Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-25302 today, setting out arrangements for considering proposals against the criteria for the Changing Children's Services Fund, which include those referred to in the question.

Indicative allocations for each local authority area were announced on 30 October 2001, based on a distribution formula weighted for relative population of children and young people, deprivation factors and rurality. An assessment panel will consider whether proposals adequately meet the criteria for the Changing Children's Services Fund before funding is released.

I plan to publish the Executive's full response to the report of the Expert Panel on Sex Offending next month. In the meantime, we have included in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill provisions to implement the recommendations which will improve the information provided to Scottish courts.

Regulation of pornographic content on the internet is a reserved matter.

The Consultation Paper will be published on 1 May 2002.

Last year the Scottish Executive piloted the Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust's "Respect" package in schools and youth groups in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The aim of this package is to raise awareness amongst young people of the issues around domestic abuse, and to encourage them to build relationships based on respect and equality. We are currently considering an evaluation of the Respect pilot.More generally, there is a range of resources available to support schools in dealing with issues relating to personal safety. Of particular relevance is the report, Promoting Personal Safety and Child Protection in The Curriculum, issued by the Scottish Office in 1998. This report stressed the need for all pre-school centres and schools to be proactive in helping children and young people to develop their knowledge and understanding of personal safety issues and the skills to deal with them. The report showed how this could be made an integral part of the curriculum.

The issue of the provision of training and how such training will be funded forms part of the discussions I am holding with other ministers on how the Executive will proceed with the "roll-out" of the Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust's "Respect" materials to schools.

The National Group on Domestic Abuse is committed to tackling the key actions set out in the National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland. Monitoring the fund and undertaking an assessment of the impact upon improving local provision is one of these key actions and will be discussed at the next meeting of the national group, to be held next month, when the draft specification for the assessment will be considered. We will make the results available when the assessment is complete.

The regulation of the internet is a reserved matter under the Scotland Act 1998. However, the criminal law is devolved and the general position in law is that what is illegal off-line is also illegal online. The statutory provision on the display of obscene material and indecent photographs of children is contained in sections 51 and 52 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill will increase the maximum penalties available to the courts for offences under the 1982 act.

The Executive will continue to give support and priority to initiatives which afford greater protection to children and young people, including those which raise public awareness and promote safer use of the internet. There is a range of web content filtering software available and many computers in public places already have this installed. It is planned that content filtering software will be provided in all of the 1,000 locations where new facilities for public access to the web are currently being created by Digital Scotland.