Chamber and committees

Positive parenting is crucial if we want to ensure that all our children are given the best possible start in life. While parenting is often rewarding it can also be challenging. A range of statutory and voluntary bodies is involved in the provision of support to parents. All parents may need advice and support on occasion from GPs or health visitors. Some parents will also need additional support through more targeted assistance. Support for parents is an important element in a number of Executive programmes including Sure Start Scotland, New Community Schools and the National Health Demonstration Project, Starting Well. The Executive also provides funding for voluntary organisations such as ParentLine Scotland, who provide a confidential helpline for parents, and Parent Network Scotland, who deliver parenting support classes.

Firearms legislation including the regulation of air weapons is a reserved matter.The Scottish Executive is, however, represented on the Firearms Consultative Committee, the independent statutory body established to keep under review the provisions of the Firearms Acts and to make recommendations to the Home Secretary for improving their working.

There are a number of initiatives under way which actively encourage closer links between schools and their local communities. These include the School Sports Co-ordinator Programme, New Community Schools, the school and community strand of the Lottery Sports Fund Sports Facilities Programme and the New Opportunities Fund PE and Sport in Schools Programme. Local authorities and schools have responsibility to determine the nature of their relationship with the wider community including community sports clubs.

A consultation paper on lottery distribution policy, Review of Lottery Funding, was published jointly by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Scottish Executive, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly on 29 July for consultation until 30 October 2002. Section 3 of the consultation paper sets out issues involved in ensuring that funding is fairly distributed to all areas and communities across the UK.Responsibility for distributing proceeds from the National Lottery rests with the Lottery Distributing Bodies. In Scotland, the lottery distributors take part in joint activities, such as the publication of a joint leaflet and maintaining a web portal, to provide information on funding opportunities. All Scottish lottery distributors are taking steps to ensure the equitable distribution of their awards. For example, the Fair Share Lottery Initiative was launched in April 2002 and is a joint New Opportunities Fund and community fund UK-wide initiative targeting disadvantaged areas across Britain; resources of £22 million over three years are being made available, and have been targeted to six disadvantaged areas in Scotland. The Scottish Executive is providing £625,000 over two years for the Kickstart programme which employs development officers who work across area-based social inclusion partnerships to help build the knowledge and skills base of local voluntary and community groups to ensure that they can access funding, including lottery funding.

In line with conditions attached to Lottery Fund Awards, this can vary from awards being repaid in part or in full and future payments being stopped. For grants paid from Exchequer monies, sportscotland's first step would be to write requesting repayment and thereafter normal follow up procedures to confirm receipt of repayment would apply.If fraud were suspected the matter would be referred to the police.

There have been no such cases under the lottery programmes and 18 cases under Exchequer programmes (nine in 1999-2000, four in 2000-01 and five in 2001-02).

Sportscotland's Lottery Sports Fund awards are monitored by case officers for revenue awards or by project managers for capital awards to ensure they are used for the purposes set out in the original application. In addition, there is a standard post completion monitoring of capital projects involving both questionnaires and site visits.Other awards, made from sportscotland's Exchequer funds, are monitored by budget holders which includes checking detailed expenditure reports and receipted invoices. For Development Grant Aid to Scottish Governing Bodies of sport, the Grants Officer reviews the body's annual accounts to ensure the grant was used for the purposes intended and the Development Officer for that sport also provides a review document which forms part of the application for the following year.

The unauthorised deposit of waste (fly-tipping) is already prohibited by section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. However, this and the other legislation relevant to litter and fly-tipping is currently subject to a review which is expected to be complete by late summer.

Rates of day case surgery across Scotland have increased substantially in recent years, the annual number of elective surgical day cases performed by NHSScotland having more than doubled since 1992. The day case surgery rate for each NHS board area is one of the measures of performance included in the NHS Performance Assessment Framework. The planning and commissioning of facilities for day surgery is a responsibility of NHS boards and trusts.

NHS boards are required by the Scottish Executive to monitor and evaluate the success of their smoking cessation services as a whole. Argyll and Clyde NHS Board, therefore, has systems in place to enable it to assess the effectiveness of smoking cessation programmes in its area. Details of the assessment made of individual services may be obtained from Argyll and Clyde NHS Board.