Chamber and committees

The Executive's recently issued guidance to local authorities on the preparation of full Local Transport Strategies for their area stresses the need for strategies to address the key transport factors affecting people with disabilities. A copy of the guidance is available in SPICe.

I announced in March that a national group would be formed to advise the Executive on the transport needs of people with disabilities. It is planned that the group will include representatives of a variety of organisations concerned with people experiencing mobility problems. The full membership of the group will be announced following consultation with groups representing disabled people and transport bodies.

The Executive does not believe that an official inquiry into the current outbreak of deaths among drug injectors is appropriate, as there is an official investigation being undertaken led by Dr Laurence Gruer of the Public Health Medicine Unit of Greater Glasgow Health Board, which is continuing.

The Executive and the health board have done everything appropriate to the situation, keeping all clinical agencies and the public informed on a regular basis. GGHB and the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health are co-ordinating the investigation on a global level, as the outbreak is now international. They have drawn in a range of international agencies and experts in tackling the problem.

On 15 June, the investigation team announced that the likely cause of the outbreak in Glasgow was the bacterium Clostridium novyi. Work is continuing and the heroin will be cultured under a variety of conditions in an attempt to isolate the Clostridia and other bacteria.

Greater Glasgow Health Board receives an annual general revenue allocation. It is for the board to determine within the funds available how to manage and deliver local healthcare services to meet the needs of its resident population. No separate funds have therefore been allocated to deal with the recent deaths caused by the contamination of heroin in the Glasgow area. For 2000-01, GGHB has been allocated a unified budget of £772.366 million, an increase of 5.4 % over that for 1999-2000.

The Executive commends the work being done by Dr Gruer and his team in co-ordinating what is effectively an international investigation into establishing the precise cause of these deaths. On 15 June, Dr Gruer announced that the bacterium Clostridium novyi was likely to be the main cause of the illness in most of the people affected in this outbreak. Work is continuing to try and establish how exactly Clostridium novyi is contributing to the illness.

General guidance on Special Educational Needs is contained in the Scottish Executive Manual of Good Practice for all staff and professionals involved with children and young people with special educational needs which was issued in January 1999. Further information on good practice in behaviour management techniques can be found in the publications Taking a Closer Look at Promoting Social Competence and Sharing Good Practice, both Scottish Executive funded projects. In addition, the Scottish Executive conference on Alternatives to Exclusion, held on 17 January 2000, provided the forum for local authorities to exchange theories and best practice on topics including behaviour management. The conference report to be published in March was sent to all authorities for dissemination to staff and other professionals.

None.

This information is not held centrally. Any arrest referral schemes in Scotland would operate through locally agreed arrangements and expenditure on their operation is likely to be small. Policy on early intervention in the criminal justice system for drug misusers has focussed on the piloting of diversion by Procurators Fiscal of accused charged with minor offences from prosecution to social work and other service agencies. Expenditure in 1999-2000 on the 18 pilot diversion schemes including mediation and reparation amounted to £664,566. It is not possible to separately identify how much of this figure is attributable to work with drug accused as opposed to those individuals accused of other types of offences but approximately half the schemes were intended to deal with drug misusers.

Whilst no specific funding is earmarked for arrest referral schemes, £5.9 million is set aside over these two years for priority programmes tackling the problem of drug offenders. These funds will enhance the provision of intensive probation and diversion from prosecution schemes and will invest £1.2 million and £1.5 million in 2000-01 and 2001-02 respectively in the piloting of Drug Treatment and Testing Orders.

I refer the member to my reply to question S1W-6164.

Draft regulations transposing the Drinking Water Directive into Scottish legislation will be the subject of a consultation exercise during the summer. The proposed draft requires water undertakers to submit programmes of work designed to secure compliance with the regulations to Scottish Ministers for their approval.