Questions and answers

Question reference: S2W-09297

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 12 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many drug offences were committed in each of the last five years, broken down by sheriff court district.

The information available centrally on drug offences recorded by the police relates to unitary authorities. Information for each of the last five years is given in the following table:

Drug Crimes Recorded by the Police by Council Area, Scotland, 1999 to 2003

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Aberdeen City	1,617	1,334	1,550	2,071	1,689
Aberdeenshire	717	724	787	757	741
Angus	458	306	401	489	520
Argyll and Bute	372	450	389	512	584
Clackmannanshire	232	234	295	351	336
Dumfries and Galloway	700	448	649	775	919
Dundee City	738	707	904	1,167	1,307
East Ayrshire	773	787	785	950	910
East Dunbartonshire	284	318	465	460	479
East Lothian	208	340	217	507	371
East Renfrewshire	312	428	342	296	316
Edinburgh, City of	2,927	2,858	3,118	3,863	3,008
Eilean Siar (W.Isles)	83	47	112	94	93
Falkirk	680	624	844	831	882
Fife	1,508	1,248	1,645	1,944	1,804
Glasgow City	7,791	8,845	9,388	9,330	10,100
Highland	1,296	926	1,370	1,434	1,605
Inverclyde	769	901	995	1,145	1,040
Midlothian	326	402	404	444	378
Moray	288	261	261	324	355
North Ayrshire	721	845	872	1,054	1,041
North Lanarkshire	2,175	1,817	2,197	3,105	2,960
Orkney Islands	58	29	27	41	64
Perth and Kinross	784	611	745	959	1,071
Renfrewshire	1,198	1,073	1,224	1,212	1,205
Scottish Borders	719	733	661	647	618
Shetland Islands	95	82	98	87	80
South Ayrshire	752	537	896	992	722
South Lanarkshire	1,482	1,512	1,864	1,733	2,397
Stirling	385	427	838	735	727
West Dunbartonshire	515	712	666	941	1,114
West Lothian	907	865	1,166	1,129	1,029
All Scotland	31,870	31,431	36,175	40,379	40,465

Question reference: S2W-09491

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 12 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-16169 by Mr Jim Wallace on 14 June 2002, how many crimes and offences involving firearms were recorded in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S2W-09300

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Frank McAveety on 8 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what the net expenditure on public libraries was in each of the last three years, broken down by local authority.

Net expenditure on library service for 2001-02 and 2002-03, and estimated expenditure for 2003-04, is show, by local authority, in the table below:

Council	Actual 2001-02 Net Expenditure (£000)	Actual 2002-03 Net Expenditure (£000)	Budget Estimate 2003-04 Net Expenditure (£000)
Aberdeen	3,002	3,550	3,780
Aberdeenshire	3,184	3,048	3,959
Angus	1,633	1,664	1,835
Argyll and Bute	1,236	1,332	1,160
Clackmannanshire	836	748	862
Dumfries and Galloway	2,340	2,576	2,466
Dundee	3,582	3,812	3,949
East Ayrshire	2,005	1,924	1,987
East Dunbartonshire	2,553	2,398	2,648
East Lothian	1,357	1,377	1,363
East Renfrewshire	1,853	1,972	1,992
Edinburgh	9,163	10,150	10,637
Eilean Siar	698	660	744
Falkirk	2,512	2,586	2,863
Fife	6,011	6,287	6,747
Glasgow	10,947	10,100	13,005
Highland	3,535	3,860	4,301
Inverclyde	1,322	1,345	1,353
Midlothian	1,178	1,181	1,163
Moray	1,501	1,584	1,679
North Ayrshire	2,003	2,407	2,833
North Lanarkshire	5,678	5,546	5,745
Orkney	1,245	2,045	664
Perth and Kinross	2,906	3,061	3,097
Renfrewshire	3,742	3,885	3,847
Scottish Borders	1,459	1,461	1,579
Shetland	781	873	983
South Ayrshire	1,721	1,834	1,873
South Lanarkshire	5,753	5,357	4,944
Stirling	1,665	1,710	1,793
West Dunbartonshire	1,787	2,223	2,327
West Lothian	1,851	1,959	2,005

Question reference: S2W-09298

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Frank McAveety on 8 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) domestic and (b) overseas tourists have visited Scotland in each of the last three years, broken down by tourist board area.

