Chamber and committees

The Executive has allocated £16 million to the Strategic Waste Fund (SWF) in this financial year. Several local authorities have submitted bids to the Executive for implementation of Area Waste Plans and these are now being assessed against a number of criteria before awards may be made. However, it is clear that authorities' bids will not be sufficient to use the full £16 million allocation on specific projects, presumably because many authorities have not completed their longer term implementation plans. I therefore intend to distribute £6 million of this year's allocation between all authorities to be used on short-term recycling and composting initiatives. This will be distributed between authorities using a standard population-based local government revenue formula. This funding will allow local authorities to build on the good work achieved with the £3 million distributed for recycling and composting by the Executive in March 2001 and the £2.46 million which authorities have allocated this year to recycling from the Executive's Quality of Life funding. It will ensure that momentum is not lost whilst longer term implementation plans are being prepared. This would also enable local authorities, which are not yet in a position to submit long-term bids to the fund to continue to contribute towards progress on the Executive's 25% target for recycling and composting of municipal waste by 2006. My officials will be writing to individual local authorities to inform them of the funding available to them and asking them to submit proposals for the Executive's approval before funds are distributed. I will also request that funding be committed in this financial year. The amount allocated to each authority is outlined in the following table:Allocation of £6 Million for Recycling and Composting

Council	Allocation (£)
Aberdeen City	212,000
Aberdeenshire	376,000
Angus	150,000
Argyll and Bute	160,000
Clackmannanshire	50,000
Dumfries and Galloway	246,000
Dundee City	144,000
East Ayrshire	132,000
East Dunbartonshire	106,000
East Lothian	106,000
East Renfrewshire	84,000
Edinburgh City	446,000
Eilean Siar	58,000
Falkirk	146,000
Fife	374,000
Glasgow City	604,000
Highland	380,000
Inverclyde	82,000
Midlothian	86,000
Moray	116,000
North Ayrshire	152,000
North Lanarkshire	316,000
Orkney Islands	42,000
Perth and Kinross	202,000
Renfrewshire	174,000
Scottish Borders	166,000
Shetland Islands	50,000
South Ayrshire	138,000
South Lanarkshire	330,000
Stirling	118,000
West Dunbartonshire	92,000
West Lothian	162,000
Total	6,000,000

We are confident that the total provision for implementing this policy is sufficient to enable all local authorities to meet their commitments to existing self-funding residents at 31 March 2002, replace lost income following the ending of charges for personal care and meet additional demand stimulated by the policy.

Scottish ministers are carefully considering the comprehensive report submitted by the Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) Board, which sets out possible relocation options for the SNH headquarter functions currently carried out in Edinburgh. Whilst Inverness is included in these relocation options, it is not the only one under consideration. A decision will be reached in accordance with the Scottish Executive's published relocation policy and an announcement will be made in due course.

There is no universally accepted definition of excess winter mortality. A number of options were discussed in an Occasional Paper published earlier this year by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS). The paper, which was entitled The Raised Incidence of Winter Deaths, may be found on the GROS website: http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/grosweb/grosweb.nsf/pages/occ7.In their routine data for England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics defines excess winter deaths as being the difference between the number of deaths occurring during the four months December to March and the average number of deaths during the preceding four months (August to November) and the following four months (April to July). The following table provides information for Scotland based on this definition.

Excess Winter Deaths in Scotland: 1997-98 to 2001-02	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-022
Scotland	2,610	4,750	5,190	2,220	1,840
(a) by health board area
Argyll and Clyde	340	290	400	100	180
Ayrshire and Arran	130	380	380	90	100
Borders	10	130	120	50	40
Dumfries and Galloway	30	160	130	70	50
Fife	120	330	310	280	200
Forth Valley	160	220	260	150	30
Grampian	250	520	490	190	170
Greater Glasgow	520	980	1,040	460	410
Highland	90	170	130	60	80
Lanarkshire	340	440	530	250	200
Lothian	370	620	850	360	220
Orkney	20	0	20	0	10
Shetland	10	40	20	10	10
Tayside	230	450	450	180	130
Western Isles	10	30	70	-101	10
(b) by age group
Under 65	170	380	650	260	80
65 - 74	730	790	970	370	230
75 - 84	950	1,660	1,820	820	820
85+	760	1,920	1,750	760	710
(c) by gender
Males	1,080	1,970	2,230	910	630
Females	1,530	2,780	2,960	1,310	1,210

Notes:1. A negative figure occurs when the average non-winter deaths exceed the winter deaths.2. The information for 2001-02 is provisional.3. As this is a crude measure of the increase in mortality associated with winter conditions the numbers of excess deaths have been rounded to the nearest 10.

None.

The concessionary travel schemes, which operate throughout Scotland, have been developed to meet local needs and reflect local circumstances.While they have recently been enhanced to ensure a national minimum concession of free local off-peak bus travel within existing scheme boundaries, the conditions of carriage for each of the 16 single and joint concessionary travel schemes in Scotland are a matter for the local authorities in question.

The audit identified deficiencies in the recording of causes of death. There was no criticism of the actual examination process in Scotland, which with Northern Ireland was compared favourably to England and Wales. The Scottish Executive Health Department's Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Aileen Keel, has written to the Scottish Council of the Royal College of Pathologists about the findings of the audit and will be meeting them in September to discuss the matter further.The Clinical Standards Board for Scotland is developing clinical standards for post-mortem and organ retention. Though these standards were not prompted by the audit they will cover the whole hospital post-mortem process and will apply to any hospital post-mortem examination carried out following an epilepsy-related death.

The Scientific Steering Committee reached a decision by correspondence on which sites were to be proposed for the autumn plantings in the final round of the GM farm scale evaluation programme. The Scottish Executive announced the proposed sites on 8 July as soon as they were notified of their locations. Ministers will decide on whether planting may proceed at these sites.

The estimated annual energy cost of street lighting on trunk roads is £1.7 million. Lighting costs for local roads are a matter for local roads authorities.

We are supporting specific grants for Gaelic-medium education, measures to increase the numbers of Gaelic-speaking teachers graduating each year, the grant to the Gaelic Broadcasting Committee, and support for organisations promoting Gaelic. The Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport will respond to the report of the MAGOG soon.