- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 24 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 9 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what resources it is directing towards sex education in schools.
Answer
The development of sex and relationshipseducation programmes, including specific teaching materials, is a matter for localauthorities and schools. All schools arerequired to provide health education, including sex education, within the frameworkof Health Education 5-14 National Guidelines. Circular 2/2001
Standards in Scotland’sSchools etc. Act 2000: Conduct of Sex Education in Scottish Schools sets outthe framework for the development and delivery of sex and relationships educationin Scotland.
There are a number ofcontinuing professional development (CPD) sex andrelationships education courses available for teachers and as part of their contract,teachers are obliged to undertake 35 hours (CPD) each year.
Healthy Respect, a National HealthDemonstration Project on young people’s sexual health is funded by the ScottishExecutive and hosted by NHS Lothian. It aimsto demonstrate how increasing young people’s knowledge of sexual health issues througha multi-disciplinary approach to education, information and accessible servicesin a variety of settings can lead to improved sexual health and relationships. Thelearning from Healthy Respect will be shared across Scotland to enableother parts of the country to shape their own services according to local need.
Healthy Respect and the ScottishCatholic Education Service are jointly supporting a project to develop appropriatesex and relationships education programmes in three Catholic secondary schools inEdinburgh and three in the West of Scotland. This project has been funded by the ScottishExecutive (Health and Education Departments) over three years from 2005.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 24 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 9 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to encourage the involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises in PPP/PFI projects and private prison projects.
Answer
The Infrastructure InvestmentPlan, which was published in February2005, outlines the detail of the Executive’s investment plans by ministerial portfolioand confirms the major investment opportunities available within Scotland. Thisis the first such
Plan and it has been welcomed by industry, including smalland medium-sized enterprises, as allowing them to improve their forward resourceand tender plans. A copy of the plan can be found in the Scottish ParliamentInformation Centre (Bib. number 35376).
PPP are advertised in accordancewith EC Procurement Directives. PPP projects tend to be large projects requiringmain contractors to have experience of organising large and complex work programmes,and requiring significant balance sheets. Therefore there is limited opportunityfor small and medium-sized companies to become directly involved in the PPP consortium,although a few Scottish regional companies have successfully developed into thatmarket. Many new opportunities across a wide range of services have been createdat sub-contractor level under use of PPP in Scotland.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 24 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 9 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what information it has on the costs incurred by other Scottish public authorities in enforcing their PFI/PPP contracts.
Answer
I refer the member to the answerto question S2W-23493 on 9 March 2006. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 24 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 9 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it has taken to ensure that, where it makes a change in its policy requiring an adaptation to infrastructure owned or leased by a PFI/PPP contractor, such an adaptation does not cause the Executive to incur costs above those that it would incur if it were to make such an adaptation to non-PFI/PPP infrastructure.
Answer
I refer the member to the answerto question S2W-23495 on 9 March 2006. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 8 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-21904 by Cathy Jamieson on 25 January 2006, which organisations or institutions carry out bespoke rail safety training for British Transport Police based in Scotland and at which locations this training is carried out.
Answer
First Engineering carry out bespoke rail safety training for British Transport Police based in Scotland. Training takes place at First Engineering’s training centre in Rutherglen, Glasgow.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 24 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 8 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what recommendations have been made by the Judicial Appointments Board in relation to each judicial appointment made since its inception.
Answer
To date, the Scottish Executive has accepted all the recommendations of the board for appointments to judicial office. The names of people who have been appointed are in the public domain. A list is available on the board’s website. The web address is:
http://www.judicialappointmentsscotland.gov.uk/judicial/JUD_Main.jsp?pContentID=494&p_applic=CCC&pMenu0=45&p_service=Content.show&.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-21902 by Cathy Jamieson on 25 January 2006, whether it has examined the impact on funding the operation of railway policing in Scotland if the British Transport Police was to be partially absorbed by the Metropolitan Police Service and, if so, what the impact would be.
Answer
The impact on funding arrangementsfor railway policing in Scotland would depend on the nature of any decision about thefuture structure of British Transport Police. Officials remain in touch with theDepartment of Transport on progress with their review of British Transport Police.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 24 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 7 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what rules it has in respect of ownership by judges, sheriffs and stipendiary magistrates of a financial interest in private prisons and what action it takes to monitor the observance of any such rules.
Answer
The Scottish Executive does notmake rules about the conduct of the independent judiciary. Members of the judiciaryare expected to conduct personal business in a way which avoids the risk of anycompromise to their independence when handling cases which come before them.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 24 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 6 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will write off the capital housing debt of local authorities.
Answer
No. Local authorities’ housingdebt in Scotland totals around £2 billion. Redeeming this level of debtis not affordable without impacting on other key public services such as healthand education.
- Asked by: Linda Fabiani, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 24 February 2006
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 6 March 2006
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it will take to reduce the regulatory burden on small housing associations.
Answer
I have asked Angiolina Foster,Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to respond. Her response is as follows:
Communities Scotland regulatesand inspects Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) on behalf of Scottish ministers.We are aware of the disproportionate impact that regulation can have on small RSLs.By small RSLs we mean those with fewer than 250 houses. We have already set in placea number of measures to minimise this impact.
In 2005 we introduced a tailoredapproach to inspection with reduced submission requirements, a lighter touch approachwith no grades and short reports.
Our requirements in relationto financial viability assessments are also tailored. Small RSLs, which are notdeveloping new-build houses, do not have to submit the five year financial projectionsor loan portfolio information required from all other RSLs.
Providing information on charitableRSLs direct to the Office of the Scottish Charity regulator (OSCR) for its annualreturn. This benefits all charitable RSLs.
We will continue to review ourapproach to regulation and inspection to ensure that it is proportionate and risk-basedand does not have a disproportionate impact on small RSLs. We are keen to consultwith the sector on changes which will allow us to respond positively to the concernsfrom the sector about over-regulation in general.
