Chamber and committees

Although all specifictrunk road diversions are designed with the agreement of any adjacent local authorityand the police, neither the Scottish Government nor Transport Scotland has information on traffic flows through Bellshill towncentre. This is part of the local road network and would therefore be a matter forNorth Lanarkshire Council.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-4033 on 20 September 2007. Allanswers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website,the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.The current programmefor the M8 upgrade, as published on the Transport Scotland website at www.transportscotland.gov.uk, issubject to satisfactory completion of the statutory procedures. This programme isbased on the assumption that we will require a Public Local Inquiry (PLI).

The timetable forthe start of work on the Raith interchange is dependent on the satisfactory completionof the statutory procedures. The draft Road Orders were published on 23 March andthe draft Compulsory Purchase Order is expected to be published later in the year.The current programme, as published on the Transport Scotland website, at www.transportscotland.gov.ukis based on the assumption that we will not require a Public Local Inquiry (PLI).A PLI would add 12 to 18 months to the programme.

No study has beenundertaken to assess the effect of the junction alterations at Strathclyde Business Park.

Transport Scotland has operational responsibility for this matter and canbe contacted for further information.

Work is currentlyon-going to signalise the junction of the A725 and North Road. It may be that these works will offer congestion relief benefits but theseare not yet proven. There are no further plans for engineering measures to reducecongestion on the A725.

Transport Scotland has operational responsibility for this matter and canbe contacted for further information.

Scottish highereducation institutions benefit from high levels of public investment and remaincompetitive with the sector in England and Wales. We are strongly committed to supporting the sector and will makeinvestment in higher education a priority in the forthcoming spending review.

Complaints of misconductagainst individual councillors, in respect of the Councillor’s Code of Conduct,can be made by the public to the Office of the Chief Investigating Officer who reportsthe outcome of any investigations he carries out to the Standards Commission.

We are currently consideringthe best time to review the code in light of experience gained to date in the operationof the code.

The water supplied to the Executive under its contract with Eden Springs (UK) Ltd is sourced from Blantyre. EdenSpring uses water that is extracted from private springs that are dedicated tothe companys’ use and are environmentally protected.

The total workforce of thecompany is 580 UK-wide and of that 37% (215) is employed in Scotland.

The Scottish Executive is committedto improving access to health and education services though a number of means:

by ensuring, through planning, that schools and hospitals are served by a range of transportmodes, including public transport;

by giving grant assistance tovoluntary groups and organisations to provide community transport services in themore remote areas of Scotland, where there are no scheduled public transport services,or where they are very limited;

by providing guidance on thestatutory responsibilities of education authorities to provide school transport,and importantly

the Transport(Scotland) Act 2005 requires Regional Transport Partnerships to draw up Regional Transport Strategieswhich will strengthen transport provision in their regions. These strategies will be at their best when they workin genuine partnerships with education and planning authorities, health boards andbetween constituent councils.