Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive does not collate the level of detail requested. However, each local authority is required to publish a community care plan which takes a broad view of the needs of vulnerable adults in their area and how they are going to be met. These plans are a matter of public record.Community Care Plans link to children's plans. They cover the transition between adult and children services by taking into account the future needs assessment of children who will turn 18 during the life of the Community Care Plan.

The Scottish Executive has taken several steps to implement the recommendations made in Sensing Progress including the establishment of a short-life working group of representatives of local authorities, health services and people with a visual impairment, to review, and change as necessary, the efficiency of arrangements for certification and registration - this was set up and reported in May 2001.In addition, the Sensing Progress recommendations set out some clear action points for local authorities, and the Chief Inspector of Social Work Services, in his annual report, will record what progress has been made.

The Ministerial Group on Sustainable Scotland has played a key role in ensuring that the plans outlined in Working together for Scotland: A Programme for Government are implemented in a way which takes sustainable development into account. Policy areas examined by the group include planning, health, transport and European funds. On 9 October I announced the group's four point action plan further to embed sustainable development in the Scottish Executive.

I am today chairing the first meeting of an Education for Work Review Group to assess the effectiveness of Education for Work activities in schools and the scope to improve them throughout Scotland. Membership of the group is drawn from a wide range of experienced practitioners in education and business. The review group will report in the summer of 2002. A copy of the review group membership and remit is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre.

Public/Private Partnerships have a significant role to play in our strategy for improving the school stock and the learning and teaching environment for our pupils and teachers.10 education authorities in Scotland are already guaranteed financial support for school PPP projects under an arrangement which was agreed in 1998. Many pupils and teachers are already enjoying new or refurbished school accommodation as a result of that support and further projects which attracted that support are either under way or due to start soon.It is important to maintain the momentum and I shall, therefore, be providing more revenue support to local authorities in Scotland so that further school PPP contracts may be taken forward. As was the case in 1998, authorities who have proposals for school PPP projects will be invited to submit bids for the support which will be available. I envisage a date of 14 December 2001 for submission of the first round of bids, which should be in the form of outline business cases for the projects concerned. I would expect to respond to each bid and have made appropriate decisions before the end of April 2002.I shall reach a final decision on the level of financial support for this new round of PPP projects following the discussion I shall be having with council leaders on 31 October about the overall strategy for the improvement of school buildings. It is, however, likely to be similar to that which was made available for school PPP projects in 1998 and which is helping to fund building work on schools with a capital value of around £500 million.Full details of the new arrangements will be issued to local authorities in the form of full bidding guidance by the end of this month. Further advice on the level of support will be issued immediately following my meeting with council leaders on 31 October.

In my reply to Mr McNulty's question (S1W-12613) answered on 22 December 2000 we undertook to report quarterly on the numbers of letters received by ministers and our performance in answering them. In the quarter January to March 2001, 3,960 letters were received for ministerial reply, of which 60% received a reply within 17 working days and 79% received a reply within 25 working days.

A review of the implications of implementing a phased neonatal hearing screening programme was placed on the SHOW website on 27 June and is available at www.show.scot.nhs.uk.

I am pleased to announce that we have published the report of progress against the Statistics Plan 2000-01. The Scottish Executive Stewardship Report sets out the progress made against the Statistics Plan 2000-01, which was published in April 2000. This is the first year in which the Stewardship Report has been produced.

I have set Historic Scotland the following key performance targets for 2001-02:

Key Performance Area	Target
Protecting Scotland's Built Heritage
Number of monuments scheduled	200
Weighted number of listed building resurvey units	150
No of weeks in which 80% of Scheduled Monument Consent cases resolved	9
Percentage of Listed Building Consent cases resolved within 28 days	97%
Number of condition surveys completed for properties in care	65
Promoting and Presenting the Built Heritage
HS market share compared to other paid visitor attractions in Scotland*	54.50%
Percentage of satisfied visitors (survey based)	96%
Average retail spend per visitor	£2.05
Agency Management
Percentage efficiency gains/savings on non-grant expenditure	1.25%

* The agency's top ten properties will be measured against the National Trust for Scotland's top 10 properties and the top 10 privately-owned historic attractions.

A survey to provide baseline information on levels of cycle training in Scottish schools is due for completion shortly. When the report of the survey is available, I will consider its implications fully.