Chamber and committees

The quality of educationin Sorn Primary School is the responsibility of East Ayrshire Council. We expectEast Ayrshire Council to takethe necessary action to secure continuous improvement in their schools and our experienceis that this is happening.

Scottishministers sit on the UK Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group with responsibilityfor overseeing the implementation of the UK Action Plan and the Council of EuropeConvention Against Trafficking in Human Beings. Scottish Government officials siton the Council of Europe Convention Project Board, with overarching responsibilityfor ensuring the UK is compliant with the provisions of theconvention.

Scottish Governmentofficials are in regular contact with UK Government officials and others on mattersrelating to human trafficking.

Scottish police forcesare currently participating in Operation Pentameter 2, a UK-wide multi-agency operationintended to combat human trafficking and identify and rescue victims of human trafficking.

The UK Human TraffickingCentre has developed best-practice guidelines on the interviewing and identificationof suspected victims of trafficking which have been included in the Senior InvestigatingOfficer’s pack which has been sent out to all UKpolice forces.

The Scottish Governmentprovides funding to the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance (TARA) in Glasgow, which works to identify and support victims of traffickingfor sexual exploitation. We have recently provided additional funding to TARA to enable them to provide training and advice on victimidentification to local authorities in other parts of Scotland.

Information on thenumber of victims of trafficking identified in Scotland is not held centrally.

The Trafficking AwarenessRaising Alliance (TARA) provides support to adult female victims of traffickingfor sexual exploitation in the Glasgow area. The number of victims of trafficking they have workedwith in each of the last three years is:

2005 - two women;

2006 - seven women,and

2007 (so far) -eight women.

The Scottish Governmentprovides funding to the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance (TARA) in Glasgow, which provides specialist support to adult female victimsof trafficking for sexual exploitation in the Strathclyde area. The Scottish Governmenthas recently offered TARA additional funding of £70,950 to enable them to extendtheir coverage to other parts of Scotland.

Local authoritieshave a statutory duty under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 to provide support to unaccompanied children within their area,which would include victims of trafficking. The Scottish Government has recentlycirculated a model protocol on care of child victims of trafficking to Child ProtectionCommittees.

Local authoritiescurrently have no legal obligation to provide support to victims who would otherwisehave no recourse to public funds. The Scottish Government has set aside provisionthat can be drawn down by local authorities on a case-by-case basis to cover thecost of providing support to such victims of trafficking and will be writing tonotify local authorities of these arrangements shortly.

The ScottishGovernment recently instructed Officials to undertake a review of the compulsorypurchase order process.

The key challengeis not to extend the already considerable legal powers available to localauthorities and others, but to encourage and facilitate the more effective useof these and other tools.

The ScottishTransport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) is focussed on identifying the appropriatesolution to a transport problem. It is therefore independent of any particulartype of solution. A STAG appraisal could therefore be used to assess the mostappropriate solution to the transport problem in Mauchline, which may or maynot be a new rail station.

 

A STAG appraisalwould not be necessary in this case because no additional infrastructure wouldbe required and instead it is likely to involve timetabling changes. However, abusiness case for any additional services would need to made.

I refer themember to the answer to question S3W-6748 on 29 November 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer themember to the answer to question S3W-6748 on 29 November 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.