

In addition, £6.8 million perannum was provided to local authorities in financial years 2001-02 to 2003-04 specificallyto support drug rehabilitation services, to which offenders in the community willhave had access. Thereafter this funding was incorporated into Grant Aided Expenditure(GAE).

	2001-02 (£)	2002-03 (£)	2003-04 (£)	2004-05 (£)	2005-06 (£)	2006-07 (£)
Alcohol	201,742	238,694	247,291	253,291	259,623	259,623
Drugs	313,067	469,482	482,189	614,597	654,373	654,373
Total (alcohol and drug addiction)	514,089	708,176	729,480	867,888	1,813,996	1,813,996

Question reference: S2W-30054

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what rehabilitation programmes have been in place for individuals discharged from custody with (a) alcohol addiction and (b) alcohol or drug addiction in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The Scottish Executive provideslocal authorities with funding to provide the offender rehabilitation programmes,which they consider necessary in their local areas. Information on the programmesin the form requested is not held centrally. The answer to question S2W-30055 on7 December 2006, sets out the information available centrally.All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website the search facilityfor which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Question reference: S2W-30164

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 24 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 6 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to introduce seasonal cash grants to help low-income families.

Question reference: S2W-30048

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 6 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-26185 by Hugh Henry on 16 June 2006, whether it intends that information on the number of young people undergoing rehabilitation as a result of alcohol misuse will be held centrally and, if so, when this will be achieved.

Question reference: S2W-30051

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 6 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what data it holds on the number of young people aged 16 and under who receive rehabilitation treatment as a result of alcohol misuse.

Question reference: S2W-30026

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 5 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many drivers directly responsible for causing death or injury whilst under the influence of alcohol had a previous conviction for drink driving, broken down by (a) year since 1996 and (b) police force area.

Question reference: S2W-30027

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 5 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people were (a) killed and (b) injured by a driver who was under the influence of alcohol and who also had a previous conviction for drink driving, broken down by (a) year since 1996 and (b) police force area.

The available information onthe numbers of drink-drive accidents and casualties in Scotland is derivedfrom the GB-wide estimates compiled by the Department for Transport. The latestestimates are included at table 22 of Road Accidents Scotland 2005which was published by the Scottish Executive in November 2006, a copy of whichis available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 41118).These and other statistics collected centrally do not include information aboutany previous convictions that drivers involved in drink-drive accidents may have.

Question reference: S2W-29780

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many women’s refuge spaces there were in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

The information requested isnot held centrally. Scottish Women’s Aid can provide information on the number ofrefuge spaces provided by affiliated women’s aid groups over the period requested.

The Executive has invested £12million since 2000 in providing 186 new, upgraded or refurbished refuge spaces,which include over 600 individual bed spaces, and the National Group to AddressViolence Against Women has established a “Domestic Abuse Accommodation and SupportProvision” subgroup which will be considering future need.

Question reference: S2W-30053

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many young people have been charged with committing offences while under the influence of alcohol or drugs in each year since 1999, broken down by police authority area.

Information on the drink or drugsstatus of accused persons is not generally available from the statistics collectedcentrally on court proceedings. The exceptions to this are offences where by definitionthe accused was drunk or under the influence of drink or drugs. The available informationin relation to these offences is given in the following table.

Persons Aged Under 21Proceeded Against in Scottish Courts for Selected Offences¹, byPolice Force Area, 1999-2000 to 2004-05

Police Force Area	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Central	39	52	34	86	68	56
Dumfries and Galloway	19	22	22	31	34	35
Fife	56	55	49	135	77	65
Grampian	173	79	134	129	149	118
Lothian and Borders	91	116	134	174	129	151
Northern	115	40	71	100	101	81
Strathclyde	373	316	310	417	335	366
Tayside	81	57	91	119	115	89
Scotland	947	737	845	1,191	1,008	961

Note: 1. Where main offence includescausing death by careless driving when under influence of drink or drugs, drunkennessor drink driving.

Question reference: S2W-30028

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 20 November 2006
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 4 December 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what the estimated or actual cost has been to the public purse of dealing with individuals who commit drink-driving offences in terms of (a) costs to the courts, (b) associated health resources for dealing with the victims of such offences and (c) police and other emergency services' clean-up and operational time and resources, broken down by year since 1996.

(a) The following table showsestimated court running costs for hearing cases involving drink driving relatedoffences, the majority of which are prosecuted through the courts by way of summarycriminal procedure.

The costs used in the table havebeen estimated by extrapolation from average court running and shrieval costs aspublished by the Scottish Executive in the annual Costs, Sentencing Profiles andthe Scottish Criminal Justice System report published by the Scottish Executivein terms of section 306 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act1995. Costs for 2004-05 have not yet been published.

Prosecution and witness costsare not included in the figures below.

Number of Convictions for Drink-DrivingRelated Offences and Associated Average Court Time Costs

1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
9,843	9,452	8,345	8,527	7,238	7,477	10,688	9,192
£1.1 million	£990,000	£880,000	£810,000	£690,000	£830,000	£1.3 million	£1.2 million

Conviction figures extractedfrom Statistical Bulletin Criminal Justice Series: CrJ/2006/3 published by the ScottishExecutive http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/04/25104019/31.

(b) This information is not held centrally as regards health resources.