§ Lord James Douglas-Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many social inquiry reports prepared by local authority social work departments have been produced for the courts in each of the last 10 years, broken down by region.
§ Mr. John MacKayThe figures available, compiled from returns made by local authority social work departments, are set out as follows. I regret that it is not possible to give reliable statistics for the years before 1979.
Estimated number of social enquiry reports prepared by local authority social work departments Year ended 31 March 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983* Borders 229 202 219 307 375 Central 1,121 1,271 1,163 1,368 1,426 Dumfries and Galloway 237 237 512 541 637 Fife 590 837 664 645 1,146 Grampian 1,024 1,163 1,165 1,313 1,402 Highland 615 585 679 762 894 Lothian 2,222 2,100 2,377 2,879 3,024 Strathclyde 10,089 8,515 10,300 10,489 13,561 Tayside 1,420 1,398 1,595 1,881 1,650 Orkney 23 28 21 30 44 Shetland 14 34 19 27 44 Western Isles 22 14 36 39 64 Scotland Total 17,606 16,384 18,750 20,281 24,267 * Provisional.