Chamber and committees

Total provision of £2.5 million, £4.7 million and £6.5 million has been made available within each council's grant allocation to assist with preparing for the new functions included in Part 1 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, including the establishment of a system of core paths in their area. The distribution of these funds is not identified separately within the grant total. In addition to this funding, Scottish Natural Heritage is spending over £21 million over the current three years to promote and facilitate access, a proportion of which will be in the form of grants to local authorities. A further £7.4 million will be allocated to Scottish Natural Heritage and local authorities over the next three years to improve path networks and their management.

The Executive maintains regular dialogue with Scottish local authorities and local enterprise companies about the relocation policy.On 26 November 2002, my officials met with representatives of Scottish Enterprise Dumfries and Galloway and Dumfries and Galloway Council to brief them on job dispersal opportunities.The Executive also wrote to all local authorities and local enterprise companies in December 2002 drawing attention to the new list of bodies about to conduct location reviews and inviting appropriate sites to be identified.The Executive has extended its relocation policy by requiring organisations covered by the relocation policy to identify small units of work which could be successfully carried out in more remote areas. We will be writing to all local authorities and local enterprise companies again in the spring with further details.

The UK Forest Partnership for Action is at the early stages of developing an action plan, based on the statement published at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002. In this spirit of co-operation, it is for each partner to bring forward actions which can be incorporated in the plan. Partners include a range of industry and environmental organisations as well as the Scottish Executive, other devolved administrations and UK Government Departments. Although the focus of the partnership is primarily international, we will make our contribution through actions in Scotland, for example by implementing the Scottish Forestry Strategy.

Since the late 1970s land has been acquired and used for 13 major schemes on the A75. Listed from west to east, the schemes are the Glenluce Bypass, Newton Stewart Bypass, Blackcraig Improvement, Creetown Bypass, Gatehouse Bypass, Barluka Diversion (Twynholm Bypass), Ringford Bypass, Castle Douglas Bypass, The Glen, Dumfries Bypass, Collin Bypass, Carrutherstown to Hetland Improvement and the Annan Bypass. 31.2 hectares of land was also acquired in the early 1990s for two other schemes which failed to secure funding, at Dunragit and between Halfway and Shennanton.

The Scottish Executive has no arrangements for payment of compensation when traffic is diverted from trunk roads to local roads, or conversely from local roads to trunk roads, due to road blockages or other events.

The Scottish Budget makes provision for preparation work for the delivery of the A8 and A80 upgrades. Further details will be contained in the corridor study decisions which we hope to be able to announce later this year.

The current notional capacity for community disposals for which local authorities (and private sector contractor in the case of restriction of liberty orders) are funded amounts to 15,000 over a 12-month period.

No statistics that directly cover journey times are currently available. In autumn 2002, the Executive commissioned a study and field trials to investigate the potential methods which could be used to monitor this objective. The results of the study will be available before the end of 2002. This will allow decisions as to the most appropriate monitoring methodology to be taken early in 2003, with data collection commencing in spring/summer 2003. Data will be published when they are available.

The Scottish Executive published, on 12 November 2002, Building a Better Scotland - Spending Review Proposals 2003-06, Technical Notes which explain the basis of the targets in the Draft Budget 2003-04. The full notes are accessible on the Scottish Executive website, and include comparative attendance levels for 2000-01.

The Annual Report of the Scottish Legal Aid Board for 2001-02 shows that the courts, the board and solicitors made 427,873 grants of legal aid. In addition, between 1 December 1998 and 31 August 1999 - the most recent published information - the In-Court advice project at Edinburgh Sheriff Court assisted 1,017 people. The pilots under Part V of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 have only recently begun and information on the number of people assisted by these schemes is not yet available.