Chamber and committees

Of the 62 acts passed by the Scottish Parliament during its first session, two contained substantial components linked to European Union legislation. Part 1 of the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 made provision in connection with implementation of Directive 2000/60/EC of the Parliament and Council. The Building (Scotland) Act 2003 made provision for a new building standards regime so as to facilitate compliance with Directive 89/106/EEC of the Council.Of just over 1,950 Scottish Statutory Instruments made during the first session of the Parliament, approximately 10% contained measures in connection with implementation of European Union legislation in Scotland.

In October 2002 the Executive launched Care in Scotland, a national recruitment and awareness campaign to attract more people of all ages into social care. In addition, jointly with COSLA, we are piloting a fast-track scheme for graduates with relevant degrees or experience to retrain as social workers. We have also introduced an incentive scheme, worth up to £9,000 for social work graduates from 2004. On 27 January the then Minister for Education and Young People announced unprecedented additional investment in social work education and other measures that will increase the numbers of social workers in post -

• £2 million over this financial year and the next in grants to universities, local authorities and voluntary organisations to help meet the costs of student practice placements;
• A pilot fast-tracking system for graduates with relevant degrees or experience to retrain as social workers within 15 to 18 months. This scheme attracted around 2,000 applications and 59 candidates have been shortlisted, and

Return to Practice programmes to encourage trained staff back into the social work profession.

This information is available in Statistical Bulletin SWK/S/2002/24 - Staff of Scottish Local Authority Social Work Services, 2001 at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00197-00.asp and the most recent Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Social Work Services for Scotland at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/social/gdno-00.asp.

The information is contained in the following table:

Name of Office	Total	Men	Women	Women as % of Total
Justice of the Peace	3,752	2,688	1,064	28%
Permanent Sheriff	131	109	22	17%
Judge of the Court of Session	32	29	3	9%

Terms and conditions of employment, including pay, and the prohibition of discrimination and regulation of equal opportunities within the workplace are reserved matters.Within its devolved competence to encourage equal opportunities, the Scottish Executive is leading by example by carrying out its own equal pay review. It is also working in partnership with a range of organisations representing employers and employees to support the Close the Gap campaign which was launched in March 2001 to raise awareness about the gender pay gap in Scotland and encourage activity to close the gap.

The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the UK Government on a wide range of issues, including shipbuilding. However, I understand that the MOD is due to announce its decision on the preferred prime contractor shortly. I understand that, whichever company is successful, a substantial proportion of the work will come to Scotland and to the Clyde in particular.

The bodies represented at the meeting held on 2 December 2002 were Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, CSEU Scotland and GMB, BAE SYSTEMS Marine, JobCentre Plus, DTI, Scotland Office, Glasgow City Council, STUC and the Scottish Executive. A list of members is given on page 16 of the Clyde Shipyards Taskforce Report (published in 2002), a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 18984).

The age profile of the vessels in the fisheries protection fleet is as follows:

	Year of Launch
Westra	1975
Sulisker	1980
Vigilant	1982
Norna	1987

No order is planned to be placed in the immediate future.

The Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency has a planned replacement programme for its vessels to meet its enforcement needs. The first part of that programme is under way with the replacement of FPV Westra in July 2003.