Chamber and committees

Through the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department's Public Understanding of Science grant scheme, a contribution of £9,500 to the Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) initiative has been made during the financial year 2000-01, which promotes science, engineering and technology to women. The Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) has provided support, since 1995, for initiatives to increase the number of women studying computing and engineering at university. In 2001-02, £100,000 will be provided for the Women into Science, Engineering and Technology (WISET) initiative, which supports work to improve access to, participation in and progression to careers in science, engineering and technology for women in Scottish higher education institutions. SHEFC is also providing £50,000 per annum to support a collaborative project in Edinburgh to raise awareness and aspirations of female school pupils towards science, engineering and technology-related courses.

The majority of NHS Trusts have good procedures in place to deal with the management of medical equipment. In April 2000 the Medical Devices Agency issued guidance entitled Equipped to Care - The safe use of medical devices in the 21st century. This was distributed in Scotland by Scottish Healthcare Supplies. The aim of the guidance is to:Help nurses, midwives, health visitors, other health professionals and support workers understand their role in the safe use, purchase and management of medical devices.Provide managers with pointers to the best practices for training, purchase and maintenance of medical devices.Ensure that arrangements for purchase, use and maintenance of medical devices are firmly embedded within the local framework for clinical governance.Raise awareness about the role of MDA and how it can provide advice, guidance to support the safe use of medical devices.However, in the light of the recent baseline report by the Auditor General Equipped to Care: Managing Medical Equipment in the NHS in Scotland it is my intention that the Health Department issues further guidance to NHS Trusts in order further to improve the situation across Scotland.

There is no mandatory training policy for NHS Trust staff on the use of medical equipment. NHS Trusts are responsible for ensuring that their employees are competent to use the equipment they need to use. Equally all health care professionals have a personal responsibility to ensure that they are properly trained in the safe use of medical equipment that they use.

Scottish Executive officials are in regular contact with the Scottish Tourist Board on a number of issues. In addition, they attend meetings of the Tourism Signposting National Working Group, a forum of representatives of the Scottish Tourist Board and Local Authorities, which meets on a regular basis to discuss signposting matters.

The £30 million funding for ICT support announced in the UK White Paper on Business and Skills will not be allocated specifically to geographic regions, since it will focus on UK-wide marketing activities, web-based assistance, and sector specific work. The local ICT support centres, including those in Scotland, will play a major role in the delivery of these activities.

The Aberdeenshire E-care project is one of a series of Modernising Government Fund (MGF) projects that will use information and communications technology (ICT) to support a multi agency strategy for improving community care.The E-care projects are being co-ordinated as part of a strategic programme of electronic health care overseen by the Scottish Executive.MGF projects are scheduled to run until March 2002. All of the projects will be monitored, with regular updates and results published on the Scottish Executive's 21st Century Government website.

The Scottish Executive is committed to achieving universal access to the web by 2005. It is technically possible now for anyone with a telephone line and a PC to purchase web access, but income and a range of other factors are currently affecting take-up by certain groups. We are therefore considering a range of options to achieve universal access which include both home-based access and community facilities.

Funding arrangements for all of the Modernising Government Fund projects have been put in place and the first payments for those projects scheduled to commence in the current year were made before the end of March.The Senior Responsible Officers (SROs) for the projects are to submit appropriate plans containing deliverables and timescales for their projects. These should be in place before the end of April. The plans will then be published on the Scottish Executive's 21st Century Government website.Procedures are also in place for monitoring the progress of each project and SROs are to provide quarterly reports to the Executive. These reports will be used to update the website.

The number of cycleway signs on the 61km of cycleway and cycletrack between Kirkpatrick Fleming and Beattock where it is adjacent to the B7076 is in the order of 307.

The installation of the cycleway signs was included in a package of work awarded under a lump sum form of contract ancillary to the M6 DBFO project. Consequently it is not possible to identify the contractor's costs for individual elements of the package of work such as cycleway signs.