Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-15382.

The latest figures show that 29,000 young and adult unemployed people in Scotland have now left New Deal for sustained employment.

Scottish Opera has proved in recent years that it is capable of a standard of performance of international class. The productions of Das Rheingold at the Edinburgh Festival last year and of Madame Butterfly have been enthusiastically received by critics and public alike. In addition, its educational and outreach work has proved it capable of reaching out to a the widest possible audience. We should congratulate the company on this excellence and take pride that Scotland is the home of a company capable of delivering such quality.I am determined that the company should continue to play the role in the cultural life of Scotland set out in the national cultural strategy for our national companies. It will not be able to do that without significant support from the Scottish Arts Council.I have carefully considered the future levels of funding in the light of the circumstances of the company and of the competing pressures within the arts sector and taking into account the comments of the Scottish Arts Council. In preparing that advice, the council invited Sir Peter Jonas, formerly Chief Executive of English National Opera, to review the business plan. Among his observations was that in terms of the level of subsidy and staffing levels, Scottish Opera compares favourably with a number of other companies with which he is familiar.I have also taken account of the effects of the period of extreme financial difficulty and uncertainty faced by the company, which led to the emergency payments of £2.1 million in November 1999. I am determined to avoid similar crises occurring again. It was evident at the time of that emergency support that a period of adjustment was necessary before the Company would reach a position of financial stability. A new Chairman, a new board and new management team have taken a grip of the company and are addressing the formidable challenges in creating that stability. Nevertheless this year has not been easy, despite the considerable artistic success. In order to control its costs, the board took the difficult decision to go dark in the last quarter of this year when there have been no main scale productions.I have also taken particular account of the exceptional costs imposed on the company by the ambitious project to perform the Ring Cycle over this and the next three years. I firmly believe that this will be seen as an artistic triumph and bring great credit to the company, to the Edinburgh International Festival and to Scotland generally. I am therefore pleased to confirm that significantly increased resources will be available to the company in this and the next three years. In total, over these four years support from the Scottish Arts Council will amount to £30.634 million. The annual grant for next year, and each of the subsequent two years will be £7.473 million. The support in this year will ensure that the company enters the next three-year period in as stable a financial position as possible.This is a generous settlement, but it still imposes severe financial discipline on the company. It will have to seek cost savings and plan its future programme within strict financial constraints. The company now has the management and artistic team in place to ensure this and that it lives within its means and fulfils its potential.

SAD was launched in May 1996 as a cross-party campaign and re-focused in 1998. The current remit and funding of Scotland Against Drugs (SAD) ends on 31 March. The Executive has consulted party leaders and the Scottish Advisory Committee on Drug Misuse.

The Executive has concluded that SAD has made a significant contribution to attracting business support for anti-drugs initiatives, and has widened community involvement in fighting drug misuse and its consequences locally. The Executive has therefore agreed to provide funding for SAD of £1.5 million per annum for three years from 1 April 2001, from the £100 million package of new expenditure on drug misuse announced in September 2000. Support for the Scottish Drugs Challenge Fund of £500,000 per annum will continue within the overall core funding, which will also provide for increases in SAD's Schools, Business and Community Programmes.

Sir Tom Farmer and Professor Sandy Cameron have agreed to continue as Chairman and Deputy Chairman of SAD. An announcement will be made in March on membership of a new SAD Board of Management and the terms of SAD's Action Plan, which will contain demanding new targets. Following on from my recent announcement on the distribution of the £100 million package of new expenditure on drug misuse, this decision on SAD builds in new breadth to our efforts to harness communities and business in beating drug misuse.

The Executive recognises that we need to support our entrepreneurs. They are crucial to our economic success. We need to raise the rate of new firm formation in Scotland, enhance business survival and improve growth. We must become a country where starting up and running a successful business is an ambition of most and an achievement for many.The way forward is set by the publication of A Smart Successful Scotland - the first comprehensive statement by the Executive setting out the direction and priorities for the Enterprise Networks. Encouraging entrepreneurship is one of the strategy's three key challenges, and we will continue to work with the networks to drive forward improvements in this area.