The number of domestic and overseas visitors to each of the area tourist board (ATB) areas in Scotland in the last three years for which data is available is as follows:

	(millions)
2000	2001	2002
Domestic	Overseas	Total	Domestic	Overseas	Total	Domestic	Overseas	Total
Aberdeen and Grampian	1.91	0.17	2.08	1.54	0.13	1.67	1.83	0.15	1.98
Angus and Dundee	0.80	0.05	0.85	0.58	0.05	0.63	0.56	0.05	0.61
AILLST*	2.54	0.19	2.73	2.24	0.19	2.43	2.42	0.21	2.63
Ayrshire and Arran	0.87	0.09	0.96	1.21	0.08	1.29	0.99	0.07	1.06
Dumfries and Galloway	1.15	0.05	1.20	0.90	0.04	0.94	0.92	0.04	0.96
Edinburgh and Lothians	3.38	0.94	4.32	3.69	0.87	4.56	3.96	0.87	4.83
Gr Glas and Clyde Vall	3.40	0.50	3.90	3.20	0.48	3.68	3.34	0.46	3.80
Highlands of Scotland	2.72	0.41	3.13	2.53	0.36	2.89	2.44	0.36	2.80
Kingdom of Fife	0.82	0.09	0.91	0.75	0.08	0.83	0.73	0.09	0.82
Perthshire	1.22	0.10	1.32	0.94	0.10	1.04	1.06	0.10	1.16
Scottish Borders	0.45	0.03	0.48	0.38	0.04	0.42	0.52	0.04	0.56
Scotland	19.26	2.62	21.88	17.96	2.42	20.38	18.77	2.44	21.21

Notes:

* Argyll, the Isles, Loch Lomond, Stirling and the Trossachs.

1. The total number of visitors to Scotland in 2000, 2001 and 2002 was 20.7 million, 19.1 million and 20.1 million respectively. The table above shows a slightly higher total because a visitor moving between e.g. two ATB areas is counted as making two visits.

2. Due to small sample sizes, there are no area figures for Orkney, Shetland or Western Isles Tourist Boards.

Question reference: S2W-09026

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 8 July 2004

The cost of bank nurses, broken down by NHS board area, is shown in the table below. Information on agency nurses is published in tables E12 to E15 on the Scottish Health Statistics website at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.Table E14 provides a breakdown of agency nurse costs by NHS board area. Information for the year 2003-04 is not currently available.

Table A: Cost of Bank Nursing and Midwifery staff; trend by NHS Board

	Bank Cost
1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03
Total	21,604,589	24,887,686	31,262,459	38,964,926
Qualified	12,583,106	14,500,531	17,418,060	21,009,771
Argyll and Clyde	1,062,302	916,881	1,433,734	1,439,255
Ayrshire and Arran	597,460	712,906	636,966	670,635
Borders	441,479	388,994	499,133	577,034
Dumfries and Galloway	26,108	52,375	131,702	112,050
Fife	816,222	1,017,115	993,307	1,353,110
Forth Valley	285,853	357,867	490,591	1,223,219
Grampian	1,816,785	2,231,590	2,183,714	2,453,245
Greater Glasgow	2,205,412	2,669,129	3,014,238	3,889,517
Highland	701,147	867,490	1,057,952	1,153,761
Lanarkshire	509,310	853,111	790,805	1,271,099
Lothian	2,892,078	3,169,205	4,827,831	5,399,373
Orkney	72,737	92,516	164,120	182,335
Shetland	79,335	90,038	100,874	141,900
Tayside	887,211	906,948	950,294	871,909
Western Isles	103,215	158,853	128,788	213,512
Special Health Boards	69,780	10,803	8,614	46,711
Unqualified	9,021,483	10,387,155	13,844,399	17,955,155
Argyll and Clyde	610,977	589,300	1,099,805	1,227,354
Ayrshire and Arran	841,888	1,099,425	1,182,610	1,425,957
Borders	351,405	406,807	519,456	538,621
Dumfries and Galloway	5,307	-	15,413	3,261
Fife	572,585	578,472	624,662	747,370
Forth Valley	190,639	304,281	395,774	1,210,864
Grampian	977,906	1,265,578	1,514,693	1,504,279
Greater Glasgow	1,824,883	2,455,682	3,500,659	4,842,372
Highland	371,654	445,277	558,409	687,574
Lanarkshire	413,156	661,852	762,735	1,117,152
Lothian	2,342,527	1,917,739	2,797,841	3,609,200
Orkney	24,598	26,321	51,865	56,755
Shetland	49,532	51,090	52,765	64,455
Tayside	161,643	470,356	653,401	778,223
Western Isles	59,288	118,029	116,884	149,803
Special Health Boards	240,168	1,655	2,824	3,021

Source: Earning Related Base Of Data

Bank nurses are employees of NHSScotland whilst agency nurses are employed by private nursing agencies and both are utilised by individual NHS employers to cover temporary nursing gaps. These gaps will continue to occur but employers have been encouraged to follow the guidance in Temporary Measures the Accounts Commission for Scotland Report 2000 on reducing usage and costs through a hierarchy of options in which preference for bank is higher than more expensive agency nurses.

The Partnership Agreement commits to implementing nationally co-ordinated nursing bank arrangements in Scotland and a project is currently examining a range of options to reduce the reliance on agency nurses, assist nurse placement across Scotland and improve patient services. This will report in the autumn.

The Scottish Health Workforce Plan 2004 Baseline report published inApril 2004, focuses on our drive to increase our capacity, reduce waiting times,improve outcomes and provide care in new and better ways.

Question reference: S2W-09292

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Tavish Scott on 7 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how much capital debt is owed by each local authority, expressed as also per capita.

Question reference: S2W-09306

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 6 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of all victims of sexual assault in each of the last five years was children.

