Chamber and committees

At national level, the Scottish Executive provides grant assistance under the Children, Young People and Families Unified Voluntary Sector Fund to four family relationship support organisations in the voluntary sector - Family Mediation Scotland, Couple Counselling Scotland, Scottish Marriage Care and Stepfamily Scotland. We want to see these bodies work effectively together; and have made additional funding of £250,000 last year and a further £250,000 this year available to support initiatives to integrate administrative functions, for the benefit of the end user.

At local level, family mediation and relationship counselling services to clients are mainly delivered by independent voluntary bodies affiliated to the national organisations.

None as yet. Our goal is to secure an integrated approach to the needs of families in transition. We want to see family relationship support services more closely aligned with other important services to children and families provided or secured by local government. Many local authorities already support local family relationship services. I am considering how current Executive funding can be best channelled to ensure sustainable and effective local services. We will welcome discussions with COSLA, and with individual authorities, in due course.

The Executive allocated direct funding to NHS Boards of £3 million in 2004-5 and
£5 million in 2005-6 to support the provision of alcohol treatment services. It is for the local NHS Board, in consultation with their partners on the localAlcohol Action Team to allocate this investment to the type of services whichbest meet local need

The Executive is currently updating its Plan for Action on Alcohol Problems and will consider future support for local agencies as part of this process.

The police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service treat all such incidents seriously, and will take action where it is in the public interest to do so.

Alcohol advertising is a reserved matter. However, the Plan for Action on Alcohol Problems published in January 2002 committed the Executive to raising such issues with the UK Government and alcohol industry. The forthcoming update to the Plan for Action will reiterate this commitment.

I refer the member to my answer to question S2O-6031 on 14 April 2005. I also refer the member to the answer my colleague, Malcolm Chisholm, gave to question S2W-7206 on 28 April 2004.

Decisions on whether to charge for car parking facilities or the installation of the Patientline facility in NHS hospitals is one for local determination.

No. Military records areentirely a matter for the UK Government.

The Scottish Executive has regular contact with Scottish Natural Heritage and, usually through Historic Scotland, with the National Trust for Scotland to discuss a broad range of issues affecting the natural and cultural heritage of Scotland. The National Trust for Scotland is an independent charity and, subject to any legislative restrictions, it decides the future of its properties.

Currently there is one PET scanner sited in the John Mallard PET Centre in Aberdeen.

In March 2003, the Scottish Executive announced £5 million capital investment from 2004-05 to support the development of PET services in Scotland. The three Regional Cancer Advisory Groups and their constituent NHS boards have considered plans for provision of PET scanning, and I expect details of future investment to be confirmed shortly.

For Scottish patients requiring a PET scan arrangements can continue to be made with the existing PET facility in Aberdeen or elsewhere.

The Scottish Executive issued revised guidance on hospital car park charging to NHSScotland on 1 April 2004. There are currently no plans to issue guidance on other charges to patients for facilities, such as Patientline TV.