Chamber and committees

eTourism Ltd,trading as visitscotland.com, was established in 2002 as a Public Privatepartnership joint venture company, with total funding of £7.5 million beingprovided by its shareholders including VisitScotland. One quarter of thefunding, or £1.875 million, was provided by the Scottish Government throughVisitScotland as an interest bearing loan, on the condition that it will berepaid when visitscotland.com is trading profitably. No other public funds havebeen provided to visitscotland.com since then.

The Scottish Government believes that palliative care should be available to anyone suffering from any life threatening progressive condition from the time of diagnosis onwards and expects NHS boards to ensure people''s needs are met through a range of services including hospice care. The Gold Standards Framework (Scotland) is being used by GP practices throughout Scotland to improve the care of individuals requiring palliative care in the community. Managed clinical networks, which provide a co-ordinated approach involving the NHS, patient groups, social work, voluntary organisations and other key partners are also being promoted. Funding arrangements for specialist palliative care provided by independent voluntary hospices in Scotland are set out in HDL (2003)18 which is titled - Funding of Specialist Palliative Care Provided by Independent Voluntary Hospices in Scotland, and is available from the following link:

http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/sehd/mels/HDL2003_18.pdf.

The Scottish governmenthas made a clear commitment to ensure that palliative care is available toanyone who needs it and NHS boards have a responsibility to work with thevoluntary sector to ensure its availability in accordance with local needs andrequirements.

Visitscotland.comis not a member organisation, but a commercial enterprise set up to provide Scottishtourism businesses and accommodation providers a route to the quickly expandingsector of the market which wishes to use the internet to research and book holidaysonline. Since its launch in 2002, visitscotland.com has built up around 11,500 businesssubscribers, about 85% of which are small businesses such as B&Bs, guest housesand self caterers. Many of these receive very significant numbers of their bookingsthrough visitscotland.com.

Annual figures forthe numbers of businesses which have ceased subscribing to visitscotland.com, orthe income lost as a result, are not currently available because of the introductionof new software. However, the number of accommodation businesses subscribing tovisitscotland.com has increased by about 120 between last year and this.

Visitscotland.comis not a member organisation, but a commercial enterprise set up to provide Scottishtourism businesses and accommodation providers a route to the quickly expandingsector of the market which wishes to use the internet to research and book holidaysonline. Since its launch in 2002, visitscotland.com has built up around 11,500 businesssubscribers, about 85% of which are small businesses such as B&Bs, guest housesand self caterers. Many of these receive very significant numbers of their bookingsthrough visitscotland.com.

Annual figures forthe numbers of businesses which have ceased subscribing to visitscotland.com arenot currently available because of the introduction of new software. However, thenumber of accommodation businesses subscribing to visitscotland.com has increasedby about 120 between last year and this.

The major shareholdersof eTourism Ltd., their percentage ownership and the location of their headquartersare:

Tourco Ltd (VisitScotland)	36%	Edinburgh
Tiscover UK Ltd	35%	Crawley, West Sussex*
Partnerships UK Ltd	22%	London
Atos Origin IT Services	7%	London

Note: *The globalHQ of Tiscover is in Austria.

The information requestedis not held centrally.

The information requestedis not held centrally.

The information requestedis not held centrally.

Information suppliedto Transport Scotland indicates that since the introduction of theNational Entitlement Card and Scotland-Wide Free Bus Travel for Older and DisabledPeople, 1,064,059 applicationshave been received and processed to date.

The following tableshows the total number of National Entitlement Card holders who qualify for Scotland-WideFree Bus Travel for Older and Disabled People and those who qualify for the companionentitlement as of 21 August 2007.

Figures can only bebroken down by local authority as the facility is unavailable to report by parliamentaryconstituency.

Local Authority	Total Number of Cards Issued	Disabled Plus Companion	Visually Impaired Plus Companion
Aberdeen City	43,652	1,535	748
Aberdeenshire	39,995	1,244	358
Angus	23,028	379	97
Argyll and Bute	20,469	1142	169
City of Edinburgh	88,502	8,514	1,098
Clackmannanshire	9,454	316	41
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	6,046	75	20
Dumfries and Galloway	30,097	836	396
Dundee City	31,816	950	214
East Ayrshire	25,062	2,193	195
East Dunbartonshire	21,631	973	108
East Lothian	20,194	1,669	232
East Renfrewshire	17,172	853	86
Falkirk	29,101	715	241
Fife	79,022	12,463	947
Glasgow	110,475	16,191	1,250
Highland	41,508	1,337	473
Inverclyde	18,306	2,015	184
Midlothian	16,894	1,550	240
Moray	17,257	592	206
North Ayrshire	30,925	2,618	301
North Lanarkshire	58,699	6,207	438
Orkney Islands	4,304	95	13
Perth and Kinross	27,940	567	219
Renfrewshire	36,089	3261	316
Scottish Borders	23,662	652	212
Shetland Islands	4,245	128	11
South Ayrshire	26,924	1,795	221
South Lanarkshire	59,652	5,238	513
Stirling	15,867	386	77
West Dunbartonshire	18,363	2,078	229
West Lothian	27,956	3,060	352
Total	1,024,307	81,627	10,205