Chamber and committees

The information on permanent staffing (full-time equivalents) as at 1 April 2003 is provided in the following table. The recent transfer of staff and responsibilities of Transport Group from Development Department to Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department is not yet reflected in the figures provided.Staffing (Full-Time Equivalents) in the Scottish Executive Departments as at 1 April 2003

Scottish Executive Core Departments Total	4,332.6
Corporate Services	811.5
Development	486.0
Education	268.5
Enterprise and Lifelong Learning	340.8
Environment and Rural Affairs	1,086.1
Finance and Central Services	556.1
Health	382.9
Justice	227.2
Legal and Parliamentary Services	173.5

A person who has been adopted in Scotland upon reaching the age of 16 years has an automatic right of access to her or his original birth details, and the court process papers from the adoption case and any freeing. Once an adopted person has access to her or his original birth details they may be able to trace the names of their grandparents through the records held by the Registrar General for Scotland or his equivalent.The Registrar General for Scotland must also maintain an index of the entries in the Adopted Children Register, and keep such other information to enable a connection to be made between an entry in the Adopted Children Register and the adopted person's original birth details.The Registrar General for Scotland may only provide such information to the adopted person themselves, specified counsellors acting on their behalf, or if ordered to do so by Order of the Court. In a case where the adopted person is deceased, it would be open to the family to make an approach to the sheriff of the court that granted the adoption requesting an order for the relevant information to be released to them.Adopted children under the age of 16 have no automatic right of access to information that would allow them to trace their original birth details, but adoption agencies are able to provide information in appropriate circumstances, while recognising the need to involve the adoptive parents.Phase II of the Adoption Policy Review, which commenced on 18 March, will consider the legal framework for adoption and fostering. As part of that consideration, it will review the issue of tracing and access to adoption records. It is expected to make recommendations to ministers late in 2004.

The number of Scottish Executive posts within its departments which are currently held by employees of other public bodies or other organisations is 84. The following tables show how these posts are broken down into departments and employers:The total number of inward secondees is 84Number of Secondments by Host Department

Education Department	29
Health Department	20
Environment and Rural Affairs Department	9
Communities Scotland	7
Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department	5
Justice Department	5
Finance and Central Services Department	5
Development Department	3
National Archives of Scotland	1
Total	84

Numbers by Donating Organisations

Public Sector	52
Health Sector	13
NDPBs	9
Academic/Educational Institutes	7
Industry and Commerce (profit and non-profit making)	2
Voluntary/Charitable Organisations	1
Total	84

Increased access to high quality sports and other recreational facilities is essential to ensure that the health, educational and other benefits of an active lifestyle are achieved.Local authorities are the major providers of sports facilities and opportunities in Scotland and the Executive, through sportscotland, will continue to work with local authorities to ensure that they continue to play a key role in delivering sport for young people.One of the key targets in Sport 21 2003-07 is to ensure that over 500 sports halls will be available to the public so that 70% of Scots have access to a hall within 20 minutes walk. Another key target is to ensure that every local authority area's community planning process contributes to the delivery of sport.In addition to the current investment of £52 million by the New Opportunities Fund in new and improved sports facilities for young people, the Executive is committed to investment of nearly £2 billion to improve the school estate. This will include high quality sports facilities to meet the needs of the schools and their local communities.

Secondments to the Executive are governed by the principles of the Civil Service Commissioners' Recruitment Code. Appointments are based on merit regardless of gender, marital status, race, age, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religion or work pattern.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 places obligations on providers of goods and services to ensure that when they provide goods and services a disabled person is not treated less favourably by being refused a service, having it provided on worse terms or to a lower standard. It is also unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by failing to change a policy, procedure or practice, or to provide an auxiliary aid or service where the result is that it would be impossible or unreasonably difficult for a disabled person to use the service. Providing information about medicines would be regarded as an auxiliary service.To be a provider of goods and services covered by the act, a provider must provide either goods or services direct to the public. The manufacturers of medicines are therefore not covered and are not obliged to produce information in alternative formats.Title V of Council Directive 2001/83/EEC, which covers the information which is required to be provided with all medicines, permits the use of formats other than written text to be used. The UK Government encourages medicines manufacturers to make available large print, audio and Braille versions of patient information leaflets to those patients who request them. In addition, many companies run telephone helplines and other support services for users of their products which may increase the accessibility of information to visually impaired patients.

