The legal basis for the pre-emptive cull, which I announced on 15 March, is under section 31, and Schedule 3 to, the Animal Health Act 1981.

Ms Alexander announced on 28 March a package of measures totalling £13.5 million, including a rates relief package. Hardship relief from non-domestic rates is currently available to any business demonstrating hardship, at the discretion of the billing local authority. The Scottish Executive finds 75% of relief granted, the cost of the remaining 25% falling to the local authority. The scheme increases the Scottish Executive's contribution to the cost from 75% to 95% for those businesses most effected by the foot and mouth outbreak.

Dumfries and Galloway Council will lead one of the Modernising Government Fund projects. The council made a bid for £72,000 from the fund to pilot, test and evaluate the use of kiosks in delivering information services to places that are not served by a high bandwidth telecommunications infrastructure. The council project has been fully funded.The kiosks are based upon a product provided by "StartHere". The support from the Fund will allow the Council to cover the costs of the kiosks and to provide additional content relating to services in the Dumfries and Galloway area.In addition to the agreed funding for the Council project the Scottish Executive will provide additional funds to support the development of national content for the "StartHere" kiosks. Initial discussions have taken place with the Council to determine what this content should be, and how much additional support will be necessary.The Council will provide progress reports on the project for the Executive's 21st Century Government website and will carry out an assessment of the project to determine its suitability for other parts of the public sector and across Scotland.

The Scottish Executive website was accessed by an unauthorised source on 8 September 1999 and the homepage was defaced. There have been no incidents since then. The website of the National Archives of Scotland was accessed by an unauthorised source on 21 March 2001 and the homepage was defaced. The websites of other Executive Agencies have not been accessed or altered by unauthorised sources.

I have indicated that we are looking for regional offices for the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care in the Inverness, Aberdeen, Paisley, Hamilton/East Kilbride and East Lothian areas, as well as in Dundee. The main criteria which will be used in deciding on specific locations will be cost, size and availability.I have also indicated that at the very least there will have to be resource centres in Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles, Argyll and Bute, Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway, the Borders and the Stirling area.

One post is within the Scottish Courts Service and is a new trainee position as a Sheriff Clerk Depute in Dumfries Sheriff Court. The other is an Agricultural Officer post in the Dumfries Area Office of the Rural Affairs Department, dealing with Agenda 2000 work.

There is no accepted definition of the knowledge economy and this raises difficult conceptual and measurement issues.Scottish Executive officials are liaising with the Office of National Statistics, Scottish Enterprise and other bodies on the development of a number of indicators measuring the wide range of activities covered by the term knowledge economy. Information on some of these indicators was included in my written evidence to the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee investigation on the impact of the New Economy in Scotland. A copy of this evidence has been placed on the committee website:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/official_report/cttee/enter-01/elp01-05.pdf.

As part of their annual benchmarking exercise, Scottish Enterprise produces an ICT connectivity indicator that shows the proportion of companies using a website, e-mail and/or Electronic Data Interchange. Figures are currently available for 1998, 1999 and 2000. Neither the public resources nor the burden on businesses required to conduct this exercise on a monthly and quarterly basis could be justified.There are, however, other sources of e-commerce statistics available for Scotland. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce, for example, have recently added e-commerce questions to their quarterly surveys. In May, the Office for National Statistics is due to publish the results of a survey of interconnectivity and the level of sales over the Internet, which will provide information at a regional level.

The Scottish Executive gathers and publishes statistics on the use of the Internet by households as a part of the Scottish Household Survey. The most recent figures available for mid-2000 show 21.7% of households having access to the web from home. However given the rapid growth of household access to the web the figures are likely to understate the percentage of households now connected to the web.Full figures from the Scottish Household Survey for 2000 will be published in September 2001. Figures are not available on a monthly basis. Quarterly figures are given in the table.

Percentage of Scottish households with access to the internet from home by quarter
Year	Quarter		Percentage of households with access to the internet from home
1999	February-March		11.7
	April-June		12.9
	July-September		14.5
	October-December		17.7
2000	January-March		21.1
	April-June		21.7

Source: Scottish Household Survey.

We have decided to lodge a regularly updated information note with the Parliament's Reference Centre. The first of these was submitted on Friday 30 March. The intention is to provide twice weekly updates. This will continue over Easter.