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No. The updated guidelinesfor supervised bail identify certain priority groups for this measure but subjectto considerations of public safety and capacity issues do not preclude other accusedfrom being granted supervised bail. The decision on whether an accused person shouldbe bailed or remanded is for the court to make.

The forecast liability for policepensions depends on assumptions about the numbers of police officers who actuallyretire when they are entitled to assumptions made about police rates of pay andestimates of pension entitlements. As a result, the forecasts can vary quite widely.The latest estimates provided by the Association of Chief Police Officers inScotland (ACPOS) for the total pensions liability for 2008-09 are as follows:

Central Scotland Police	£8.5 million
Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary	 £4.5 million
Fife Police	£10.5 million
Grampian Police	£13.0 million
Lothian and Borders Police	£35.1 million
Northern Constabulary	£8.7 million
Strathclyde Police	£100.6 million
Tayside Police	£17.1 million

 

A similar breakdown is not availablefor future years but ACPOS estimate the total liability to be £232 million in 2009-10and £215 million in 2010-11.

As the Cabinet Secretary forFinance and Sustainable Development announced in his statement to Parliament on14 December, funding for police pensions is included within the overall Local GovernmentSettlement.

The Project Board for the Reviewof Civil Judicial Statistics last met on 13 April 2006.Correspondence with the board has occurred since this meeting via email, with themost recent communication taking place during summer 2007.

As part of the review, researchhas recently been carried out with users, and potential users, of civil judicialstatistics, to identify their data requirements and suggestions for a revised Civil Judicial Statistics publication. The next step for the review is to considereach of the responses submitted as part of this research, and develop a specificationfor the revised dataset and publication. The first draft of this specification isexpected to be produced by spring 2008.

Further details of the Reviewof Civil Judicial Statistics can be found at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/review-civjudicial-stats.

Support is provided tofamilies experiencing difficulties with contact issues through funding of thefour national family support organisations - Relate Scotland, Family MediationScotland, Stepfamily Scotland and Scottish Marriage Care - as well as 13 localfamily mediation services. Family support work aims to reduce conflict and healrelationships where possible and where parental relationships have broken downirretrievably to support parents in developing child contact and maintenancearrangements which protect the health and best interests of children.

Pilot projects to place a FamilyContact Facilitator in two sheriff courts were developed and terms of referenceagreed with sheriffs. Unfortunately, the procurement exercise did not attract atender which met the specifications. It was therefore not possible to let the contractand proceed with the pilot.

The proposed pilot projects wereto run in two sheriff courts and therefore agreement was reached with relevant sheriffson the terms of reference. Voluntary sector bodies - Scottish Women’s Aid, FamiliesNeed Fathers and Children 1st - were given the opportunity to comment before the procurementprocess began.

These figures are not availablecentrally. However, the Scottish Court Service (SCS) is working with Justice AnalyticalServices to improve the accuracy and level of detail of the civil judicial statisticsit collects, and as part of this work SCS has recently begun recording more informationabout craves in actions raised. This will enable researchers to identify all courtactions initiated in 2008 onwards in which child contact is craved by the pursuer,and therefore which records to access for further information.

We intend to allocate the majorityof resources in the Drugs Misuse budget within the Justice portfolio for the period2008-09 to 2010-11 to health boards to fund drug treatment and rehabilitation services,with a small amount being retained to fund centrally determined projects. A decisionon the breakdown of funding will be made following parliamentary approval of thebudget, and monies for 2008-9 will be released to health boards at the beginningof the 2008-09 financial year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-7911 on 17 January 2008. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at .

We have appointedIPSOS Mori to conduct an independent evaluation of the free school meal trial forprimary 1 to 3 pupils. We will take into account the findings of the evaluationincluding the change in uptake of free school meals by primary 1 to 3 pupils andany other changes in attitudes and behaviours in relation to free school meals andhealthy eating that are evident within the trial period. We expect to receive thereport on the evaluation next summer. These findings will be set within the contextof the wider research literature and evidence base on school meals and healthy eatingby children and families.