Chamber and committees

There is no specificcollection of such information. However, each year, the General Register Officefor Scotland (GRO[S]) obtains, from the Scottish Executive,information about each road accident fatality recorded in the Stats 19 returns.GRO(S) matches this to its own data, in order to improve (where possible) thequality of the information held in its records. The Stats 19 and GRO(S) figures are not expected to agree exactly,because of differences between the definitions used for the two sets ofstatistics. Differences in definitions and the limits on the informationavailable for matching the Stats 19 and GRO(S) data mean that it is not feasibleto determine the precise number of fatalities occurring from road trafficaccidents where the fatality is not reported as such in the Stats 19 returnsbut subsequently noted by the General Register Office.

The necessary changes to theImmigration Rules to implement the Fresh Talent: Working in Scotlandscheme were laid at the UK Parliament on 15 June. The scheme will come intoeffect on 22 June 2005. Application forms will be available from the HomeOffice. Decisions on applications will be made by the Home Office not the Scottish Executive. Further details can be found at www.workingintheuk.gov.uk and www.scotlandistheplace.com.

A group convened by the Scottish Executive and chaired by myself, met for the first time on Thursday 26 May.

The group includes:

Murdo Fraser MSP,

Michael Matheson MSP,

Mark Ballard MSP,

Denis Canavan MSP,

Des McNulty MSP,

Jamie Stone MSP and

Colin Fox MSP.

The group will consider how best to progress Scotland’s status as a Fair Trade Nation and how to promote fair trade products in Scotland.

The conditions of employmentfor staff who were employed in Scottish PPP projects prior to the introduction of the PPP Staffing Protocol were the responsibility of the respective public sectorprocuring bodies which negotiated these contracts, and also were subject to variousprotections under legislation. It would not have been practicable to apply the protocolretrospectively to existing contracts.

Prior to the introduction of the protocol general guidance on consultation with staff in PPPs was provided inthe Treasury Taskforce Policy Statement No 4 “Disclosure of Information and Consultationwith Staff and other Interested Parties” (Bib. number 18318) which was publishedin 1998.

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

Project plans are submitted toCommunities Scotland by each local authority on the Community Ownership Programme.On the basis of these plans and subject to ballots of tenants’ wish to transfer,the following table provides local authorities’ target dates for completion of theirrespective transfers.

Local Authority Area	Target Date for Stock Transfer
Argyll and Bute	Dec 2005
Western Isles	May 2006
Stirling	Sep 2006
Inverclyde	Aug 2006
Renfrewshire	Aug 2006
City of Edinburgh	Dec 2006
Highland	Mar 2007

 

Officials from the Scottish Executive’s International Division and I are in close contact with COSLA and a numberof local authorities with regard to their international development efforts. Fundinghas already been provided to local authorities for their tsunami reconstructionwork, and officials are currently in the process of organising a meeting withCOSLA to further discuss how we may cooperate in taking forward our internationaldevelopment work.

Also, all Scottish localauthorities have been invited to submit a concept note for funding from the internationaldevelopment fund. Any funding request from South Lanarkshire will be given thesame consideration as the other applications.

We do, however, recognise theimportance of Blantyre as the birthplace of Livingstone and we would encouragedevelopment of links between Malawi, Blantyre and Scotland as a whole.

The Global Friends of Scotland initiative has supported a number of network projects around the world and across a wide range of activities. These range from the publication of articles overseas to assisting a youth football exchange, providing support in setting up student exchanges and in organising Scottish Weeks to promote Scotland’s place in the world. In addition, Global Friends are updated regularly about contemporary Scotland's strengths through newsletters and information posted on their exclusive area within the website.

Members of the Global Friends of Scotland network help to promote Scotland as an attractive place in which to live, work, study, visit, invest and do business. The complementary website, which acts as a dynamic showcase for the best that Scotland has to offer the world, is accessed by a largely international audience. At least 75% of the readership is based overseas. Visitors spend around 25 minutes on the site.

The network of Global Friends and its complementary website help to promote Scotland as an attractive place in which to live, work, study, visit, invest and do business. It is not the specific aim of the Global Friends of Scotland initiative to encourage immigration. The Fresh Talent initiative aims to attract bright, hard-working and motivated individuals to live, work and study in Scotland. Details of how the Fresh Talent initiative plans to evaluate its overall success are given in the answer to question S2W-16982 on 6 June 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament/webapp/wa.search.

No. All Route Action Plans carriedout by the Executive have been on the trunk road network.