Chamber and committees

As part of the concordat agreement between COSLA and the Scottish Government, the budget for school travel coordinators was rolled up into the local authority grant settlement in 2008-09. It is up to each local authority to manage these posts and the priority that they give to school travel.

In January 2007 there were 43 school travel co-ordinators posts and in January 2008 there were 38 posts. We do not collect data on the number of schools for which each school travel coordinator is responsible.

Park and Ride schemes are delivered by Local Authorities and Regional Transport Partnerships.

However, within the first six months of the 2007 election, the Scottish Government signed a Concordat with COSLA, which provided local authorities with record levels of funding over the spending review period 2008-11. This will empower local authorities to deliver improved local transport solutions through increased freedom over how they plan, manage and fund services on the basis of their assessment of local needs and priorities.

The Scottish Government has brought forward £5 million in capital grant-in-aid to allow Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) to accelerate capital spending on Park & Ride facilities across west central Scotland in 2009-10. This acceleration of funding from 2010-11 to the current year was announced by John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth during passage of the Budget Bill 2009-10.

In addition, the Scottish Government has enhanced its manifesto commitment by taking Park and Ride into account under the Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR) and it has also published Park and Ride for Buses: A National Framework on 30 June 2009.

All objections received by Transport Scotland were passed to the Reporters for their consideration.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-25065 on 16 July 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-25065 and 16 July 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The reporters appointed to conduct the public local inquiry and to report to Scottish ministers into objections received against the proposed Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route have considered all objections passed to them by Transport Scotland. The remit of the inquiry was set by Scottish ministers and, in preparing their report to ministers, the reporters will only report on matters that fall within this remit. The reporters are not advising individual parties, of which there are approximately 10,000, who made representations of whether this fell within the remit of the inquiry.

The report and recommendations has now been submitted to Scottish ministers on 30 June 2009.

Inappropriate and excessive speed is a major cause of death and injury on the roads. The Scottish Government is keen to encourage initiatives to cut speed, particularly near schools and in residential areas. However, we consider that local authorities are best placed to consider where and when to introduce a lower speed limit on local roads, taking local factors such as road width, terrain and use by vulnerable road users into consideration.

Guidance to local authorities on setting local speed limits was issued in 2006. Local authorities have been asked to review the speed limits on all A and B class roads in their areas by 2011 in accordance with the guidance. Local authorities already have the power to set speed limits lower than the national speed limit on local roads in their areas if they consider this to be appropriate.

National speed limits are reserved to the UK Government. The Department for Transport considered including a proposal to reduce the national speed limit on rural single carriageway roads from 60 mph to 50 mph in its consultation for a new UK road safety strategy post-2010. In the event they did not pursue this idea.

A Cycle to Work Scheme for core Scottish Government staff was introduced on 4 March 2009. Two windows for applications were agreed for the first year: 4 March to 3 April 2009, and September 2009.

In the first application window, 71 staff applied under the scheme.

The Cycle to Work Scheme was promoted to Scottish Government staff before and during the first application window, and will be actively promoted again during Bike Week in June 2009 and prior to the next window in September. A dedicated website for the scheme has been created to provide information and guidance, and a number of news articles have been published. A Bicycle User Group forum is also available to Scottish Government staff to discuss the scheme.

Transport Scotland has sought advice from a number of financial organisations regarding the funding of the Borders Railway project. Discussions have been held with Transport Scotland''s financial advisors (Messrs Ernst & Young), the Scottish Government Financial Partnerships Unit (FPU), the Scottish Futures Trust, Partnerships UK and the European Investment Bank (EIB). These discussions have been in addition to the market testing exercises where a variety of market lending organisations have entered into dialogue with Transport Scotland.

Correspondence to the Forth Replacement Crossing team is not logged in a way which would allow exact numbers to answer the terms of this question. The Forth Replacement Crossing team is committed to responding to all correspondence and enquiries regarding the project in a timely and helpful manner.