Chamber and committees

Both the Community Regeneration Statement and the Social Justice Annual Report published last year set out the action being taken by the Scottish Executive to regenerate deprived communities across Scotland. As I indicated earlier this week in Stirling we are fully committed to building on initiatives that close the opportunity gap.

We have today published the Executive's 4th Electronic Service Delivery Progress Report. Overall, 83% of services provided by the Executive, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies are now available online to some degree. This represents a 3% increase since the last report was published in October last year. Copies of the report have been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre. It is also available on both the 21st Century Government website and the OpenScotland website. A separate report showing the progress of local authorities towards the 2005 target will be published shortly.

The Air Quality Strategy for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland sets out a comprehensive framework of policy measures which aim to improve air quality in the short- to medium-term. The Executive is working closely with Scottish Environment Protection Agency, local authorities and other relevant bodies to implement these policies.

Currently, the Scottish Executive provides annual core funding of £234,000 to Keep Scotland Beautiful which runs a number of anti-litter initiatives. Over the last year, additional funding of £900,000 has been allocated to support elements of this programme.As part of the Executive's Quality of Life Initiative, £95 million was allocated to local authorities this year, and a further £180 million has been provided over the next three years, in addition to regular annual funding. These additional resources were made available to fund local initiatives that will improve the local environment and quality of life. Around £3 million of this year's allocation has been committed to litter reduction schemes. In addition, the Executive has made £20 million available over the next three years to put in place a network of community wardens, one of whose tasks will be to combat littering.The report on the current review of litter legislation was submitted to the Scottish Executive in December 2002 by Environmental Resources Management and will be published when the recommendations have been fully considered. The report was somewhat delayed from initial plans, in order to take account of comments from the advisory group, which included representatives from local government, Keep Scotland Beautiful and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-32803 on 14 January 2003. In addition, the Scottish Executive undertakes an annual analysis of trunk road accidents in order to identify sites where appropriate treatment would be expected to improve road safety. This analysis is currently under way.

The Executive is currently considering the legislative options available to regulate the body piercing industry.

Superfast Ferries sent the first draft of their methods of operation for the carriage of pet dogs and cats to my officials on 17 January 2003. This is being considered and my officials will give the company any comments shortly.

Improving public access to clear and reliable information on the environment is a core part of the Scottish Executive's commitment to environmental justice.As I explained in the answer given to question S1W-29496 on 25 September 2002, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has been allocated additional resources over the three-year period covered by the 2002 spending review. The resources include funding to enable the agency to implement plans for a comprehensive online pollution inventory.SEPA will launch such an inventory within a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment that will allow data to be presented against an interactive map background and searched by location information (including postcode) in August 2005. This will represent the most significant development in providing public access to environmental information since the establishment of public registers in the early 90s. The inventory will comply with the requirements of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. The precise activities required to report and the pollutants (with associated thresholds) featured will be subject to detailed consultation. An integral feature of SEPA's plans will be the involvement of key stakeholders. As a first step, SEPA will provide online access to Scottish European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER) emissions, initially in tabular form by the end of May 2003. They will be presented in GIS form by the end of August. SEPA will also publish electronically water quality maps in June 2004.All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

We intend to commence consultation in March.

It is anticipated that the 30 mph speed limit on the A84 through Lochearnhead will come into force in February 2003.