Chamber and committees

The Action Plan in the National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland contains a series of recommendations about access to services, including refuge provision by Women's Aid. The national Group to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland was established in June 2001 with a remit to oversee the implementation of the Action Plan over three years. A consideration of resourcing will be part of this remit.

There is no reference to this in the Scottish Ministerial Code.

VisitScotland will launch a Genealogy Tourism Strategy and dedicated website in January. The strategy will be launched in Glasgow, and also in America, Canada and Australia.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The variety of GM oilseed rape currently being grown in the farm scale trials in Scotland has been modified to be tolerant to glufosinate ammonium (LibertyÔ). The Scottish Executive does not hold details of other chemicals and herbicides used by the farmers since this is not a requirement of the deliberate release consent. Other crop treatments that the farmers choose to use will be commercially available, with necessary regulatory approvals for use in UK agriculture.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) undertake detailed examination of the environmental risk assessment submitted by the applicant for each proposed release site to ensure that the GM crop will pose no special threat to protected sites. This assessment includes consideration of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in the vicinity of the proposed release site. SNH are satisfied that no SSSIs are directly threatened by any of the current farm-scale evaluations in Scotland. The following SSSIs are located within 10 km of the four GM farm-scale evaluations:

Grid reference	Nearest village	List of SSSIs within 10 km
NJ 753 346	Rothienorman	Wartle Moss Gight Woods Red Moss, Oldtown Windy Hills
NJ 747 307	Daviot	Wartle Moss Pitcaple and Legatsden Quarries Hill of Barra
NJ 756 274	Daviot	Pitcaple and Legatsden Quarries Red Moss, Oldtown Wartle Moss Hill of Barra
NH 654 545	Munlochy	Roskill Munlochy Bay Dam Wood Monadh Mor Beauly Firth Braelangwell Wood Cromarty Firth Drummondreach Wood Longman and Castle Stuart Bays Lower River Conon Rosemarkie to Shandwick Coast The Dens

The recently published research on this issue will be referred to the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) for expert advice. When ACRE present their advice the Scottish Executive will consider it in the context of the farm scale evaluation programme and of policy development on GM crops generally.Scottish Executive policy towards GM crops places priority on the protection of human health and the environment.

Funds for occupational health are allocated to NHS health boards on the basis of the Arbuthnott formula.

Grade B clinical scientists' posts including radiotherapy physicists are funded by NHS Trusts and cover a wide range of qualifications and experience. Post holders are expected to undertake further programmes of professional training, but there is not a nationally managed structure of post-registration training.The new Special Health Board for Education in NHSScotland, which I announced in June 2001, will, over a period of time, ensure suitable structures to support training for all groups of staff. Our National Health gave a commitment to improve our support and co-ordination of those aspects of workforce planning which need to be done centrally. The Executive is currently considering how to achieve this in the light of the report of the Scottish Integrated Workforce Planning Group.The Scottish Cancer Group are also considering all workforce requirements flowing from Cancer in Scotland: Action for Change which will include radiotherapy physicists since their work is primarily concerned with cancer treatment.

Considerable progress has been made on the Modern Transport System proposals for the North East, of which the proposal for a Western Peripheral route is a part. Among other developments, the Executive is funding the development and extension of the Transport Model for Scotland to include the North east.