Chamber and committees

Copies of the Executive's current guidance on parliamentary questions, ministerial correspondence and the Scottish Ministerial Code have been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre.

The available information is given in the following table. Figures are shown separately for lay district courts and for the stipendiary magistrates court in Glasgow. Persons with a charge proved in district courts, by type of sentence, 1998-2000:

	1998	1999	2000
Custodial sentences
Lay District Court	466	389	346
Stipendiary Magistrates Court	1,366	1,447	928
Total	1,832	1,836	1,274
Non-custodial sentences
Lay District Court	52,751	45,501	41,498
Stipendiary Magistrates Court	5,642	4,516	3,337
Total	58,393	50,017	44,835

Both the Glasgow and Fife Drug Courts will be subject to an independent evaluation. The Glasgow Drug Court began sitting in November last year, and the evaluation of its effectiveness is already under way. The evaluation of the Fife Drug Court will begin when the court is established later this year.

There is no separate target for Scotland under the EC Packaging Waste Directive. However, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced today that the UK has narrowly failed to meet the 50% overall recovery target for 2001 set by the EC Packaging Waste Directive.The full text of his reply is: The UK narrowly failed to meet the overall packaging waste recovery target in 2001, but met the overall recycling target and the material-specific recycling targets for all materials.The recovery and recycling of packaging waste carried out in 2001 are as follows:Recovery and Recycling Carried Out in 2001 (UK)

	(1) UK re-processing	(2) Exported for re-processing	(3) Re-processing for which no PRN/PERN issued (incl. in (1))	(4)PRN & PERN carried forward to 2002	(5)Tonnes accepted for recovery and recycling, UK
Paper	1,851,505	179,439	25,895	83,064	2,030,944
Glass	696,578	39,016	17,036	29,273	735,594
Aluminium	25,869	3,161	1	821	29,030
Steel	141,343	136,736	3,051	8,365	278,079
Plastic	203,149	66,813	6,077	10,506	269,962
Wood	573,951		4,985	23,742	573,951
Alt.evidence	30,741				30,741
Total recycling	3,523,136	425,165	57,045	155,771	3,948,3 01
Efw	513,939		913	24,986	513,939
Total	4,037,075	425,165	57,958	180,757	4,462,240

Article 6(1) of the EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste 94/62/EC set the following targets -

• Between 50% and 65% recovery
• Between 25% and 45% recycling
• 15% recycling of each material

The UK performance against the targets is shown in the table.UK Performance against 2001 Directive Targets

Material	Target	Performance
Paper	15%	53%
Glass	15%	33%
Aluminium	15%	24% ) "metals" 35%
Steel	15%	37% )
Plastic	15%	16%
Wood	15%	57%*
Total Recovery	50% - 65%	47.9 % ~
Total Recycling	25% - 45%	42 %

The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 (as amended) and parallel legislation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland implement these targets in the UK. The regulations place recovery and recycling obligations on producers to enable the UK to attain the directive recovery and recycling targets. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Environment Agency have reported that one compliance scheme and a number of individually registered businesses failed to meet their tonnage recovery obligations under the packaging regulations - a total shortfall of 263,832 tonnes against a combined total obligation of 823,003 tonnes.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-25291.

The Executive has no current plans for a review or revision in this regard.

Resources are allocated to NHS boards on the basis of need. Boards are held to account for managing within the allocations made to them and for achieving national and local targets. The Health Department will support boards to achieve these targets through regular monitoring and performance management.

Neither council has submitted current applications for the consent of the Scottish ministers to the reorganisation or closure of schools in their areas. Decisions on school reorganisation or closure proposals are in the first instance the responsibility of the education authority concerned, following statutory consultation with parents, school boards and church bodies in the case of denominational schools. The consent of Scottish ministers to individual proposals is required only in certain circumstances prescribed in statute.Both North Lanarkshire Council and South Lanarkshire Council have submitted bids for revenue support for potential school building Public/Private Partnership projects with the objective of contributing to the improvement of their school estates. These are under consideration with bids received from 12 other authorities and we shall announce decisions as soon as all relevant issues have been considered.

The Executive recognises that young people run away from home for a number of reasons, and it is important that agencies such as the police and social work, work together to assist young runaways. We are helping to fund Aberlour's pilot project, Running Other Choices which aims to find effective ways of helping to prevent young people from running away. We have also set up a working group to develop national inter-agency guidance on prevention and support for runaways.

The trunk road operating companies, Amey Highways and BEAR Scotland Ltd, are contractually required to clear litter from motorways and special roads in accordance with the standards laid down in the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and the associated Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse. Under the act, responsibility for the clearance of litter from all other trunk roads rests with the local council through whose area the trunk road passes. The operating companies liaise with local councils to ensure that council policies meet with the requirements of the act. Local councils are also responsible for the clearance of litter from local roads.The Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse sets out examples (by way of photographs) of the standards to be met in particular circumstances. It should be noted that the Environmental Protection Act 1990 allows litter levels to accumulate to certain grades before action needs to be taken. The operating companies then have various timescales to return the litter levels to acceptable standards. The Scottish Executive has appointed the Performance Audit Group to audit and monitor the activities and performance of the operating companies and this includes their litter clearing performance.