Chamber and committees

Implementation of the Directive is not expected to affect the competitiveness of shipyards in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK as arrangements in Scotland are essentially the same as in England and Wales.The Executive proposes to defer until 2007 the date when existing shipyards are required to apply for permits to carry out organotin coating activities. This is close to the final date for transferring existing installations allowed under the IPPC Directive. It is, therefore, very unlikely that any competitive disadvantage will result.

The Scottish Executive published a Regulatory and Environmental Impact Assessment (REIA) prior to making the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2000 (PPC) to implement the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (96/61/EC). The REIA considered the costs to industrial sectors from complying with the Directive, and included an assessment of the effect on small businesses. It identified potential costs ranging from a few hundred to several thousand pounds per installation across all sectors. Offsetting benefits were also identified. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency's (SEPA) application charge for shipyards transferring to the new PPC regime is currently £3,743. It is proposed to increase this to £7,400 during 2003 to allow SEPA to recover its regulatory costs. The cost to yards of preparing a PPC application is estimated to be approximately £23,000. The additional capital cost of complying with PPC will be site specific.The Executive proposes to amend the PPC Regulations by delaying the period when existing shipyards are required to apply for a PPC permit for carrying out organotin coating activities. The proposed amendment will result in substantial savings for existing shipyards.

The costs of establishing and operating the new Do a Little, Change a Lot website, as set out in the answer given to question S1W-30632, exclude VAT. Including VAT, the equivalent costs would be £30,550 and £8,577 respectively. The cost of the previous version of the website set out in question S1W-30632 includes VAT.

The Executive (and the former Scottish Office) carried out five separate consultations on options to transpose the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (96/61/EC). A wide range of industries, businesses, trade associations, statutory bodies, local authorities and environmental interest groups were consulted. The directive was implemented through the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2000.

The Scottish Local Government (Elections) Act 2002 allows ministers to extend successful pilots throughout Scotland by order. As only three pilots have been run to date, the Executive believes that it needs to secure more experience in order to determine best practice and decide whether all-postal voting should be extended to all local authorities. There are therefore no current plans to simplify procedures or give local authorities the right to decide whether council by-elections should be held by postal ballot only. The Executive has ensured that the process of applying to run a pilot is not arduous and that applications are dealt with quickly.

Your letter was passed to the Area Tourist Board review team who acknowledged it on 18 September 2002 as a response to the review. We have received well over 300 such responses and at this stage have simply acknowledged each one, although we plan to publish a summary of responses in due course. However, I will write to you soon to respond to the points raised in your letter.

Many of the issues raised by the work of Social Enterprise London are addressed in the Executive's review of the social economy, which we aim to publish shortly.

Research on the effectiveness of the Learn to Let Go campaign has been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 25242).

We have only had one request from a member of staff to participate in local political activity. This was from a Grade 6, in 2001 and was turned down. Our conduct rules do not just restrict staff from working for a party or standing as a candidate in a local election. They also preclude staff from speaking in public on matters on local political controversy and this was the basis on which the Personnel Office ruled against agreeing the request.

Microsoft products used in the parliamentary estate are purchased under an agreement negotiated in March 2002 by the Office of Government Commerce on behalf of the UK public sector, including the devolved administrations. Through consolidating the purchasing power of the UK public sector this agreement has secured the most competitive prices for Microsoft products available to the organisations within its scope. The confidentiality provisions of this agreement do, however, prevent the publication of those prices.When developing the current Technology Refresh strategy, several office automation suites were considered, all of which offered basic compatibility. The Microsoft Office suite best met the technical and business needs of the Parliament.