Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive does not currently credit a school with the attainment of pupils presented by another establishment. A working group, involving the Scottish Executive and the SQA, has recently been set up to look into improving ways of recording the attainment of pupils taught in partnership arrangements.

The Scottish Executive has no plans to provide additional funding across the board to voluntary organisations disadvantaged by reductions in investment income. However, the current Strategic Funding Review aims to identify the current scale and pattern of public sector funding to the sector and will examine the scope for improving its availability, effectiveness and sustainability in the long term.

Guidance on local authority plans for services for children (the subject matter of section 19 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995) issued in October 2001. It is intended to review this guidance in the light of experience with the plans drawn up in 2002 and the position of children affected by bereavement will be taken into account.

The 2nd Stage of the Review of Initial Teacher Education is due to be commissioned after the forthcoming parliamentary elections and to report around the end of 2003. A range of issues, including bereavement training, will be considered and the review will make recommendations on the skills which should be expected of teachers to achieve initial registration.We are, with the General Teaching Council for Scotland, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the teaching organisations, developing a National Framework for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) which will be fully in place by August 2003. It is for local authorities to determine what range of continuing professional development it is appropriate to make available for their teachers within their own local frameworks.

The three-year remit for the current membership of the National Special Educational Needs Advisory Forum comes to an end in March 2003. We intend to review the work of the forum and its purpose, in the light of the proposals outlined in the draft Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill.

Providing the information sought, at the level of specific NHS boards, might enable individual members of staff to be identified. I am, therefore, unable to provide the information in the form requested.

I announced the Executive's plans to establish an interim fund to support sustainable waste management (category c and cc) projects currently funded by landfill tax credits on 3 February 2003.The Executive expects to receive a Barnett share of the £100 million public spending scheme announced by the Chancellor. This will be allocated to expenditure on National Waste Strategy objectives in Scotland. The mechanism for distributing these funds will be announced in due course.

We are taking forward a range of initiatives to tackle racial prejudice, wherever it occurs. This includes:over £2.9 million in 2003-04 to implement the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum Action Plan announced by me on 19 February;a £750,000 funding package for integration work across Glasgow city announced by me on 10 February for Glasgow communities supporting asylum seekers and refugees, and the Executive's anti-racism campaign, One Scotland. Many Cultures launched in September 2002 to raise public awareness of racist attitudes and behaviour and the negative impact this has on individuals and society more generally.

Guidance on Family Friendly Policies was prepared in partnership with the service, trade unions and the professions and was published in January 2000. This guidance includes a section on flexible working hours and it is intended to review the guidance later this year. The guidance underpins the Staff Governance Standard and all NHSScotland employers are required to meet or exceed it. Employers' progress towards meeting the guidance will be part of the annual Staff Governance Standard audit process.Copies of the Family Friendly Policies guideline can be found on Scottish Health on the Web (SHOW): http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/spf/partnership_information_network.htm.The Scottish Executive Health Department Centre for Change and Innovation is also undertaking a national flexible working development programme from April to July 2003, followed by a good practice conference in 2003. The programme outcomes are to increase the numbers of staff working flexibly, increase staff satisfaction and reduce staff turnover and agency costs.

The consultation paper on lottery distribution policy was published in July 2002 by ministers from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Scottish Executive, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. The consultation closed on 30 October 2002. Consultation responses were collected by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, with responses from Scotland being copied to the Scottish Executive. I have written to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport conveying Scottish ministers' views in the light of the Scottish consultation responses. Copies of the letter have been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 26471). There is to be a meeting of ministers from across the UK later this month to discuss a range of issues on the National Lottery. The outcome of the review of lottery funding is expected to be announced in late spring or early summer.