Chamber and committees

Scottish Government officials meet the Scottish Police Authority on a regular basis to discuss a range of matters. The police in Scotland operate independently of Ministers and public counter services is an operational matter for the Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority.

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

In preparation for the opening of HMP Grampian on 3 March 2014 around 300 prisoners will be transferred to other establishments following the closure of HMP Peterhead in December 2013 and HMP Aberdeen in January 2014.

Adult male remand prisoners will be located in HMP Perth and the majority of adult male convicted prisoners will be located in HMP Barlinnie. The small number of women located in HMP Aberdeen will be relocated to HMP and YOI Cornton Vale. Any male young offenders will be relocated to HMYOI Polmont although numbers are likely to be small: only 1 untried male young offender was held in HMP Aberdeen on Monday 21 October.

There are no additional costs for relocations such as these as they are within the general operating costs of SPS.

The transfer of prisoners from HMP Peterhead and HMP Aberdeen will commence in mid November with the majority being transferred during the period 6 to 10 January 2014. The transfer of the relocated prisoners who are from the HMP Grampian catchment area will commence on 3 March and will be concluded by the end of April 2014.

The Decisions about Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation - Information for patients, relatives and carers fact sheet is available for download on the Scottish Government website at the address below. It is available in this format to allow stocks to be printed locally as required.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/Quality-Improvement-Performance/Living-Dying-Well/DNACPR/decisionsCPR

The proposed closure of fire control rooms is a matter for the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service (SFRS). SFRS is meeting with key stakeholders in areas which are affected by its strategic plans.

This is a matter for the board of the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service.

The Scottish Government has regular meetings with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS). Decisions on the allocation of its resources including control rooms, is a matter for the SFRS board.

The proposed closure of fire control rooms is a matter for the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service (SFRS). SFRS is meeting with key stakeholders in areas which are affected by its strategic plans.

Physical education experiences and outcomes form a key element of the delivery of health and wellbeing within the Curriculum for Excellence. That is why the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that by 2014 all pupils across Scotland receive at least two hours of PE in primary schools and at least two periods of PE in secondary schools in S1-S4. We are making good progress towards our PE target and the 2013 Healthy Living Survey outlined that 89% of all schools are now meeting the target, up from 10% in 2004-05.

We are also supporting the Winning Students scholarship programme that helps 150 students compete in high performance sport whilst undertaking their studies in colleges and universities across Scotland. This is delivering significant results with five athletes from this programme already been named as team Scotland members for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. We will be drawing on these types of good practise in developing a draft Youth Sport Strategy.

This adds to our already significant investment into providing opportunities for children and young people to get involved in a wide range of sport and physical activities through support by sportscotland. I have asked the chief executive of sportscotland, Stewart Harris, to write to you separately with detailed information.

The most recent statistics, published on Thursday 26 September and available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change/series/energy-trends, confirm that renewable generation in Scotland during 2012 amounted to 14,756 GigaWatt hours.

Although final electricity consumption figures for 2012 will not be published until the end of this year, the use of 2011’s consumption figure as a proxy allows us to estimate that renewable electricity generation accounted for around 39% of gross Scottish electricity demand during 2012.

The amounts of Housing Association Grant spend for registered social landlords in (a) Aberdeenshire and (b) Aberdeen City in 2011-2012 was:

Also in 2011-12, the Scottish Government awarded Innovation and Investment grant funding to the Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire Council areas totalling £1.17 million and £2.02 million respectively. This includes the following projects: