Chamber and committees

No.

On 3 December 2007 theChief Planner took a call from Mr Salmond in his capacity as constituency MSP. MrSalmond sought advice from the Chief Planner on whether it would still be permissiblefor the officials of the Scottish Government Planning Directorate to meet representativesof the Trump Organization. A request was then made by the Trump Organization representatives.The Chief Planner arranged the time and venue.

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.

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.

We estimate thataround £50 million over three years will be spent on waste delivery bodies.These resources will be spent on household and commercial waste prevention;developing markets for recycled materials; public education and awareness onwaste and litter, including support for Keep Scotland Beautiful; the communityrecycling sector; advice to local authorities, and waste infrastructure. We areconsidering carefully with local authorities and others how best to spend theremaining waste resources (around £100 million over the three years) in thezero waste budget, but our aim is to support the further development ofinfrastructure that will be required to meet future waste targets.

National Indicator39 in the concordat between the Scottish Government and local government relatesto reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill in 2010, in line with the firstEU Landfill Directive target. In addition, the Landfill Allowance Scheme placeslimits on the amounts of biodegradable municipal waste which can be sent to landfill.Authorities which exceed these limits can be subject to penalties. We will, of course,support work by local authorities to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfillthrough our zero waste budget. In addition, the rising cost of landfill providesa further incentive to find other ways of dealing with waste.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-7154 on 13 December 2007. All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility forwhich can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Zero waste requireshigh-levels of recycling and composting and a greater emphasis on waste prevention.Figures from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency show that recycling andcomposting is increasing and the amount of waste going to landfill is falling. Anumber of steps are in place to tackle waste growth such as the Scottish Waste AwarenessGroup’s Love Food Hate Waste campaign, on food waste; work by the Waste and ResourcesAction Programme with retailers on packaging and other waste; a home compostingprogramme, and work by the community recycling sector to provide advice to householderson how to avoid waste. We recognise we need to do more on waste prevention and partof the zero waste budget will be allocated to work in this area. We are also committedto further improvements to the environmental performance of the public sector asa whole.

I refer the memberto the letter sent on 31 October 2007 by the Accountable Officerto the Convenor of the Audit Committee. A copy of this letter can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/audit/papers-07/aup07-06.pdf.

Recycling servicescurrently funded by the Strategic Waste Fund will in future be supported throughthe local government settlement. We expect that around £100 million over the nextthree years in the centrally-held Zero Waste Budget will be used to develop infrastructurerequired to meet future waste targets.