Chamber and committees

We are in regular contact with the UK Government on a wide range of issues, including the oil and gas industry.

This is a reserved matter. We remain in regular contact with the oil and gas industry on a wide range of issues, in particular through PILOT, of which I am Vice Chair. We will continue to work with the industry and with the UK Government through PILOT, to strengthen and sustain the oil and gas industry in the UKCS.

The information requested is not held centrally. A service-led group, chaired by a NHS Trust Chief Executive, has been established to consider the issue of missed appointments. NHS boards and trusts, together with primary care teams are already working to ensure that wherever possible if an appointment is cancelled it can be filled by another patient. Patients also have a responsibility to ensure that where they are likely to have difficulty in attending an appointment they inform their practice or clinic as soon as possible.

The available information is given in the following table. The category of "drug" crimes recorded by the police only includes crimes involving the importation, cultivation, supply or possession of drugs. Other types of crime e.g. crimes of dishonesty to fund the purchase of drugs or crimes committed under the influence of drugs may be "drug related" but cannot be separately distinguished in the recorded crime statistics.Drug Crimes Recorded by Police Force Area per 10,000 Population and as a Percentage of Total Crime, 1999 to 2001

	Drugs Crimes as a Rate per 10,000 Population			Drugs Crimes as a Percentage of all Crimes
Police Force area	1999	2000	2001	1999	2000	2001
Central	47	46	71	7	8	12
Dumfries and Galloway	48	31	45	8	6	8
Fife	43	36	47	6	5	6
Grampian	50	44	50	5	5	6
Lothian and Borders	57	58	63	6	6	7
Northern	55	39	58	12	8	12
Strathclyde	76	81	89	8	9	10
Tayside	51	42	53	6	5	7
Scotland	62	61	71	7	7	9

The latest available information on the number of consultant vacancies in each acute trust, is shown in the following table. Information at hospital level is not held centrally.Consultant Vacancies in Acute Trusts in NHSScotland: Headcount at 30 September 2001

	Establishment	In Post	Total Vacancies	Length of Vacancy		Vacancies as a % of Establishment
				< 6 Months	6 Months or More	Total	6 Months or More
Argyll and Clyde Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	164	151	13	8	5	7.9	3.0
Ayrshire and Arran Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	138	136	2	2	-	1.4	-
Borders Acute Hospital NHS Trust	49	47	2	2	-	4.1	-
Dumfries and Galloway Acute and Maternity Hospitals NHS Trust	69	68	1	-	1	1.4	1.4
Fife Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	129	116	13	1	12	10.1	9.3
Forth Valley Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	112	110	2	1	1	1.8	0.9
Grampian University Hospitals NHS Trust	308	295	13	11	2	4.2	0.6
North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust	469	462	7	2	5	1.5	1.1
South Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust	211	209	2	2	-	0.9	-
Yorkhill NHS Trust	115	112	3	3	-	2.6	-
Highland Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	102	102	-	-	-	-	-
Lanarkshire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust	226	207	19	8	11	8.4	4.9
Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust	445	437	8	1	7	1.8	1.6
West Lothian Healthcare NHS Trust1	85	80	5	2	3	5.9	3.5
Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust	270	262	8	8	-	3.0	-
Orkney Health Board2	3	3	-	-	-	-	-
Shetland Health Board2	9	7	2	-	2	22.2	22.2
Western Isles Health Board2	15	12	3	1	2	20.0	13.3

Source: ISD(M)4 Medical and Dental Census ISD Scotland.Notes:West Lothian Healthcare is an integrated trust providing acute and primary care services. It is not possible to provide separate data for each of these services.Orkney Health Board, Shetland Health Board and Western Isles Health Board are special health boards providing acute and primary care services. It is not possible to provide separate data for each of these services.

The Scottish Executive set out its broadband strategy last year in Connecting Scotland: Our Broadband Future and our vision was to make broadband connections more affordable and pervasive across the country, including in rural areas. As part of that strategy, the Executive has developed the Pathfinder initiatives to aggregate public sector demand for broadband in the Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. It is hoped that this major investment on the part of the public sector will help to stimulate both demand for and supply of broadband within these areas, which might not be immediately covered by the commercial market. Work on the Pathfinder initiative is well in hand.Our strategy also undertook to identify where there was a need for direct support measures; our programme under the UK Broadband Fund is developing this element through almost a dozen projects managed by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. These include awareness raising measures and technology trials in rural areas, such as Powerline Carrier and Wireless pilots, which aim to determine the potential of these technologies for delivering broadband in rural communities. The UK Government has set a general target on broadband which is to "have the most extensive and competitive broadband market in the G7 by 2005" and the Scottish Executive's broadband strategy is designed to contribute to this overall objective.Currently, about half of the Scottish population has access to broadband via terrestrial ADSL and/or cable-modem equivalents.

The statistics requested are not held centrally by the Scottish Executive but the Department for Culture, Media and Sport maintains a database of National Lottery awards on their website which sets out the number and amount of awards, by local authority area and by constituency, for each lottery fund.

Information on the number of residential beds for the treatment of alcohol misuse in the public and private sector in each NHS board area is not available centrally.

Regulations can be revoked or simplified both by specific instruments addressing these regulations and by elements contained in more wide-ranging instruments. It is therefore not possible to give figures for reductions in bureaucracy. The Executive works to ensure that all regulations are necessary and proportionate. In particular, for regulations which impact on business, charities and the voluntary sector, the use of the Regulatory Impact Assessment and the Review Regulatory Impact Assessment should guarantee that regulations are proportionate, necessary and fit for purpose when they are introduced and remain so over time.

This is an operational matter for the enterprise networks.