Question reference: S2W-09191

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 1 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to the key messages of Final Consensus Statement of the Royal College of Physicians' Consensus Conference on Hepatitis C, which patient groups currently have access to treatment for hepatitis C infection and which do not and what the reasons are for any difference in such access.

Question reference: S2W-09195

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 1 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive how many hepatitis C patients there have been in (a) Scotland as a whole and (b) each NHS board area in (i) 1999-2000, (ii) 2000-01, (iii) 2001-02, (iv) 2002-03, (v) 2003-04 and (vi) 2004-05 to date.

The latest available figures are for the year ended 31 December 2003, and are set out in the table below.

Persons in Scotland Reported to be Hepatitis C Antibody-Positive; Number and Rate/100000 Population* by NHS Board and Year of Earliest Positive Specimen to 31 December 2003

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Argyll and Clyde	Number	160	149	128	163	127
Rate/100,000	37.6	35.2	30.4	38.9	30.5
Ayrshire and Arran	Number	119	145	103	145	149
Rate/100,000	31.8	38.8	28.0	39.5	40.6
Borders	Number	3	8	5	11	13
Rate/100,000	2.8	7.5	4.7	10.2	12.0
Dumfries and Galloway	Number	34	57	88	54	46
Rate/100,000	23.2	39.1	59.5	36.7	31.2
Fife	Number	62	66	63	37	30
Rate/100,000	17.8	18.8	18.0	10.6	8.5
Forth Valley	Number	86	98	81	91	67
Rate/100,000	31.0	35.3	29.0	32.6	24.0
Grampian	Number	278	381	343	341	320
Rate/100,000	52.9	72.8	65.2	65.2	61.1
Greater Glasgow	Number	753	701	644	845	576
Rate/100,000	83.1	77.5	74.2	97.6	66.5
Highland	Number	41	34	47	43	44
Rate/100,000	19.7	16.3	22.5	20.7	21.0
Lanarkshire	Number	110	131	95	180	124
Rate/100,000	19.6	23.3	17.2	32.6	22.4
Lothian	Number	186	266	209	181	103
Rate/100,000	23.9	33.9	26.8	23.2	13.2
Orkney	Number	0	0	1	2	0
Rate/100,000	0.0	0.0	5.2	10.4	0.0
Shetland	Number	1	5	2	3	3
Rate/100,000	4.4	22.3	9.1	13.7	13.7
Tayside	Number	128	134	95	229	177
Rate/100,000	33.0	34.8	24.4	59.1	45.8
Western Isles	Number	0	0	0	0	0
Rate/100,000	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Scotland	Number	1961	2175	1904	2325	1779
Rate/100,000	38.3	42.5	37.6	46.0	35.2

Source: The Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health, Glasgow, Scotland – 24 June 2004.

Note:

*Based on population estimates at 30 June of given year.

Question reference: S2W-09189

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 18 June 2004
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 1 July 2004

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on the first key message of Final Consensus Statement of the Royal College of Physicians' Consensus Conference on Hepatitis C that “the hepatitis C epidemic is a public health crisis”.

The Executive agrees with the Final Consensus Statement that Hepatitis C poses a significant and growing problem. Vigorous, concerted action is needed to address the challenges it presents in relation to both prevention and treatmentand care. Already, therefore, and building on the framework set out in the Scottish Needs Assessment Report, published in August 2000, the Executive has introduced a range of measures, a number of which recognise that the main means of transmission is through injecting drug misuse, including:

allocating over £8 million annually to NHS Boards for action to prevent the spread of bloodborne viruses, including Hepatitis C;

revising the Lord Advocate’s guidelines to permit a substantial increase in the number of needles and syringes, which can be supplied to drug misusers;

issuing a range of information materials to drug services and prisons across Scotland to highlight the risks from injecting, including from Hepatitis C;

investing an additional £34 million over the last three years to expand and improve treatment and rehabilitation services for drug misusers. Allocations to NHS boards for 2004-05 for drug treatment services rose by £2.8 million, to £19.75 million, compared to 2003-04. This recognises that research from both Scotland and England indicates that getting people into treatment for their drug problems leads to significant health gains, reduced use of illegal drugs and injecting, and, in consequence, less risk of infections like Hepatitis C;

issuing Hepatitis C materials for professionals and patients;

funding the establishment of a national clinical database of patients diagnosed with hepatitis to help evaluate the effectiveness of treatment;

giving grant towards the UK Hepatitis C Resource Centre Scotland, which is based in Glasgow and offers support and advice on testing and treatment to those affected by Hepatitis C, and

funding of some £300,000 from 2002 from the Executive’s Effective Interventions Unit for research, which aims to find better and more creative ways of changing behaviour among injecting drug users. eHep

To bring further coherence and impetus to this programme of activity, the Executive will shortly publish an action plan, setting out the action currently in train and the additional measures it proposes, including further materials for health professionals and steps to raise public awareness, with a particular focus on groups most at risk.

	Financial Year
1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03^P
Crimes and offences involving firearms	1,066	982	970	1,000	979

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