Criminal legislation created by Scottish Parliament and Prosecutions: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00431
Date received: 10 February 2018
Date responded: 12 March 2018

Information requested

1. A list of the new criminal offences/crimes created by legislation of the Scottish Parliament since its creation in 1999:

2. Details of how many prosecutions have been taken by the Crown in the Scottish criminal courts in respect of each of the offences in that list:

3. Details of how many of these prosecutions have resulted in convictions:

4. Details of the names of the Scottish Govt special advisers ("Spads") who have seen this request prior to your reply being sent to me.

Response

The information on legislation created by the Scottish Parliament since 1999 that you have requested is available from http://www.legislation.gov.uk/browse/scotland (under 'Acts of Scottish Parliament' link). Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

The answer to questions two and three (prosecutions and convictions under legislation created by the Scottish Parliament since 1999) is provided in the undernoted table. Please note: this is not a comprehensive list. Please see below for more details.

Number of people proceeded/convicted under legislation created by the Scottish Parliament¹, 1999-2000 to 2016-17.

Financial Year	Proceedings	Convictions
1999-00	-	-
2000-01	18	18
2001-02	38	36
2002-03	143	140
2003-04	70	66
2004-05	109	92
2005-06	407	327
2006-07	623	546
2007-08	914	820
2008-09	1,097	987
2009-10	1,028	936
2010-11	2,548	2,285
2011-12	9,758	8,443
2012-13	13,450	11,603
2013-14	18,112	15,227
2014-15	22,000	18,539
2015-16	23,166	19,558

¹where main crime. Source: Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings Database.

The table which includes more detailed information (type of charge) is attached below. In response to the fourth part of your request this information is not held at the time of the request. This is a formal notice under section 17 (1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you requested. For your information FOI cases are allocated to Special Advisers by their Private Office team on the basis of policy and workloads.

In response to the fourth part of your request this information is not held at the time of the request. This is a formal notice under section 17 (1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you requested. For your information FOI cases are allocated to Special Advisers by their Private Office team on the basis of policy and workloads.

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

The Scottish Government does not have the information

Please note – data in tables doesn't include insertions to the pre-1999 legislation created by the Scottish Parliament post-1999.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. Scottish Government does not have a list offences which were created by Acts of the Scottish Parliament which inserted new offences into Acts passed by the UK Parliament before the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 (e.g. Criminal Justice and Licensing (S) Act 2010 S42 created a new offence of 'possession of extreme pornography' by inserting a new section 51A into the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982).

Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. You might provide us with a list of specific offences so we can extract required data on proceedings and convictions.

You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at:

http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses

Copy of FOI1800431 - by charge (3).xlsx

File type

Excel document

File size

53.6 kB