Seòmar agus comataidhean

Figures for driving prosecutions involving drugs alone are not available. However, the number of persons proceeded against for drink or drug driving offences in the years 2003-04 to 2005-06 is given in the following table.

Persons Proceeded Against for Drink/Drug driving Offences^1,2 in Scottish Courts, by Approximate Local Authority³, 2003-04 to 2005-06

Local Authority Area	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Aberdeen City	66	73	68
Aberdeenshire	20	31	27
Angus	25	18	27
Argyll and Bute	13	20	25
Clackmannanshire	8	6	9
Dumfries and Galloway	35	48	46
Dundee City	58	36	23
East Ayrshire	41	46	44
East Dunbartonshire	-	-	-
East Lothian	25	14	10
East Renfrewshire	-	-	-
Edinburgh, City of	87	94	91
Eilean Siar	8	9	6
Falkirk	48	38	33
Fife	74	84	58
Glasgow City	222	220	224
Highland	78	87	79
Inverclyde	30	30	20
Midlothian	-	-	-
Moray	21	20	15
North Ayrshire	-	-	-
North Lanarkshire	44	47	34
Orkney Islands	7	5	5
Perth and Kinross	28	45	33
Renfrewshire	44	45	60
Scottish Borders	24	23	21
Shetland Islands	7	2	3
South Ayrshire	42	43	30
South Lanarkshire	78	89	113
Stirling	27	21	24
West Dunbartonshire	48	59	48
West Lothian	48	32	51
Scotland4	1,256	1,285	1,228

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. Includes the offences of driving motor vehicle while unfit through drink or drugs, in charge of a motor vehicle while unfit through drink or drugs, failure to provide a breath specimen at the roadside, and failure to provide a breath, blood or urine specimen at police station.

3. Incorporates an approximate mapping of sheriff courts into local authority areas. Some sheriff courts will deal with cases from more than one local authority area. Some local authority areas, including East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Midlothian and North Ayrshire, do not contain a sheriff court.

4. Includes courts which could not be mapped to approximate local authority areas.

Scotland at present has no system of sentencing guidelines. However, the Scottish Government believes that there is a case for guidelines to deliver more consistent and transparent sentencing and for setting up a sentencing council to create them. We consider that there needs to be further consultation and dialogue with key interests, principally the judiciary, on this issue.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-11224 on 7 April 2008. 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/wa.search.

Yes. Schedule 1 of the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002 states that keeping fingernails and toenails trimmed should not be charged for.

This information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

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/wa.search.

All answers to oral parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s Official Report website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/index.htm.

Transport Scotland is currently reviewing the funding options available for the Forth replacement crossing.

A decision on this matter will be made later in 2008.

Under the terms of our concordat with local government, local authorities will provide free school meals to all P1 to P3 pupils from August 2010, if the evaluation of the current trial is positive and the necessary legislation is passed by the Parliament.

We will be providing local government with record levels of funding over the period covered by the spending review 2008-11. The vast majority of the funding will be provided by means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities having first fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government''s key strategic objectives and the full terms of the concordat, which includes the provision of free school meals for P1 to P3 from 2010.

The Scottish Government is committed to introducing an alternative funding mechanism to the traditional costly standard form of PFI, in the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT). We have already stated that PPP could continue as one of several delivery options open to public sector bodies whilst the SFT is being developed. Where PPP is to be used, the preferred option is for procuring bodies to follow the non-profit distributing (NPD) model. This provides for capped equity returns thus ending the very high gains seen in the standard PFI model via the secondary market. The NPD model was piloted successfully in the Scottish schools projects and is now being developed in the health and transport sectors.

The standard form of PFI developed across the UK has not been used in Scotland for any projects which have commenced from May 2007 onwards. Whilst the Scottish Futures Trust is being developed we are now using as a preference, the non-profit distributing (NPD) model of PPP. Since May 2007, only one NPD project has commenced, the Tayside mental health development in Perth.