Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-24654.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-24654.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-24654.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-24654.

The national response to large-scale redundancy situations is the Executive's PACE (Partnership Action for Continuing Employment) framework. This initiative provides a national strategic framework for partnership working across key public sector agencies.Local response teams have been set up in each local enterprise company area, involving key local and national agencies. These teams have responsibility for implementing a wide range of early interventions to alleviate job losses where possible and, in the event of a redundancy situation arising, for implementing a local action plan targeted at finding alternative employment or training opportunities for those affected.Under the auspices of the PACE framework, a wide variety of interventions are used to support a redundancy situation and are tailored to meet individual needs and local circumstances. There are no restrictions in terms of age limit to receipt of this support.The membership of each team varies from area to area but the key agencies involved are the local enterprise company, local authority and Jobcentreplus. Other agencies (such as Careers Scotland, Benefits Agency, etc.) are called upon as required. All agencies involved are committed to ensuring sufficient resources, experience and knowledge to support the process. Given the wide range of agencies involved, information on job titles, grades, work patterns, pension and salary details of each member of the local response teams is not held centrally. Each local response team is tasked with putting in place an effective system across all agencies to allow for the tracking of individuals affected. As each redundancy situation is unique, the local response team will assess individual circumstances and sets its targets accordingly. Following the report of the 2001 Review of PACE, work is in hand to develop a monitoring and evaluation framework to learn from the experience of the PACE teams and continue to improve PACE performance.

The Bathing Waters Review Panel was convened by The Scottish Office specifically to review nominations for the 1998 round of bathing water identifications. The Scottish Executive has no plans to reconvene the panel. We consulted widely when preparing the Bathing Waters Strategy, including all parties with an interest in bathing waters.The European Directive on Bathing Waters does not specifically require us to make further identifications.

The intention of the Bathing Water Strategy is to co-ordinate action towards fulfilling the Scottish Executive's commitment to achieve European standards at Scotland's 60 existing bathing waters.

No decision on identifying further bathing waters will be made until the form of the proposed revision of the Bathing Waters Directive (76/160/EEC) becomes clear. This situation is being kept under review.

The Scottish Executive is committed to achieving European standards at the 60 waters in Scotland, identified as bathing waters for the purposes of the Bathing Waters Directive (76/160/EEC).

The Scottish Executive is committed to achieving the mandatory standards of the Bathing Waters Directive (76/160/EEC) at the 60 identified bathing waters in Scotland as soon as practicable. Beyond this, we are seeking to achieve the guideline standards in the directive. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency's consenting policy requires that all new and revised consents for discharges in the vicinity of identified bathing waters will permit the bathing water to achieve guideline standard.