Chamber and committees

The 1984 Telecommunications Act, makes statutory provision for The Scottish Advisory Committee on Telecommunications (SACOT), to represent the interests of Scotland on committees of the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel). SACOT have an office in Scotland.

The Scottish Executive has discussions with the UK Government on a wide range of issues, including policy development regarding broadband services.

The Scottish Executive has no functions in relation to telecommunications regulation, which remains reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Executive has no functions in relation to telecommunications regulation, which remains reserved to the UK Government.The statutory duties of the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) were determined by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the 1984 Telecommunications Act.

The department is actively pursuing the Scottish Health at Work initiative; is working with its trade unions and the Scottish Executive to develop a stress management policy, and will be commissioning tailored training courses in stress prevention and management for its staff.

Research was commissioned by the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD) to quantify the effect of green cover strategies for non-rotational set-aside on losses of nitrogen and phosphorus to watercourses. The research was completed by the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) in March 1998. Results from this study show that when set-aside land is sown with a dense green cover with a high content of ryegrass, it has the potential of minimising nitrate leaching to watercourses. If a cover crop is not established on the set-aside land and there is subsequent late ploughing, this results in a high loss of nitrate from agricultural land to water courses.The benefits of set-aside in minimising nitrate losses were also confirmed by earlier work commissioned from the SAC by the department (in 1993) which measured and modelled the nitrogen cycle in soils under various agricultural systems including set-aside over three to four years.The research and its conclusions have been taken into account by SAC in preparation of the draft Regulatory Impact Assessment commissioned by SEERAD for the proposed nitrate vulnerable zone action programmes.

Poor forestry practices can lead to nitrate pollution and, although the EC Nitrates Directive does not apply to forests, the new revision of the Forestry Commission's Forests and Water Guidelines takes account of the directive, and recommends that foresters observe the restrictions placed on agriculture.The evidence from Scottish Environment Protection Agency sampling of surface waters in upland catchments, where forestry is prevalent, indicates low nitrate levels and that adherence to the guidelines is preventing pollution.

A full draft Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) is currently under preparation and will consider the impact, in terms of costs and benefits, of proposals for action programme management measures for the new nitrate vulnerable zones (NVZs) proposed in the consultation paper Protection of Scotland's Water Environment (Bib. number 18665). This includes proposals for NVZs in north-east Scotland.A further consultation paper on proposals for action programmes for NVZs including a summary of the draft RIA will be released shortly. Arrangements will be made for copies to go directly to farmers in the proposed NVZs. The full draft RIA will be available from the Scottish Executive website and in hard copy form for those who want it.

To date the department has received 12 responses from individuals and organisations in the north-east of Scotland to the consultation document Protection of Scotland's Water Environment (Bib. number 18665) released on 14 January. There have been a further two requests for more information and 89 requests for the CD-ROM action programme guidance. I personally have received 4 pieces of correspondence about the proposals for new nitrate vulnerable zones in the north-east. The consultation period ends on 15 April.

The information requested is given in the following table:

	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
Scotland	Nitrogen overall application rate (kg/ha)
All Tillage	128	140	122	134	131	126	135
All Grass	111	114	100	124	119	117	110
All Crops and Grass	118	124	108	128	124	121	118
North East (Aberdeenshire & Moray)	Nitrogen overall application rate (kg/ha)
All Tillage	132	122	112	61	104	107	128
All Grass	117	127	131	75	97	123	118
All Crops and Grass	123	125	121	67	100	114	123

Source: British Survey of Fertiliser PracticeAnnual changes in relative cropping areas, as well as any change in fertiliser practice for individual crops, may affect nutrient application rates when aggregated across the main crop groupings such as all tillage, all grass and crops and grass.Unusual seasonal weather can also influence fertiliser usage in some years.The unusually low overall nitrogen application rates for north east Scotland in 1997 is explained by the fact that there were very few fields sampled in that area that year (only 141 fields compared with 550 fields in the 2000 sample). Moreover, the fields that were sampled in the north east in 1997 predominantly grew spring barley and root crops for stockfeed, where nitrogen application rates are typically low. The 2000 sample on the other hand included fields growing winter wheat, winter barley and winter oilseed rape, where application rates are very much higher. The small number of fields surveyed and the small number of types of crop represented in 1997 means that the estimates for the north east for the overall "all grass" and "all tillage" nitrogen application rates are not very robust and will have associated large standard errors.