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 Scottish Government is not aware of any assessment of the impact on greyhound racing if all racing greyhounds were required to be microchipped. However, all greyhounds registered with the Greyhound Board of Great Britain require greyhounds to be permanently identified. From April this year this identification includes a microchip.

Section 24 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 makes it an offence to fail to meet the needs of a protected animals (racing greyhounds are protected animals) and one of these needs is to protect an animal from suffering, injury and disease. However, section 24(2) (b) of the act requires consideration to be given to whether the activity undertaken in relation to the animal was lawful.

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.

Voluntary modulation has been permitted by European rules since 1999. Modulation is the transfer of EU CAP funds from Pillar 1 (market support expenditure and single farm payments) to Pillar 2 (rural development and agri-environmental schemes). Since 2005, modulation has applied on a compulsory basis in member states, and in 2007 agreement was secured to enable the UK and Portugal to continue to levy an additional (voluntary) national rate of modulation, over and above the compulsory EU rate.

The efficiency saving of £35.7 million returned in the Efficiency Outturn Report for 2008-09 is the value of the transfer of funding through voluntary modulation from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2. As set out in the report, the efficiencies were achieved without material detriment to the quality or quantity of service provided, which was maintained through delivery of agri-environmental benefits under cross compliance rules in Pillar 1.

Therefore the introduction of the Scottish Government''s delivery of public benefits through the Single Farm Payment has been unaffected. The resources freed up through voluntary modulation were used to support a number of important commitments, most notably under the Rural Priorities delivery mechanism of the Scotland Rural Development Programme.

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.

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.