Chamber and committees

I am pleased to announce the publication today of the document, Implementation of the National Cultural Strategy: Guidance for Scottish Local Authorities. This is a joint publication with COSLA in the spirit of the kind of partnership activity that the guidance advocates. The guidance explores and identifies approaches and good practice for delivering local authorities' core cultural provision and the wide range of other core activities in which culture can play an important role. The guidance is commended to all local authorities, cultural agencies and other interested parties. Copies are available from the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 27154) and on the Executive website.

The Scottish Premier League determines ground specifications for its member clubs having due regard to relevant legislation and governing body rules.However, through National Planning Policy Guideline (NPPG) 11: Sport, Physical Recreation and Open Space published in June 1996, the Executive offers guidelines to the football authorities and others on the provision of stadia in the aftermath of the Hillsborough Stadium disaster. These guidelines relate to the provision of all-seater accommodation.In addition to this, The Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 requires any designated sports ground with a spectator capacity of more than 10,000 to have a safety certificate from the local authority.

The Executive has contributed £250,000 towards the creation and running of a complete Scottish programme at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2003. Additionally, VisitScotland and the Scottish Arts Council each contributed £50,000 for this purpose. Traditional music features prominently.

The amending regulations have been laid before Parliament and will come into force on 1 April. The Executive has been concerned for some time about reported abuses of the landspreading exemptions contained in the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994, particularly malodours caused by spreading untreated blood and gut contents. The new regulations fulfil the Executive's commitment to deal with this problem.The amending regulations will require blood and gut contents to be treated before spreading, so nullifying malodours. The amendments will also provide tighter controls on the operations of landspreading operators.In particular, operators will have to demonstrate that waste spread on land used for agriculture will actually result in benefit to agriculture or improvement of animal and plant communities. Operators will also need to carry out appropriate risk assessments, pre-notify the Waste Regulator(the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)) of their intention to spread, and keep records of the types and quantities of wastes spread.SEPA will be able to, under certain circumstances, refuse registration of an exemption application or remove an exemption from the register.SEPA will monitor spreading activities closely to ensure genuine recovery and protection of human health and the environment.The amendments also update Certificates of Technical Competence, which demonstrate managers' competence to manage a waste management facility. The update is in line with industry and legislative requirements.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-33200 on 27 January 2003. All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the searchfacility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

A Code of Practice, Delivering Best Value in Highway Maintenance, was published by the Institution of Highways and Transportation in July 2001. It applies throughout the UK and is endorsed by COSLA. Responsibility for implementing the guidance in the code rests with individual local authorities.

Homophobic hate crimes are taken seriously and prosecuted vigorously by procurators fiscal. There is currently no systematic collection of data in relation to the occurrence of such crimes. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is committed to examining, with our criminal justice partners, how best to allow such collection, both in relation to information contained in police reports to procurators fiscal and in information held about cases prosecuted in the courts. In addition, we are working as part of our diversity strategy to strengthen our contacts within the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities so as to obtain a better understanding of their concerns.

The information requested is not available.

The number of patients who have been removed from dentists' lists as a result of the 15-month NHS registration period in each of the last five years, broken down by NHS board area, is shown in the following table:

NHS Board	Lapsed Patient Registrations1,2Year
	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Ayrshire and Arran	53,792	58,802	55,629	54,702	56,392
Borders	12,828	14,118	14,503	14,068	12,721
Argyll and Clyde	63,366	69,081	66,534	64,529	65,069
Fife	49,059	53,430	53,293	48,911	47,783
Greater Glasgow	155,050	168,171	161,542	159,101	159,818
Highland	26,375	27,798	27,497	27,389	25,160
Lanarkshire	76,565	87,486	85,321	83,180	82,395
Grampian	67,124	72,498	70,057	67,030	61,600
Orkney	3,581	2,568	3,104	2,979	3,401
Lothian	115,689	124,446	116,484	112,626	110,550
Tayside	55,018	62,871	59,877	56,828	57,362
Forth Valley	39,258	42,489	41,928	39,521	38,496
Western Isles	4,207	4,863	4,955	4,352	5,378
Dumfries and Galloway	19,688	21,173	19,244	19,591	19,106
Shetland	2,599	2,862	2,666	2,957	2,262
Scotland	744,199	812,656	782,634	757,764	747,493

Notes:1. Patient registration may have lapsed on more than one occasion.2. Patients may have re-registered subsequently with the same or a different dentist. Under their NHS terms of service, if a dentist intends to withdraw from an NHS arrangement, whether with or without the patient's consent, the patient is entitled to receive written notice from the dentist or the NHS board/Primary Care NHS Trust depending on the circumstances.Once a patient's registration has lapsed it is for the dentist, as an independent contractor, to decide if he/she is prepared to enter into a new continuing care arrangement with the patient.

The Executive has no plans to withdraw either existing research powers or existing research degree awarding powers from Scottish higher education institutions.