Chamber and committees

All non-executive appointments to NHS boards, Special Health Boards and NHS trusts are announced by the Scottish Executive in the form of news releases. The latest, dated 11 January 2002, is to be found on the Scottish Executive's website at the following address:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/pages/news/2002/01/SE5143.aspxAdditionally, details of current ministerial appointments to all Scottish public bodies are published on the Scottish Executive Public Appointments website at the following address:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/government/publicappoint/publicbodies.asp.

We are currently considering our response to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee's Report on their inquiry into the need for a Children's Commissioner in Scotland, which was published on 14 February. The arrangements for establishing a Children's Commissioner in Wales formed part of the committee's considerations in preparing their report.

The Scottish Law Commission last considered the definition of a vulnerable witness in its Report No. 125 of 1990. Since then, work on this issue has been taken forward by the Scottish Executive through the Towards a Just Conclusion Action Plan, published in June 2000. A number of discussions have taken place with relevant voluntary organisations. A consultation paper including a section on this topic is scheduled for publication this spring.

The Scottish Executive had a meeting with First Group in September last year to discuss the company's plans to pilot American-style yellow school buses.

We have had no discussions with any organisation recently about the future of trial by jury generally.

This is primarily a matter for Strathclyde Police who work in partnership with other local bodies to reduce crime.However, the Scottish Executive has lent support to partnership working by providing £250,000 for CCTV in Port Glasgow under the "Make our Communities Safer CCTV Challenge Competition".Last October we also announced details of a new community safety award programme, which will give all council-led Community Safety Partnerships a share of £12 million over the next three years for local community safety initiatives. This award is made up of two elements, a formulated award based on population share and crimes per head of population and a variable award based on progress and quality of partnerships' community safety strategies and action plans. We announced the formulated awards last October. Inverclyde will receive £259,073, and Renfrewshire will receive £362,215 over the next three years. The variable award for 2002-03 was announced on 15 March and Inverclyde and Renfrewshire will both receive a further £26,783.

I have asked John Ewing, Chief Executive of the Scottish Court Service to respond. His response is as follows:The four largest courts have a CCTV system permanently installed. All others have access to mobile systems which can be deployed to the courts as required. The information is given in the following table.

Name of Court/ Sheriffdom	CCTV System Installed	No. of Mobile CCTV Systems available
Glasgow Sheriff Court	1
Edinburgh Sheriff Court	1
Lothian and Borders		1
Grampian Highlands and Islands		2
Tayside Central and Fife		2
South Strathclyde Dumfries and Galloway		2
North Strathclyde		2
High Court, Lawnmarket Edinburgh	1
High Court, Saltmarket Glasgow	1

The responsibility for funding palliative care and respite care lies with NHS boards and local authorities. The Executive provides some core funding for voluntary organisations which run hospices. We have no plans to change existing arrangements. However, we are aware that the Children's Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS) is planning to build a second children's hospice in Scotland. I place a very high value on CHAS' work at Rachel House, its existing hospice. I propose to make an award of grant to support this new development. I will make a contribution of £500,000 to the capital costs of the new hospice and provide additional grant of £250,000 per annum to support its first two years, when it is up and running.

The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with Railtrack on a wide range of issues. Infrastructure improvement works, including essential maintenance works currently under way, are the responsibility of Railtrack and subject to regulation by HM Railways Inspectorate.

I am pleased to confirm that the programme was approved by the European Commission on 11 December 2001. Preparatory work by the Scottish Executive and local partners continues. I expect to appoint the Programme Monitoring Committee soon so that implementation can begin around Easter.