Chamber and committees

Issues concerning the ownershipof such land will depend on the detail of the contract between individual authoritiesand their private sector partners. Generally, land in public ownership would beunder the control of the private contractor for the duration of the PPP contract,and revert to council ownership at the end of the contract, as would the schoolbuildings themselves.

Decisions on the schools to beincluded in a PPP project and the nature of sites on which those schools are tobe located are for the local authorities to determine, subject to the normal requirements,such as obtaining planning permission and any other necessary consents, which applyto such building work.

In certain circumstances, asdefined in paragraph 16 of the Schedule to Annex A to the Scottish Executive Development Department Circular 4/1997: Notification of Applications,a planning authority may notify the Scottish ministers of a planning applicationin which it has an interest, involving a school proposed for development under aPPP project. It would then be for the Scottish ministers to consider whether suchan application should be called in for their determination or cleared back to thecouncil.

The Scottish Executive has issued no such guidance to local authorities specifically in relationto school building programmes.

National Planning Policy Guideline11: Sport, Physical Recreation and Open Space addresses the land use implicationsof sport and physical recreation, and describes the role of the planning systemin making provision for sports and physical recreation and protecting and enhancingopen space, including public parks, amenity open spaces, playing fields and sportspitches.

In addition, Planning AdviceNote 55: The Private Finance Initiative and the Planning Processnotes that, where the sponsor of a school building project has agreed a developmentbrief with the planning authority, the brief would highlight the relevant aspectsof the development plan for the area and identify constraints and requirements inrelation to such issues as open space and playing field provision.

Information on SPCB staff training costs are not available in a grade-by-grade format. All staff have the opportunity to take up training and development opportunities.  Training and development costs are charged to the following areas: IT skills, softskills, languages, first aid, learning resource centre materials, developmental training, senior management training, Scottish Parliament manager’s network, Freedom of Information, performance management, equality framework, classroom course development, training accommodation, catering, stationery, SPCB Staff Induction, SPCB staff induction and other training costs.  Annual spend on training organised by the Personnel Office for our staff has been:

2000-01	£157,000
2001-02	£248,000
2002-03	£344,000
2003-04	£252,000

The information requested isnot held centrally.

The information requested isnot held centrally.

The charges that can be madefor access to information under the Freedom of Information (Scotland)Act 2002 will be governed by fees regulations to be made under section 9 of theact. The draft regulations are presently the subject of a consultation exercisewhich ends on 31 May 2004. The consultation paper is available on theExecutive’s website at:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/government/cocf-00.asp.For information beingpublished in accordance with an authority’s publication scheme, the ScottishInformation Commissioner has advised in his guide to publication schemes (paragraphs4.8 and 4.10) that the authority is free to set its own charges as long as theyare not unreasonable. The guide is available on the Commissioner’s website at http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/pscheme.htm.

This information is not availablein the form requested. Information about successful environmental prosecutions ispublished in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s Annual Reports. Thesemay be found on the agency’s website at:http://www.sepa.org.uk/publications/index.htm.

Such information would includeany details available on prosecutions relating to the use of unsuitable vehicles.The safety of vehicles, however, is a matter for the Department for Transport of the UK Government.

This information is not heldcentrally. There is no requirement on landfill operators in the Landfill (Scotland) Regulations2003, if they detect unsuitable materials being delivered to their sites, to reportor record such incidents, only that they do not accept such deliveries. The offencein the regulations would be committed by a landfill operator who accepted such wastesrather than by the party which delivered them.

This information is not availablein the form requested. Information about successful environmental prosecutions ispublished in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s Annual Reports. Thesemay be found on the agency’s website at: http://www.sepa.org.uk/publications/index.htm.