- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Frank McAveety on 9 March 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the protection and conservation of Castle Tioram will be part of Historic Scotland's commitment to safeguard the nation's built heritage.
Answer
Castle Tioram is a scheduledmonument and as such responsibility for its maintenance rests with its owners.At the public local inquiry held in 2001 into an application for scheduledmonument consent for the restoration of the Castle, Historic Scotland argued thecase for consolidation. Scottish ministers subsequently refused scheduledmonument consent for the application.
Any future application forscheduled monument consent in respect of the Castle would be considered on itsmerits and in line with Scottish Executive policy.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Frank McAveety on 9 March 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether there are any plans to include the maintenance of Scotland's cultural and historic heritage in Historic Scotland's performance targets.
Answer
Responsibility for the maintenance of individual historic buildings and monuments rests with their owners. Historic Scotland is directly responsible for the maintenance of over 300 properties in the care of Scottish ministers and one of the agency’s keytargets in recent years has been the completion of condition surveys on all these properties in order to prioritise more effectively its programme ofmaintenance.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Euan Robson on 9 March 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration it will give to recommendation 9 of the NCH Scotland report Where's Kilbrandon Now? recommending that Children's Panel members who are not in paid work or have no access to paid absence should be paid a fee to help increase participation.
Answer
The first stage of theExecutive’s review of the Children’s Hearings System will involve wide and opendiscussions on the hearings system, its principles and its objectives. Laterthis year we will look constructively and critically at how the system isoperating, where and how it might be made more effective in addressing theneeds of children, young people and their families, including how volunteersmight be supported.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Euan Robson on 9 March 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what research has been carried out to monitor the implementation of Children's Panel decisions.
Answer
The 2002 study into children on home supervision
Children (Scotland) Act 1995 Research Findings No. 4: Home Supervision was conducted by Stirling University on behalf of the Scottish Executive Education Department.
The Audit Scotland report Dealing with offending by young people (December 2002) was carried out on behalf of the Auditor General and the Accounts Commission. Dealing with offending by young people: A follow up report was published in November 2003.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 9 March 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will evaluate and review the implementation of the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002.
Answer
The Act contains a range ofdifferent provisions which are at varying stages of implementation and monitoringto ensure that they are achieving what was anticipated when it was enacted.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Euan Robson on 9 March 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what the national standard is for social worker contact with a child on supervision.
Answer
There are no national standardsfor the frequency of contact between a social worker and a child onsupervision.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Margaret Curran on 9 March 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will ensure that 16 and 17-year-old homeless people designated as “priority need” under section 1 of the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 are given the support services essential to their needs.
Answer
Local authorities arerequired by section 1 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 to develop a homelessness strategy fortheir area. Scottish Executive guidance makes clear that the particular needs of homelesschildren and young people should be taken into account and addressed in thesestrategies. The guidance emphasises that where local assessment indicates thatyouth homelessness is a significant issue, the homelessness strategy shouldspecifically identify this as an area for action and the local authority shouldconsider a specific strategy to prevent and address homelessness amongst youngpeople.
Local authorities must workcorporately, and in partnership with other local agencies, to ensure that therange of needs which a young homeless person may have is met.
Homelessness strategies havebeen assessed by a cross-sector panel and feedback given. Implementation of thestrategies will be reviewed by the Executive and also monitored by CommunitiesScotland as part of their inspection of local authorities’ housing andhomelessness functions.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Allan Wilson on 9 March 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether Scottish Water will deliver its Quality and Standards 2 investment programme in time to comply with legislative deadlines for fresh and wastewater quality.
Answer
Ministers have taskedScottish Water with delivering the current capital programme (Quality andStandards II) to quality and legislative standards as specified by theappropriate regulator and to overall efficiency targets as set by the WaterIndustry Commissioner.
The delivery of ScottishWater’s capital programme is a matter on which ministers place the highestpriority. It is one of the principle achievements for which the board ofScottish Water will be held accountable. At my last meeting with Scottish Waterwhen this issue was discussed, I received assurance that current investmentcommitments would be delivered to the timescales agreed with the relevantregulator.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 06 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Mary Mulligan on 27 February 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive when the Social Economy Action Plan will be published.
Answer
We are developing the actionplan and hope to make an announcement shortly.
- Asked by: Mary Scanlon, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 26 February 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what action is being taken to ensure that Scotland gains the economic benefits from its production of equipment for wind farm development.
Answer
We have created the Forumfor Renewable Energy Development in Scotland to bring together stakeholders to work with the Executive to ensure that Scotland can take full advantage of these opportunities. Withsupport from the enterprise networks, Scotland has already succeeded in creating new jobs in theproduction of renewable energy devices, most notably at Vestas Celtic inCampbeltown. The recently published gap analysis study commissioned jointly bythe Executive, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and theDTI showed that there are currently around 2,000 jobs in the renewablesindustry in Scotland with the potential to increase this number significantlyin the period to 2020, both in the existing technologies of wind and hydropower and in the new renewables technologies such as wave, tidal and biomass.
