Chamber and committees

As this information is rather lengthy, I shall write to the Member and arrange for the information to be placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe).

The following bilateral Concordats are being published today:Health and Safety ExecutiveDepartment of Trade and IndustryOffice for National StatisticsDepartment of Culture, Media and SportA Concordat will also be published today covering Public Procurement.The texts have been made available to the Parliament and are available in the Document Supply Centre and on the Executive's web site.

This is a reserved matter. Payments made by overseas Governments in this regard are paid direct to the Westminster Consolidated Fund.The cost to each health board area of care provided under the negotiated reciprocal health care agreements is recognised within the total resources allocated to each health board each year.

The views of the Glasgow Branch of the Association for Children with Heart Disorders were canvassed on the future of paediatric cardiac surgery in Scotland, and they also made representations on the issue.

Provisional figures indicate that there were 512 receptions to Cornton Vale prison for non payment of fines in the calendar year to 31 December 1998 and 148 to 31 August 1999.

All local authority criminal justice social work departments in Scotland provide Community Service Schemes. Authorities are required to ensure that schemes for unpaid work in the community offer a sufficient range of placements to be able to accommodate offenders with differing employment, personal or domestic circumstances.Following the publication of a major review of the use of custody for women, Women Offenders - A Safer Way, undertaken by the Chief Inspector of Prisons and Chief Inspector of Social Work, an inter-agency forum, chaired by Professor Sheila McLean, was set up last year to consider the issues raised by the review.

Today I announced my decision on the future of the paediatric cardiac surgery service in Scotland. The Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill is to become Scotland's single centre for children's heart surgery.

Today I announced my decision on the future of the paediatric cardiac surgery service in Scotland. The Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill is to become Scotland's single centre for children's heart surgery.

The recruitment and deployment of police officers is a matter for chief constables to control from within their GAE provision. For the current year police authorities and joint police boards have set budgets totalling £711.9m, which represents an increase of 4% over last year's figure. This should be sufficient to allow police numbers to be maintained at adequate levels.An effective and well resourced police service is only part of the answer to tackling crime. As Partnership for Scotland made clear, we are committed to taking action against crime on a broad front, through crime prevention to wider social policies.

Initiatives such as "Overground", based upon co-operation and partnership, are key to the delivery of better bus services. We shall bringing forward, later this session, legislation to encourage development of more Quality Partnerships. We want local authorities to pursue these against the background of their local transport strategies so that bus service provision can be properly integrated within overall transport policies. Better infrastructure and better quality buses can lead to more frequent services and increased patronage. I expect that our forthcoming decisions on authorities' bids for public transport fund support will encourage bus operators across Scotland to deliver similar improvements.