Chamber and committees

This information is not heldcentrally. Expenditure on academics medical posts is a matter for NHS boards todetermine in consultation with Universities and is spent from within their generalallocations.

There are currently 432 honorarycontracts in NHS Scotland. This figure indicates the number of doctors who are workingboth in Universities and within the NHS. Information on how these posts are fundedis not held centrally as this is a matter for local agreement between NHSboards and academic institutions.

The financial implications of the Court of the University of Glasgow’s ruling both for the University of Glasgow and forthe NHS across the UK are still being assessed. As Lord Warner indicated inhis statement to the House of Lords on  1 December 2005, a meeting is due to takeplace between Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, UK Health Departments, the Department for Educationand Skills, NHS Employers and the University and Colleges Employers Associationto discuss contractual solutions and other potential ways forward. This is due totake place on 31 January 2006. Once a way forward has been identified, it will befor NHS boards and relevant universities to work in partnership to manage any financialimplications.

As one of its core functions, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland maintains the National Monuments Record of Scotland, our national archive of the built environment. The rapid growth of this archive, and the improvement of public access to it, have necessitated continuing investment over this period which will culminate in capital funding of £2 million in 2006-07 and £10 million in 2007-08 for new accommodation for the archive.

The information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

As indicated in the answer to question S2W-21459 on 19 December 2005, we will consider the implications of the proposed planning gain supplement in depth before coming to any conclusions. The impact of such a measure on relevant policies, such as the provision of affordable housing, will depend on a number of issues, some of which are not specified in the consultation. These issues include the rate at which the supplement is set, the thresholds for exemption from the supplement, and the exact arrangements for allocation of the revenue raised. It also depends on the interaction of the proposed supplement with planning and housing policies more generally.

As also detailed in the answer to S2W-21459, the consultation paper does not propose the replacement of contributions under section 75 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Following publication of the Barker Review of Housing Supply in March 2004, which contained a recommendation for a planning gain supplement, Scottish Executive officials discussed the general principles with HM Treasury and Office of the Deputy Prime Minister officials. In the course of general discussions with UK ministers, I have reminded them of the need to consider the implications for devolved administrations when developing the detailed proposals. The First Minister repeated the importance of carefully considering the implications for Scotland when HM Treasury informed us, prior to the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report, that it would consult on detailed proposals for a planning gain supplement. We will therefore consider these proposals in depth before making any specific representations on the details themselves to HM Treasury.

The consultation paper does not propose the replacement of contributions under section 75 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997. The paper indicates that the UK Government will act to scale back, but not remove, the scope of planning obligations under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which applies to England and Wales only. As planning is a devolved matter, it will be for Scottish ministers to decide whether to propose any change to the system of planning agreements, currently provided for under section 75 of Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997.

There has been an overall reduction of 90 full-time equivalent (FTE) permanent staff in the Scottish Executive core departments between July 2004 (4,523.8 FTE staff) and December 2005 (4,433.8 FTE staff).

I wrote to my Whitehall counterpart, regarding oil and gas taxation, in advance of the Chancellor’s statement. I consulted the industry in Scotland before doing so.

Scottish ministers became aware of the changes to the rate of the Supplementary Corporation Tax, in the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget report speech on the  5 December 2005. This would be expected in the case of such a market sensitive announcement.

Since the Chancellor’s announcement, we have continued to liaise with the Department of Trade and Industry to clarify details of the industry tax incentives referred to by the Chancellor in his speech.

The travel awareness campaign, Choose Another Way is not running this financial year. The advertising spend for financial year 2003-04 was £219,928 and for 2004-05 was £265,101.