HC Deb 30 April 1998 vol 311 cc233-4W
Mr. David Stewart

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about performance targets for the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency for 1998–99. [40809]

Mr. Dewar

For the financial year 1998–99 I have set the following targets:

Aerial surveillance per cent. of hours flown on task—86 per cent. cost per flying hour on task—£922

Marine surveillance utilisation of available patrol days—97 per cent. cost per effective patrol day—£3,432

Sea Fisheries Inspectorate cost per catch inspection—£72 landing declarations checked against actual catches—45 per cent. 82 per cent. of cases for prosecution to be reported within 6 weeks of offence being detected and 95 per cent. within 8 weeks. Number of cases where court proceedings are taken as percentage of offences reported to prosecuting authorities—83 per cent.

In order to ensure that the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency uses its resources efficiently, I have set it a target to achieve cash releasing efficiency gains of 2.0% during 1998–99.

The Chief Executive will be directly accountable to me for the achievement of these targets, which will be reported in the Agency's Annual Report.