Chamber and committees

There arecurrently around one millionScottish residents with a valid national entitlement cards allowing them toaccess Scotland wide free bus travel for older and disabled people.

There arecurrently 1.2 million people eligible for the bus and ferry scheme, and of thisone million people are making three million journeys per week.

There were noextensions to eligibility for Scotland-wide free bus travel for older and disabledpeople or to the ferry element of the scheme during 2006-07.

Progress towardstargets is given in section 5, tables 3-5 and the charts on page 6 of Key2006 Road Accident Statistics published by the Scottish Executive in June2007 a copy of which is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre(Bib. number 42962).

Land use planningguides future development and use of land in the long-term public interest. Theplanning system has a role in encouraging integrated transport which includes ensuringprovision of direct and safe access to local facilities by a choice of transportmodes. The Scottish Government expects the planning system to prioritise modes ofpersonal travel with walking first, then cycling, public transport and motorisedmodes. Transport Scotland as trunk roads authority, and elsewhere local authoritiesas roads authorities, must ensure that new developments take road safety into account.

In areas where policyis to encourage access on foot, for example town centres, the pedestrian shouldbe given priority over other modes. This should be reinforced through measures toreduce traffic speed, restrict the movement of vehicles and give pedestrians priorityover vehicles. Further detail on land use planning and transport including roadsafety can be found in Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) 17: Planning for Transport(2005), Planning Advice Note (PAN) 75: Planning for Transport (2005),and PAN 76: New Residential Streets (2005).

Tables 10 and 11of Road Accidents Scotland 2005, a copy of which is available in the Scottish ParliamentInformation Centre (Bib. number 41118), show the result of applying Departmentfor Transport estimates of the average costs of accidents and casualties ofdifferent severities to the road accident and casualty figures for Scotland. On this basis, the total cost of all accidents inScotland was estimated to be £1,382 million per annum based on 2005.

Road SafetyScotland, funded by the Scottish Government, produces a multilingual leafletfor foreign visitors, which provides advice on how to drive safely on Scotland’s roads. A new series of leaflets, aimed particularlyat migrant workers, was issued in April this year. These leaflets, which areavailable in Polish, Lithuanian, Russian and French, provide detailedinformation about legal requirements for driving such as driver and vehiclelicensing, insurance, speed limits and the law on drink driving.

The panel ofexperts will contribute their knowledge and expertise at various stages in thedevelopment of the Scottish Road Safety Strategy. There is no requirement forthem to submit a formal report.

Scottish Water hasbeen tasked by the Drinking Water Quality Regulator (DWQR) with improving drinkingwater quality at 39 treatment works across Scotland to address colour problems as part of the current capital investment programmewhich covers the period 2006 to 2010. This represents improvements to drinking waterquality for around 1 million customers.

Choosing Scotland’s Future was published on 14 August 2007 to provide a starting point and inspiration for a nationalconversation on the best type of government for Scotland’s future. There are numerous additional political powers, a number of whichare outlined in this document, where the Scottish Government believes that the additionaldevolution of powers currently reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament andgovernment would improve coherence and accountability, including in the deliveryof the government’s greener strategic objective, which includes combating climatechange.

All pressures acrossthe Scottish Executive will be reviewed as part of the wider current Scottish ExecutiveSpending Review SSR07.