All the emergency services take seriously communication with people with hearing impairment and are taking a range of steps to improve accessibility to the services they provide. In support of the provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and other legislation, the Scottish Executive endorsed the publication in 2002 of The Scottish Translation, Interpreting and Communications Forum - Good Practice Guidelines, for use by public bodies, including the emergency services. A Partnership for a Better Scotland also contains commitments "to introduce a national language strategy to guide the development and support of Scotland's languages, including British Sign Language and ethnic community languages" and to "give local authorities and other public bodies a responsibility to draw up a languages plan which reflects the communities they serve".Examples of measures which the emergency services have in place include:

• Equipment in police main operations rooms that allow those with hearing impairment to contact their local force by typing enquiries on a telephone keypad - the service is advertised in local telephone directories. Forces can also be contacted via the internet using the national policing portal. The roll-out of a single non-emergency telephone number across Scotland will allow people to send text messages to a force using a single number.

• Induction loops in public access areas of police stations for those with hearing aids.

• Training, as appropriate, for police officers and support staff in the use of sign language, with one force issuing cards portraying the "sign" alphabet.

Liaison between fire brigades and community and special needs groups about the availability of smoke alarms with vibrating pads and flashing lights. Brigades also provide fire safety literature on specialist alarms on request as well as contact points for specialist agencies who supply and fit such alarms.

No central funding is specifically earmarked to help executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies comply with employment and anti-discrimination legislation, including the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA). We would expect compliance to be part of the normal planning process of the executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies concerned. Funding provided by the Executive to meet these organisation's running costs will already have been used to enable them to comply with the DDA.Some Executive departments have identified significant funding to improve access of all people (including disabled people) to public services. For example:In 2002, £36 million was allocated to the Scottish Further Education Funding Council for further education institutions in three tranches - for upgrading college equipment; for urgent estates repairs; for financial security; to comply with disability legislation in general, and to implement improvements in accessibility to comply with the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001.Capital investment in NHSScotland property, including IT and equipment, currently stands at £310 million and is planned to increase to £432 million by 2005-06. This investment is not targeted specifically at DDA compliance but all new facilities must comply with statutory requirements, including the DDA.

The Scottish Executive is a Disability Symbol user and is committed to employing and retaining people with disabilities by providing reasonable adjustments to the workplace, equipment, working hours or patterns on either a permanent or temporary basis.Staff with a visual impairment are supplied with adaptive software, large-screen monitors and information can be provided in large type, Braille or on audio cassette.As part of the European Year of Disabled People, the Executive is currently undertaking a programme of initiatives to raise awareness amongst staff, including the issue of an information leaflet on disability matters and a series of information seminars on particular disabilities. A development programme for potential employees with a disability will be piloted through our Outreach Project this autumn.The Executive has also, for a number of years, produced alternative format publications when the subject matter affected basic rights or was specifically aimed at the disabled community. Such documents have been made available in Braille, large print and audio tape formats. Scottish Executive websites containing its publications similarly accommodate disabled users through appropriate design and accessibility and are compatible with talking browser technology.Employers and service providers across Scotland must also meet their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) and we expect this to be part of their normal planning process. The Executive has provided significant funding to improve access to public services, including access for disabled people. For example: In 2002, £36 million was allocated to the Scottish Further Education Funding Council for further education institutions in three tranches - for upgrading college equipment; for urgent estates repairs; for financial security; to comply with disability legislation in general, and to implement improvements in accessibility to comply with the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001.Capital investment in NHSScotland property, including IT and equipment, currently stands at £310 million and is planned to increase to £432 million by 2005-06. This investment is not targeted specifically at DDA compliance but all new facilities must comply with statutory requirements, including the DDA.

Fast-track hearings in the three pilot areas - East Lothian and Scottish Borders; Dundee, and North, East and South Ayrshire - will begin operating tomorrow. The pilots will run for two years and are designed to address the behaviour of around 8% of young offenders who account for just over one third of youth crime in the pilot area communities. Extra services have been put in place across the pilot areas to ensure that programmes are available to tackle offending behaviour. The Executive has funded extra intensive support places, specialist foster care support, educational support places, and additional programmes in residential and secure accommodation. The pilots will be subject to independent evaluation. Guidance has been issued, copies of which are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 26222). This has been developed by all partners - pilot authorities, reporters, police, children's panel representatives and the voluntary sector.