Chamber and committees

No.

Planning Directorate officials keep in regular contact withAberdeenshire Council officials over a range of planning matters. A formalrecord of every telephone call is not kept. Planning officials were in contactwith Aberdeenshire Council on a number of occasions between those datesconcerning the planning application for the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire. Irefer the member to the answer to question S3W-7699 on 20 December 2007,which recorded the details of three such telephone calls. On 4 December 2007 planningofficials wrote to Aberdeenshire Council to advise of Scottish ministers’ decisionto call in that planning application. At no point did ministers request thatplanning officials contact Aberdeenshire Council.All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the searchfacility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

No such contacts took place.

No such contacts took place.

Senior local authority membersalready sit on health boards and participate fully in the role of the boardsand in the decisions that they make.

On 8 January I launched a consultationon proposals for a Local Healthcare Bill.The consultation is part of our drive to improve public and community involvementwith NHS boards and looks at how existing processes could be strengthened to enhancepublic involvement, and asks for views on introducing direct elections to healthboards. The role of local authority members is raised as part of the consultation.

In 2007-08, the StrategicWaste Fund baseline was over £132 million. However, this level of resources willnot be spent on waste and so resources in 2007-08 have been allocated to other spendingpriorities and pressures. Resources for 2008-09 have also been allocated to meetother spending priorities and pressures. For 2008 onwards, we have allocated over£154 million over three years in our new zero waste fund. This fund will be usedto support work on the diversion of waste from landfill, including work on developingmarkets for recycled products, waste prevention, community recycling and waste educationand awareness.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-7664 on 20 December 2007. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The First Ministerissued a statement on 11 December 2007, which noted that he wasat an official engagement in Inverurie on 3 December launching a major show forthe Scottish meat industry, using a government car. He then travelled to Aberdeenwith his special adviser to complete government business and to prepare for governmentbusiness in Aberdeen the next day. The First Minister made no other journeys onthis day in the government car.

4 December 2007.

As a result of the unusual amountof public interest in the First Minister’s travel to this meeting, the PermanentSecretary has personally considered what use was made of the Government Car Serviceon this occasion. He has noted that it is commonplace for civil servants, includingspecial advisors, to travel with ministers in government cars, in order to assistministers to use time spent travelling to progress government business, and thatit is also common for the minister’s government car to convey such civil servantsto their destination, where it is different from the minister’s destination. Heis satisfied that the use made of the Government Car Service in this case was consistentwith such general practice and was both appropriate and pragmatic.