Chamber and committees

No guidance has currently been issued to NHS staff. Draft guidance has however been prepared by NHS Education Scotland (NES) on the education and trainingstandards for violence and aggression for those in the mental health setting andit has been to place a copy of the guidance in the Scottish Parliament InformationCentre when finalised. That guidance will be adapted to apply to NHSScotland ingeneral.

The law concerning physical restraint centres around the use of reasonable force. Draft guidance has however been prepared by NHS Education Scotland (NES) on the education and training standards for violence and aggression for those in the mental health setting and it has been to place a copy of the guidance in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre when finalised. That guidance will be adapted to apply to NHSScotland in general.

The information requested is not held centrally. The Scottish Court Service does not have information which identifies the number of repossessions either for Scotland as a whole or by sheriff court district.

The guidance on procurement strategies will be published as part of a construction procurement manual which substantially amends and supersedes the existing construction client pack. It is expected that this will be available by May 2005.

The fees set in respect of the services provided by Registers of Scotland distinguish between the fees for registration in the registers and the fees for inspecting the information contained in those registers. There is no cross-subsidisation of costs and fees between the registration of property in the property registers and the inspection of information from those registers. The overall costs of registration are met from the overall fee income for registration. Similarly the fees charged for inspection of the registers are intended to meet the overall costs associated with making the registers available for public inspection. The scales upon which fees are calculated for registration of titles and standard securities differ, to reflect generally the different levels of work required. Registers of Scotland is currently undertaking a review of fees relating to the provision of information from the registers, and plans to undertake a review of registration fees in 2006.

The length of time that an application for registration takes to process depends primarily on its complexity but also on other factors such as the availability of supporting documentation from applicants, the completeness of neighbouring titles and whether there are associated applications which should be processed at the same time. The current totals of applications for registration in the Land Register that are in the course of being processed are as follows:

Timescale	Stock	Relative Intake
	65,828	177,058
6-12 months	30,691	180,920
1-2 years	38,779	333,623
2-3 years	17,485	273,630
3-4 years	9,103	238,406
4-5 years	3,052	188,864
> 5 years	1,973

Of the 14,128 applications for registration which are over three years old, some 72% are linked to other applications in that category and can only be taken forward when these preceding applications have been resolved.

Registers of Scotland are required to meet targets set by ministers as regards the average time taken to process applications for registration in the Land Register. In the past three years, Registers of Scotland has met all such targets.

In 2004-05 ministers set a target to eliminate stocks of domestic First Registrations over 1 year old during the next three years with a milestone reduction of 25% from the stock position at 31 March 2004 by 31 March 2005. Registers of Scotland expects to meet this target.

In addition, Registers of Scotland has specifically addressed arrears of older casework and all of the agency’s oldest casework is either in the course of being processed or awaiting supplementary information from the submitting agents. Registers of Scotland is on track to process all applications that are pre-year 2000 and not subject to factors outwith the keeper’s control, by the end of this financial year.

There are 13% of staff compliment in the building division of the Scottish Procurement Directorate (SPD) and 13% of staff compliment in the Procurement Operations branch of SPD advising on major capital projects. This represents a total of nine projects; sevem IT-enabled business change projects, one building project for Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency and one estate development project at Jordanhill School.

The majority of all other major capital projects being handled by the core Executive are dealt with by roads division.

There are a number of different exemptions and reliefs from Stamp Duty and Stamp Duty Land Tax. The Scottish Executive has carried out no analysis of the impact of these reliefs as taxation is a reserved matter. Scottish ministers do however continue to ensure that Scotland’s interests on the issue of taxation, as on other matters, are placed firmly on the agenda in Whitehall.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to reply. Her response is as follows.

Glasgow City and the City of Edinburgh have had their business cases approved and now manage the development funding programmes in their areas. The transfer of programme management was implemented in Glasgow City on 1 September 2003 and in the City of Edinburgh on 12 July 2004.

East Lothian, North Lanarkshire, South Ayrshire and West Lothian have also submitted business cases to transfer the management of development funding in their respective local authority areas.

The Scottish Executive has regular contact with the UK Government and HM Customs and Excise on a range of issues. At an operational level, the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency and Scottish police forces work closely with a number of UK law enforcement agencies, including HM Customs and Excise, in order to provide a co-ordinated partnership approach. However, the deployment of resources by each such agency is an operational matter for that agency.