In his statement on 7 December, the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care announced plans for a comprehensive review of Scotland's licensing laws (Official Report, 7 December 2000; Volume 9, C789).

Tenders for the competition for the four units were received by the Scottish Executive on 30 October and have subsequently been assessed. I can today announce the intention to award four new contracts worth £350 million over five years from 1 April 2001. Subject to completion of an urgent independent review of one aspect of the assessment process which has featured prominently in recent proceedings in the Court of Session, i.e. the use of tender assessment quantities, the contracts will be awarded to BEAR Scotland Limited for the North East and North West Units and to AMEY Highways Ltd for the South East and South West Units. The companies involved already have a substantial record of successful provision of trunk road maintenance in England and Scotland.The review will be undertaken by Halcrow, in association with PriceWaterhouseCoopers. I expect it to take no more than seven days, and I am confident that that it will confirm that the processes followed in assessing quantities were both fair and reasonable. The contracts will be awarded when the review is complete, but the new companies will only take over responsibility on the roads on 1 April. The intervening period will be spent in the essential work of developing plans and systems and procuring the necessary plant, depots and staff required to carry out the work.Under the terms of the competition, the new companies are responsible for any obligations for staff which arise under TUPE. We expect TUPE to apply.It is customary to publish in the Official Journal of the European Community details of the outcome of public sector competitions. In the case of these competitions each bidder was required to demonstrate that their proposals for the contract would meet a quality benchmark. Each bidder satisfied that requirement and therefore an assessment of the rates and prices quoted was made against a predetermined volume of work and subjected to a number of sensitivity tests to provide an overall comparative cost for each tender. The names of each bidder for each competition are set out below, in alphabetical order, and the overall comparative costs of the tenders received for the five-year core duration of each contract are set out in numerically increasing order. The actual value of the contracts over this period will depend on the volume of work ordered within each unit.North West UnitBids were received from the following contractors:AccordBEAR Scotland Ltd (Babtie Group Ltd, Enstone Thistle Ltd and Ringway Group Ltd)Caledonian Roads (Local Authority Consortium)Link Roads (Balfour Beatty and Mott MacDonald)The assessed overall comparative costs of tenders were:£104,975,174 £124,136,868£168,190,613£180,013,104North East UnitBids were received from the following tenderers:ACTim(Atkins, Carillion and Thorburn Colquhoun)BEAR Scotland LtdNE Roads (Colas)Neulink (Local Authority Consortium PPP with Mouchel)The overall comparative costs of the tenders are:£75,822,374£91,371,288£93,439,545£100,095,522South East UnitBids were received from the following tenderers:ACTimAMEY Highways LtdLowland Roads (Local Authority Consortium)Total Road Care (Morrison and Mouchel)The overall comparative costs of tender are:£56,013,419£91,628,894£95,167,760£96,474,835South West UnitBids were received from the following tenderers:AMEY Highways LtdClyde Solway (Local Authority Consortium)Link RoadsNuttallThe overall comparative costs of tender are:£99,953,997£150,137,513£164,307,240£225,283,948

The Scottish Climate Change Programme engages the population in many ways across a number of sectors. For example, a proportion of the revenue from the climate change levy will be used to strengthen the work of the Scottish Energy Efficiency Office to assist the Scottish business and public sectors to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions. There is the Executive's Warm Deal scheme and the central heating initiative which will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the domestic sector. There is also the Home Energy Conservation Act which makes Scottish local authorities responsible for promoting home energy efficiency across all sectors of the housing stock. And there are plans to raise awareness among school children and for Scottish travel and Scottish environment awareness campaigns to encourage the general population to take action.

I have been advised by the Food Standards Agency that there are no steps at present to change the paperwork that butchers are required to complete in connection with the Butchers licensing Scheme.

Guidance notes were issued by both the Food Standards Agency Scotland and by the Scottish Food Co-ordinating Committee to ensure a consistent interpretation of the legislative requirements by all local authorities.

I have been advised by the Food Standards Agency that the £100 fee is intended to cover the full cost of administrating each licence application including the collection of the fee itself, which accounts for a small proportion of the cost.

The licensing scheme will build on the existing local food safety control systems where council officials currently inspect businesses to ensure compliance with the Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995.