- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 March 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how the success of each prison is measured with regard to rehabilitation.
Answer
I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to respond. His response is as follows:It is not possible to measure rehabilitation directly and future behaviour is affected by many factors, many of which occur outwith the prison, but two of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the SPS relate to the work we do to assist prisoner rehabilitation:
Programmes to address offending behaviour; the number of programmes delivered and percentage of those which are fully accredited.Education; the number of learning hours delivered.In addition, the work of SPS in the fields of health, medical, nursing, drugs, work, employability and throughcare, will contribute to rehabilitation by encouraging and helping the prisoner to be more responsible.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 March 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Simpson on 25 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) current average waiting times are and (b) si'e of each waiting list is for prescriptions for (i) methadone and (ii) other drug substitutes in each NHS board and what the equivalent figures were in each of the last five years.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally.Waiting time information for drug misuse treatment is not held consistently by drug services across Scotland. We are, however, currently seeking from Drug Action Teams some local information on waiting times for some drug services as part of the annual corporate planning arrangements.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 March 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 25 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive on the basis of how many samples taken in each catchment area in the proposed Strathmore Nitrate Vulnerable Zone, designation of the 'one was proposed.
Answer
Detailed information about sample numbers and distribution can be found in the report Groundwater nitrate vulnerable zones for Scotland (Parliament's Reference Centre, Bib. number 18567), as detailed in the answer to question S1W-23978 today.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 March 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what the recidivism rates are for each prison and how such rates are measured.
Answer
Recidivism figures were published by the Scottish Executive in February 2001. The study, which looked at a cohort of offenders released in 1995, recorded that 45% were reconvicted within two years.The Scottish Prison Service publishes return to custody figures. These are not recidivism figures but the number of people released from prison, who are returned to custody within a two-year period. The most recent Research Bulletin setting out the figures for those released in 1997 was published in December 2001 (Parliament's Reference Centre, Bib. number 10938).The data is not broken down by establishment, as many offenders do not spend their complete sentence in any one prison.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 February 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Margaret Curran on 21 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to establish a rural version of the Social Inclusion Partnerships initiative and what the reason is for its position on this matter.
Answer
The network of 48 Social Inclusion Partnership's which has been established across Scotland includes both urban and rural areas. Rural areas such as Moray are being supported as well as traditional urban areas, such as Glasgow.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 February 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 20 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-22004 by Cathy Jamieson on 31 January 2002, whether it will give a breakdown of the #6.4 million rural weighting by local authority and per school place in each local authority.
Answer
Twelve local authorities are considered as delivering pre-school education in "very rural" areas, i.e. areas where more than 15% of the population live in communities of less than 1,000. The "rural" allocations which form part of the 2002-03 local government settlement are shown in the following table. The distribution methodology used took account of the population share of three- and four-year-olds in the 12 authorities concerned.
| Local Authority | Rural Grant |
| Aberdeenshire | £1,348,000 |
| Angus | £370,000 |
| Argyll and Bute | £431,000 |
| Dumfries and Galloway | £827,000 |
| Eilean Siar | £255,000 |
| Highland | £1,207,000 |
| Moray | £310,000 |
| Orkney | £184,000 |
| Perth and Kinross | £489,000 |
| Scottish Borders | £506,000 |
| Shetland | £258,000 |
| Stirling | £242,000 |
| Scotland | £6,427,000 |
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 February 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 20 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many times its Ministerial Committee on Rural Development has met, what the date of each meeting was, what items were discussed at each meeting and who attended each meeting.
Answer
Thirteen meetings of the Ministerial Committee on Rural Development were held during the period from 1 September 1999 to November 2001: on 1 September, 5 October, and 25 November 1999; 31 January, 13 March, 5 April, 6 September and 8 November 2000; 30 January, 26 March, 14 June, 11 September and 14 November 2001. In January 2002, the name of the committee was changed to the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Rural Development, with the following membership: the Minister for Environment and Rural Development, the Minister for Social Justice, the Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning, the Minister for Finance and Public Services, Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development and the Deputy Minister for Tourism Culture and Sport. Details of the membership of Cabinet Sub-Committees are available on the Scottish Executive website. So far this year the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Rural Development has met once, on 5 February 2002. All meetings discussed a variety of issues that impact on Rural Development in Scotland.As indicated in the Guide to Collective Decision Making, a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 5884) and on the Scottish Executive website, the Executive operates on the basis of collective responsibility and does not disclose details of the internal processes through which decisions have been made. For that reason, the Executive does not normally comment on which ministers attended specific meetings.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 01 March 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 15 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many fishing vessel owners to date have accepted decommissioning funds; how many vessels these funds applied to; how many vessels have been subsequently scrapped, and in what location these vessels were scrapped.
Answer
As of 4 March, the owners of 80 fishing vessels have accepted decommissioning grant offers under the Fishing Vessels (Decommissioning) (Scotland) Scheme 2001, out of 102 vessels currently subject to grant offers. Of these vessels, 70 have submitted, and had approved, plans to begin the decommissioning process. Nine vessels have been scrapped so far: four in Scotland, two in England, two in Northern Ireland and one in Denmark.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 February 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 8 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what consultations it has had with further education establishments over the new measures of student activity on which the Scottish Further Education Funding Council's (SFEFC) funding formula will be based and which were announced by the SFEFC on 8 February 2002.
Answer
The Scottish Further Education Funding Council, which is responsible for these matters, developed the new approach to measuring student activity.
- Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 11 February 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 8 March 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what models were set up to estimate the impact on further education establishments of the new measures of student activity on which the Scottish Further Education Funding Council's (SFEFC) funding formula will be based and which were announced by the SFEFC on 8 February 2002.
Answer
Given the large number of matters under consideration and potential outcome permutations, it was not practical for SFEFC to estimate the impact of everything being consulted on.The council has indicated that it now proposes to work closely with colleges in preparing an implementation plan, if necessary making adjustments to aspects of these proposals; and that it will not expect any college to have to manage a significant funding change in just one year.
