Chamber and committees

No specified guidelines arein place. However I expect all staff and all agencies to consider the wholeperson needs in designing care and support that, wherever possible, respectsand responds to cultural and religious beliefs.

Under the Executive's CarersStrategy, which was launched in November 1999, resources to local authoritiesto support carers have risen from £5 million a year in 1999-2000 to £21 milliona year in 2003-04. The Carers Strategy specifically states that localauthorities should consult local carers and key stakeholders on spendingdecisions for these resources. The strategy also goes on to state that inproviding services authorities must take into account the needs and prioritiesof carers from black and minority ethnic groups, in accordance with theirstatutory obligations under the Race Relations Act 1976.

The Executive has alsofunded the Minority Ethnic Carers of Older People Project, based in Edinburgh,to develop a culturally sensitive assessment instrument for users and carers.This instrument is now available and the Executive is currently funding the instrument’spromotion at a national level. Training of key staff in statutory agencies isalready underway.

Alison Bowes andHeather Wilkinson (Stirling University)received a grant from the Chief Scientist Office in 2002 to carry out afeasibility study to establish effective ways of ascertaining the views ofolder South Asian people with dementia, their families and carers, and toexplore central issues of service support.

The studyconcluded that South Asian communities lack knowledge and experience ofdementia and access to appropriate services, especially at home and highlightedthe need to develop responsive services, to address issues of diagnosis and to learn from existing expertise.

The researcherssuggested that future research could usefully cover dementia experiences andawareness in minority communities, and the identification and evaluation ofgood practice experience on a wider front.

Scotland’s libraries have worked together to offer a range ofreading promotions to the public. These have included five Now Read Onpromotions, through the 1990s, the Scottish Writers promotion of 2000,whose CD ROM was short-listed for a BAFTA Innovation award, and the Mind’sEye non-fiction promotion.

With help from the ScottishArts Council lottery fund, the Scottish Library and Information Council andCILIP in Scotland have been helping the Scottish libraries establish areader development network. Reader development uses a reader-centred approachand is focussed on widening individual reading tastes for contemporary fiction,developing and sustaining the publishing industry. The reader developmentnetwork has seen an explosion in library-based reading groups, including groupsfor the visually impaired, island-based book chains and local readingactivities and promotions.

The COSLA report, Standardsfor the Public Library Service in Scotland 1995, provides guidance on thenumber of titles which should be added to stock for local authorities toprovide an adequate selection of material for users, without defining spendinglevels, which is a matter for individual authorities. It is clear from Audit Scotland’s recentpublication, Cultural and Community Services Performance Indicators 2002-03,that many authorities have not been able to achieve these levels.

The Scottish Executive has asked the Scottish Library and Information Council to explore withlocal authorities ways of improving the delivery of public library services,including book stock and reader development activity.

The Executive is in closetouch with the UK Government and other key interests to ensure that contingencyplans are in place to respond to any possible spread of H5N1 virus to Scotland orother parts of the UK.

I expect to introduce a GaelicLanguage Bill to Parliament later this year.

It is estimated that in thefirst year of national rollout (2004-05) the EMA programme will cost £16.5million. On full national rollout (2007-08) the programme will costapproximately £43 million. Estimates are not available centrally for individuallocal authorities.

All local authorities willreceive annual administration costs of £25,000 plus £15.00 per EMA student.

It is estimated that by fullnational rollout in 2007-08 the EMA programme will cost £43 million per year.Approximately 40,000 young people will benefit from EMAs to encourage them toremain in non-advanced post compulsory education in schools and further educationcolleges.

The Executive considersthere is merit in the provision of bilingual signage in public places.Bilingual signage provides a minority language with an enhanced degree ofrecognition, and it informs and interests visitors to those areas.

Gaelic signage in Scotland isalso in keeping with a range of other initiatives which the Executive has inplace to raise the profile of Gaelic in Scotland. It helps to increase the confidence of Gaelicspeakers and learners and it acknowledges that Gaelic is a language of Scotland.

I expect those public bodieswhich produce a gaelic language plan in terms of the draft Gaelic Language billto give serious consideration, in consultation with Bòrd na Gàidhlig, to the introduction of bilingual signage wherever appropriate.