Chamber and committees

Statutory requirements under the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 2008 (the DMR) oblige planning authorities to carry out neighbour notification and, in certain circumstances, local advertisement of planning applications.

Planning authorities are required to send notice of a planning application, addressed to the Owner, Lessee or Occupier, to premises on neighbouring land. The term neighbouring land is defined as an area or plot of land which, or part of which, is conterminous with or within 20 metres of the boundary of land which the development is proposed. Local advertisement of a proposal is required where there are no such premises to which notification can be sent, it is of a type listed in the DMR as likely to have impacts over a wider area or it is a departure from the development plan.

Prior to the changes in August 2009, notification was required in relation to land which was conterminous with or within four metres of the boundary of the land, excluding the width of any roads, for which development was proposed. The current requirements aim to strike an appropriate balance between having notice served on those most immediately affected by a proposal and ensuring that requirements are clear, easy to interpret and do not undermine the efficient processing of applications.

The Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals which handles planning appeals made to Scottish Ministers takes a number of steps to ensure that procedural errors in relation to appeals are kept to a minimum and that on the rare occasions when they happen, lessons are learned, corrective action is taken where required, and any changes required to procedures are implemented quickly. Steps taken to keep errors to a minimum include regular training for professional and administrative staff, professional peer group review, checking of letters by senior reporters, and thorough induction and mentoring of all new staff to the directorate.

The £70 million funding established for 2011-12 is subject to parliamentary approval of the draft budget. The Reshaping Care Change Fund will be allocated to partnerships to enable them to make better use of the total combined resources for older people. Guidance to local health, housing and social care partnerships on accessing the fund was issued on 23 December 2010. The guidance asks all partnerships to submit local Change Plans to the Scottish Government by 28 February 2011. It sets a clear expectation on partnerships to include carers and carers'' organisations, as well as other third and independent sector partners, in preparing and agreeing their Change Plans.

The £5 million for Carer Information Strategies (CIS) in 2011-12 is also subject to parliamentary approval of the draft budget. In the meantime, we have written to NHS health boards and to the National Carers Organisations seeking their views on the use of the £5 million. The funding will however be directed towards support for carers and young carers.

The Scottish Government launched a formal consultation on 14 January, to gather evidence on the most effective, and efficient way of providing independent monitoring of prisons across Scotland.

We will take a view on the future of independent monitoring once the consultation concludes on 25 February.

The Scottish Government is not considering a legal duty on local authorities to compile and maintain a record of common good assets. Guidance issued by the Local Authority Scotland Accounts Advisory Committee (LASAAC) makes a clear requirement for local authorities to have in place Common Good Asset Registers. Audit Scotland reported that local authorities have generally taken reasonable steps to comply with the guidance. Audit Scotland will continue to monitor progress as part of their annual audit process.

The Scottish Government wrote to all local authorities in 2007 to remind them of their responsibilities under accounting codes of practice, best value guidance and statute in respect of their management of common good funds and assets. In addition, accounting guidelines set out in the Local Authority Scotland Accounts Advisory Committee (LASAAC) document Accounting for the Common Good fund: A Guidance Note for Practitioners (December 2007) makes a clear requirement for Local Authorities to put in place Common Good Asset Registers by March 2009.

The Public Records (Scotland) Bill provides a general framework for the management of records by named public authorities in Scotland which should apply to all types of records created and held by those authorities and contractors which provide functions on their behalf. It does not deal with specific types of records and therefore it is not appropriate to amend it to impose a specific requirement on local authorities to compile and maintain a comprehensive record of common good assets.

The bill imposes a duty on named public authorities to produce and implement a records management plan. An important element of a plan will be a retention and disposal schedule which sets out minimum retention periods and disposal actions for specific types of records created and held by an authority.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-38551 on 17 January 2011. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Regulations governing the approval of tenancy deposit schemes in Scotland will be laid before the Parliament for consideration during the current session.

It is our intention that the regulations will apply to those tenancies covered by the landlord registration provisions contained in the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004.

As they are covered by the landlord registration provisions in the 2004 act, university accommodation providers would not be exempt from the duty to comply with the regulations if passed by the Parliament.

I have asked John Ewing, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

The information requested is shown in the following table. This shows the most recent available data. Data for 2009-10 are due to be published on 20 December 2010.

Figures include long-term and life prisoners recalled from licence. For such prisoners, it is not possible to determine whether they have spent time in the Open Estate prior to their initial liberation.

Long-term and Life Sentence Prisoners Released from Custody: 2006-07 to 2008-09

% of prisoners who	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09
Long-term prisoners
Spent time in the Open Estate	39	38	36
Not spent time in the Open Estate	61	62	64
Life sentence prisoners
Spent time in the Open Estate	48	54	56
Not spent time in the Open Estate	52	46	44

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services.