Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government fully support microchipping and have advised dog owners to microchip their animals in the Code of Practice for the Welfare of Dogs (paragraph 5.12). This paragraph details the procedure, explains the many advantages of microchipping and reminds dog owners to update the data base should their circumstances change.

However, whilst strongly in favour of microchipping, we believe that the decision on whether to microchip should remain voluntary and we have no plans to make microchipping of dogs compulsory.

The current specification of the PGI does not state which stages of the production process for Scottish Farmed Salmon must take place within the geographical area.

Scottish Government officials met with representatives of the National Greyhound Racing Club in October 2007 and with representatives of the Greyhound Board of Great Britain in September 2008. The welfare of greyhounds was the main topic at both meetings.

A copy of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) was published on the Scottish Government website on 31 March 2010. The delay in publishing was due to the extensive revamping of the Marine Scotland sections of the website.

A draft copy of the MOU was sent to the Scottish industry on 9 July 2009. The MOU was signed in Norway on 17 August 2009, and this was announced by a Scottish Government press notice on the same day.

The efficiency savings arise entirely from the securing of co-funding for research projects while obtaining 100% of the contract outputs.

The Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency achieved £2.86 million efficiency savings in 2008-09 through the streamlining of operations, the adoption of a more risk-based approach to tasking surveillance aircraft and through the sale of surplus assets.

These savings were achieved through a combination of minor improvements such as rationalising arrangements for stakeholder engagement, making greater use of web‘based forms of publicity and a greater than anticipated saving in awards made in respect of Chernobyl compensation.

The Fisheries Research Services achieved £0.793 million efficiency savings in 2008-09 through more effective asset management, accessing wider Scottish Government arrangements for the provision of services, rationalising internal processes and procedures and more effective procurement.

The efficiency saving of £0.7 million for the Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate (RPID) was achieved mainly through two measures. The first was the implementation of a multifunctional approach to farm inspections whereby multiple inspections for different purposes were consolidated into a single task for inspectors. This approach reduced the number of visits required for inspections and the overall workload for this activity. The second was the ongoing promotion of the option for scheme applicants to use the online version using the Single Application Form rather than the paper form. The usage of the online form increased from 17% to 24% of all applications between 2007-08 and 2008-09. This reduced the workload for administration staff in RPID''s area offices who are engaged in entering the data on paper forms into the computer system.

The savings were realised as cash savings in that there was a reduction over the year of around 7% in staff numbers for both inspections staff and administration staff in RPID''s area offices.

As a consequence of the Rowett Research Institute merging with the University of Aberdeen the Scottish Government no longer has to make financial provision of £2 million annually for depreciation and cost of capital charges for the Rowett. This accounting change has not affected the volume of research undertaken by the Rowett for the Scottish Government.