Chamber and committees

We have no plans to do so.

Circular 4/96 provides advice to education authorities on the assessment and recording arrangements in Scotland for children and young people with learning needs across the full range of special educational needs.The National SEN Advisory Forum is conducting a review of these statutory arrangements and Circular 4/96 will be revised in light of any changes.The Scottish Executive will be issuing separate guidance to education authorities on the new mainstreaming duty shortly.

Information relating to the calendar years 1997, 1998 and 1999 is given in the table "Drugs Most Commonly Used for Mental Health Problems" published by the Common Services Agency, a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. no. 13286). The data refers only to drugs dispensed in the community and does not take into account drugs dispensed by hospital or hospital-based clinics, details of which are not held centrally.Mental health problems vary widely in nature and severity and not all require the services of psychiatric or specialist mental health services. It is therefore not possible to group drugs into the category of psychiatric. The data is, however, based on British National Formulary chapters and sub-sections dealing with Hypnotics & Anxiolytics, drugs used in psychoses and related disorders, antidepressant drugs, drugs for dementia and antimuscarnic drugs used in parkinsonism and related orders as these concern drugs most commonly prescribed for mental health problems.

During financial year ending March 2000, 26,522 patients received inpatient hospital care in mental illness specialties in Scotland. Some of these patients will have received more than one episode of care throughout this period.Costs for the provision of inpatient health care in mental illness (general psychiatry) services are published annually in the Scottish Health Service Costs publication. The treatment of patients in mental illness specialties varies and is a combination of long-stay and short-stay patients. For this reason, costs are not shown per patient but as a cost based on the number of inpatient beds occupied per week.The average cost per inpatient week of mental health care was £917 for the year ending March 2000 (page 28, Scottish Health Service Costs - 2000). These data are published on Scottish Health on the Web (SHOW) at:http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/isd/Scottish_Health_Statistics/subject/Costs/2000/costs2000.pdf

The information requested is not held centrally.

Our consultation paper Changing Children's Services Fund consults on priority objectives for the fund and mechanisms for allocation of funding. The consultation period ends on 14 May 2001. The consultation paper proposes that the fund should be distributed by local authority area on a formula basis. The aim would be to minimise the administrative burden and enable local accountability and flexibility, while still ensuring the fund's objectives are met. Funds would only be released on receipt of satisfactory costed and targeted plans, if that proposal goes ahead.

Our consultation paper Changing Children's Services Fund consults on priority objectives for the fund and mechanisms for allocation of funding. The consultation period ends on 14 May 2001. One matter for consultation is whether the funding to be allocated to each local authority area should be directed through the local authority or whether proposals should indicate which of the project partners (who might come from the local authority, health or voluntary sectors) should receive grant. Monitoring arrangements will be considered in the light of decisions on the mechanism for allocation of funding.

I refer to my answer to question S1W-15129. The Parliament does not directly employ British Sign Language interpreters but has contractual arrangements in place to provide deaf signers for plenary debates and committee meetings based on need.

At present, provision is made for British Sign Language interpreters on a basis of need. Contractual arrangements are in place with Edinburgh and East of Scotland Deaf Society and the Scottish Association for Sign Language Interpreters (SASLI) for the provision of British Sign Language Interpreters for the Scottish Parliament. The contract covers provision of interpreters for both plenary debates and committee meetings.A formal policy on provision of deaf signing is currently being developed for use both at the interim accommodation and at Holyrood. It will cover requirements for MSPs, their staff and parliamentary staff as well as for members of the public attending plenary or committee meetings. To ensure that the policy reflects accurately the views and needs of the deaf and hard of hearing, interested organisations are being consulted. A meeting with the relevant members of the Parliament Building Disability Consultation Group is due to take place in May 2001.

Where there is an item of plenary business or a committee agenda item directly relating to deaf issues, British Sign Language signing facilities are provided. This has occurred once for chamber business: 16 February 2000 for a Members' Business debate (S1M-529, Dr Winnie Ewing) on sign language. In that instance, two signers were located in the public gallery and one was positioned on the floor of the chamber to interpret for deaf members of the public attending the debate.Committee meetings have employed deaf-signers on two occasions. When the Equal Opportunities Committee discussed, on 25 April 2000, a petition by Platform Adult Learning Centre calling for the Scottish Parliament to provide translation services for meetings of the Parliament and committee meetings for the deaf, deafblind people and for people with hearing difficulties, interpreters were contracted to interpret for those witnesses attending and to assist deaf members of the public observing. The Education, Culture and Sport Committee provided a signer for its meeting of 14 June 2000 when, in the course of a special educational needs inquiry, a deaf pupil from Donaldson's College in Edinburgh gave evidence to the committee.When signers have been requested for committee meetings, they have signed for an entire meeting and not just the item relating to why signers had specifically been requested. This has allowed deaf members of the public attending for that agenda item to follow the whole meeting.There have been no instances to date of a deaf person contacting the Parliament in advance or turning up on the day, asking to attend a plenary or committee meeting and expecting interpreting facilities.