Sir David Henshaw’s report waspublished in July 2006 together with the UK Government’s response, A fresh start:child support redesign-the Government’s response to Sir David Henshaw. The responsetakes the form of a consultation document, seeking views on the wide range of issuesraised. It acknowledges that any proposed legislative changes within devolved competencewould be for the Scottish Parliament. A white paper will be published in the autumn.

Scottish ministers welcome thefocus in the consultation paper on child welfare and on reducing child poverty.Executive officials are discussing with the Department for Work and Pensions thepossible implications of the redesign of the child support agency for devolved responsibilities,in areas such as child poverty, birth registration policy, the role of the courts,and provision of family support services.

The figures given in the answer to question S2W-26055 on 1 June 2006, were on the basis of year of conviction or acquittalwhereas those given in the answer to question S2W-26525 on 14 June 2006, were byyear of sentence or acquittal. The small differences in the totals given thereforereflect cases where conviction was in one year but sentence was deferred to a lateryear. A police force area breakdown, consistent with the totals for convictionsgiven in reply to question S2W-26525, is given in the following tables.

Persons Prosecutedfor Rape Offences¹, by Police Force Area, 1996-97 to 2004-05

Police Force Area	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
	Number Proceeded Against
Central	6	3	3	10	3	1	4	1	7
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1	-	3	2	2	1	2	3
Fife	5	6	16	5	2	8	7	2	10
Grampian	10	3	9	6	2	4	4	5	6
Lothian and Borders	15	14	14	13	14	18	14	18	20
Northern	2	3	1	3	-	3	5	3	8
Strathclyde	33	26	18	13	24	24	19	34	28
Tayside	6	5	5	2	5	7	4	12	6
Scotland2	78	61	66	55	52	67	58	78	88
	Number with a Charge Proved
Central	2	-	3	2	1	-	2	1	1
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1	-	1	2	1	1	-	-
Fife	1	4	10	1	1	5	5	1	9
Grampian	6	-	5	5	1	2	2	2	3
Lothian and Borders	4	9	5	7	9	11	7	8	10
Northern	-	2	1	3	-	3	4	2	3
Strathclyde	17	10	12	8	11	20	14	16	13
Tayside	4	4	1	-	3	3	2	6	2
Scotland2	35	30	37	27	28	45	37	36	41

 

Persons Prosecutedfor Attempted Rape¹, by Police Force Area, 1996-97 to 2004-05

Police Force Area	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
	Number Proceeded Against
Central	3	1	1	2	1	2	2	2	2
Dumfries and Galloway	-	1	-	1	-	-	1	-	-
Fife	3	6	1	6	4	5	2	1	2
Grampian	2	1	2	3	-	2	3	1	4
Lothian and Borders	5	8	2	5	5	7	3	5	3
Northern	1	3	2	1	1	-	-	1	3
Strathclyde	13	14	15	7	14	11	6	15	6
Tayside	4	6	7	6	3	4	4	3	4
Scotland2	31	40	30	31	29	31	21	28	24
	Number with a Charge Proved
Central	3	1	-	-	1	-	2	1	1
Dumfries and Galloway	-	1	-	1	-	-	1	-	-
Fife	3	5	-	3	4	2	1	1	2
Grampian	1	1	-	2	-	1	1	1	3
Lothian and Borders	4	3	1	5	4	7	2	3	3
Northern	1	2	1	1	-	-	-	1	3
Strathclyde	8	8	12	5	11	10	6	9	6
Tayside	2	4	7	4	3	1	3	2	3
Scotland2	22	25	21	21	24	21	16	18	21

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. Includes a small number of cases where police force area is unknown.

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.

The available information, consistentwith the numbers of convictions for rape given in reply to question S2W-27511 answeredon 18 August 2006, is given in the following table.

Persons with a Charge Provedfor Rape¹: Total Number of Charges of Rape which were Proved, byPolice Force Area, 1996-97 to 2004-05

Police Force Area	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
	Number of Convictions
Central	2	-	3	2	1	-	2	1	1
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1	-	1	2	1	1	-	-
Fife	1	4	10	1	1	5	5	1	9
Grampian	6	-	5	5	1	2	2	2	3
Lothian and Borders	4	9	5	7	9	11	7	8	10
Northern	-	2	1	3	-	3	4	2	3
Strathclyde	17	10	12	8	11	20	14	16	13
Tayside	4	4	1	-	3	3	2	6	2
Scotland	35	30	37	27	28	45	37	36	41
	Number of Individual Charges of Rape Proved
Central	2	-	3	3	1	-	3	1	1
Dumfries and Galloway	1	1	-	1	2	2	1	-	-
Fife	1	4	12	1	1	5	7	1	12
Grampian	6	-	8	5	2	2	2	2	4
Lothian and Borders	5	12	6	12	9	13	8	9	12
Northern	-	2	1	3	-	7	5	2	3
Strathclyde	21	11	15	11	13	26	17	20	15
Tayside	6	4	1	-	4	4	2	7	2
Scotland	42	34	46	36	32	59	45	42	49

Note: 1. Where main offence.

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.

The information requested isnot available as the statistics collected centrally on recorded crime, prosecutionsand convictions do not identify victim characteristics unless this is implied bythe specific charge involved.

The internet filter softwareutilised by the Scottish Parliament does not automatically classify allwebsites with metatags relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)issues as pornographic. The filtering technology uses several methods of textanalysis, image analysis and linkage analysis to classify websitesautomatically. Even with the sophisticated analysis techniques used, there canbe no guarantee that the filtering software will not wrongly categorise sites. Ifthe member feels that a site has been incorrectly categorised, he is invited tocontact the BIT helpdesk.

Scottish Planning Policy threestates that planning authorities should identify suitable locations for Gypsies/Travellerssites where need is identified in the local housing strategy.

In addition, we have made £3million funding available to cover the threeyear period from financial year 2005-06 to year 2007-08, to local authorities to create or improve sites for Gypsies/Travellers.

Copies of the code areprovided to all ministers. Individual ministers are responsible for ensuringthat they follow the guidance in the code in order to uphold the highest standardsin public life and are ultimately accountable to Parliament.

I can confirm that civil servantsin the geographic information services are fully aware of the position that the Executive has no plans to link the citizen entitlement card to any national identityregister or similar database as confirmed in my stated answer to S2W-19893.All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the parliament’s website the search facilityfor which can be found at www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I can confirm the Scottish Executivehas no plans to link the citizen entitlement cards with address-based data in anycentral (UK) government data initiatives.

In relation to Scotland, thecitizen entitlement card is connected to address based data to facilitate card management.This is an essential part of any card management system and no different to existingsystems.

I understand that the Departmentfor Education and Skills has accepted the recommendation from the Citizen InformationProject to consider whether there is scope for a child population register and iscurrently considering the position. No decision has yet been taken to establishsuch a register.

We have no plans for a children’sindex as has been legislated for in England under the Children Act 2004. Rather than hosting a single,central database with basic information on all children, our approach is that informationis shared between authenticated practitioners on a need to know basis, via the eCareFramework.