Chamber and committees

A number of options forflights were considered in arranging travel for the parliamentary delegation toCatalonia, including the direct flight from Glasgow Prestwick to Girona. Indeciding parliamentary travel arrangements account is taken of price, travelarrangements to and from departure and arrival airports and compatibility withthe demands of parliamentary business. In the case of the recent parliamentarydelegation from Scotland to Catalonia, the most suitable flights were those from Edinburgh toBarcelona via London.

I have asked Graeme Munro, Chief Executive of Historic Scotland to reply. His response is as follows:

The books on sale in shops atHistoric Scotland properties are carefully selected to appeal to visitors. A widerange is carried, mostly about Scotland and its history, but including fiction by contemporaryauthors.

The Scottish PublishersAssociation (SPA), core-funded by Scottish Arts Council (SAC), is developing initiativesto improve availability of data on indigenous publishing output to the public librarynetwork. The SAC has also funded the post of National Readership Development Co-ordinatorin partnership with Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionalsin Scotland (CILIPS) which has provided training to librarians in raising awarenessof Scottish literature. Various readership campaigns in partnership with publiclibraries have taken place over the years, most recently the Read Around Books projectvia the Scottish Book Trust.

The LiteratureDepartment of Scottish Arts Council has a budget of £2.1 million which currentlysupports 10 national literature organisations, direct support to writers and storytellersin the form of bursaries, book awards and writing fellowships; grants to Scottish-basedpublishers and magazine publishers for commissioning costs, production costs andmarketing and promotion; a range of projects and initiatives which support and developreadership throughout Scotland in association with other agencies such as CharteredInstitute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland; a national networkof literature festivals and live literature events; support to publishers overseaswith the translation costs of contemporary Scottish literature, and internationalliterary fellowships and exchange programmes. Additional funding through the WritersFactory provides training in screenwriting and new series from publishers and commissioninggrants for literary magazines editors.

The Travel Management contractcurrently in place was awarded in collaboration with the Scottish Executive. Thisdecision was taken on economic grounds, given the usage of the Scottish Executivein comparison to the Parliament, which would influence pricing proposals.

The contract was awarded followinga competitive tendering exercise in which Carlson Wagonlit Travel submitted themost economically advantageous bid.

The current contract expiresin October 2005 but has the option to be extended up to October 2007. A decisionon whether the extension will be taken up will be made late next year, and the ProcurementOffice will review its policy at this time.

Partnership for Care highlightedthe urgent need to move to an eHealth culture driven by clinicians. To achieve thisa Clinical Information Management & Technology lead has been appointed withinScottish Executive Health Department and Directors of Clinical Informationare being appointed in health boards to work with a new ministerially chaired HealthProgramme Board to take forward the work necessary to achieve an integrated carerecord managed jointly by patients and professional NHS staff with inbuilt securityof access governed by patient consent.

Partnershipfor Care also pointed to the need for co-ordinated national rather than local procurementsof the support systems such as the electronic storage and transmission of electronicscanner and x-ray electronic images already available in some Scottish hospitals.The aim is to have a consistent level of support systems available in Scottish hospitalsable to support the Integrated Care Record. The first of these procurements foraccident and emergency support systems is nearly complete and further procurementswill proceed over the next two years.

Nationallyfocus has been on creating the necessary infrastructure to allow access to PCs andnetworks. This has allowed the central Electronic Clinical Communications Implementation(ECCI) team, working with local teams, to make real progress. 73% of laboratorytests results are available electronically, 38% of GP practices used electronictest results reporting during the last reporting period and 18% of all GP referralletters are now electronic. These numbers are rising.

Pilots are not always the bestway to develop information systems in the NHS because of variations in clinicalworking practice and systems but a national pilot is currently in operation establishedat Irvine, Kilwinning and Dundonald Local Health Care Co-oprative in Ayrshire andArran Primary Care Trust. It is the lead site in a programme of workto enable GPs, Community Pharmacists and Common Services Agency to communicate electronically.Community Pharmacists will be linked to NHSnet and prescriptions transmitted electronicallyfrom GPs to Community Pharmacists. There was no formal evaluation experience gainedand lessons learned from the lead site is being fed into wider implementation plans.NHSNet connections will next be rolled out in NHS Tayside to support the roll-outof the Direct Supply of Medicine project, targeting initially those Community Pharmacistsin Dundee who will be involved with that project. A national programme is being devisedfor roll-out between 2003 and 2006.

Discussions between member statesand the Commission are private and inform internal discussion and advice. As such,this information is exempted under part II, sections 2 and 14(b) of the Codeof Practice for Access to Scottish Executive Information.

A harbour development would normallybe pursued through a Harbour Order under the Harbours Act 1964 to convey the powersto create, operate and regulate a harbour. The conditions and criteria that applyto Harbour Orders are set out in sections 14 to 18 of that act. Section 34 of theCoast Protection Act 1949 also provides for consents to be given to certain marineoperations and works in relation to the safety of navigation.

Harbour authorities, along withother statutory undertakers, have permitted development rights under The Town andCountry Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order1992. A non-statutory harbour development would normally require planning permission,which would be a matter for the planning authority in the first instance.

Harbour development pursued througha Harbour Order, permitted development rights or an application for planning permissionwould be subject to the regulations on environmental impact assessment as appropriate.

The action which the Executiveor local authorities can take to prevent the creation of artificial or fixed harboursis not prescribed in statute. The Executive and local authority concerned wouldhave to consider any specific case in the light of the legislation which might applyin the circumstances, and how the term artificial or fixed harbour was defined.

Any regulations which can beput in place following the creation of such a harbour would depend on how the facilitywas defined in statute, and on whether the developer of any facilities had powersto make such regulations. Any regulation by the Executive would have to come withinits devolved functions for ports and harbours, and fall within ministers’ powersin the relevant legislation.

Consideration of the effect onadjacent harbours before granting any authorisation for the creation of a harbourwould depend on what authorisation or consent was being sought, and the criteriain the relevant part of the legislation which applied.

The lorry road user charging(LRUC) project was discussed in detail at the most recent Department for Transport-Scottish Executive bi-lateral meeting in July of this year. The LRUC has been classified asa tax and is, therefore, a reserved matter. As such, all receipts will go into thecentral exchequer. HM Customs and Excise are implementing the new charge. The Scottish Executive will be involved with the project as it develops.

Several statutory objectionsto the relevant roads orders remain unresolved. Accordingly, the relevant paperswere recently passed to the Scottish Executive Inquiry Reporters Unit to arrange a public localinquiry into the matter.