Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government was involved in the review of the UK good practice document, BS 8300: 2009, which addresses delivery of inclusive buildings, to provide design guidance on Changing Places toilets.

The presence of this information within a well-established UK reference document will assist both in developing awareness of the need for such facilities and in the design of practical solutions.

Scottish building regulations address the provision of sanitary accommodation within new, altered, extended or converted buildings.

Standard 3.12 (sanitary facilities) of the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004, as amended, requires that Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that sanitary facilities are provided for all occupants of, and visitors to, the building in a form that allows convenience of use and that there is no threat to the health and safety of occupants or visitors.

This standard and accompanying guidance was revised in May 2007 to include a range of measures to improve access to, and use of, these facilities and to ensure that all new buildings are better suited to meet the differing needs of occupants and visitors. A key issue, identified within guidance, is the need to provide accessible sanitary accommodation in any building where sanitary accommodation is required.

It should be noted that current building regulations are only applied to existing buildings where proposals are made to alter, extend or convert a building, or part of a building.

Land use planning guides the future development and use of land. It is about where development should happen, where it should not and how it interacts with its surroundings. Issues relating to the internal design of buildings, including facilities such as toilets etc, are not matters that planning authorities would consider when coming to a decision on a proposed development. They are not therefore the subject of planning legislation.

Scottish building regulations address the provision of sanitary accommodation within new, altered, extended or converted buildings.

There are no proposals at present to amend the accessibility standards within Scottish building regulations.

Toilet provision is addressed under Standard 3.12 (sanitary facilities) of the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004. This requires that Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that sanitary facilities are provided for all occupants of, and visitors to, the building in a form that allows convenience of use and that there is no threat to the health and safety of occupants or visitors.

This standard and accompanying guidance was revised in May 2007 to include a range of measures to improve access to, and use of, these facilities and to ensure that all new buildings are better suited to meet the differing needs of occupants and visitors. A key issue, identified within current guidance, is the need to provide accessible sanitary accommodation in any building where such accommodation is required.

The toilet facilities in Scottish Government buildings are fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) standards that apply to existing properties. As the core Scottish Government does not have any buildings to which the public have a general right of access, the Changing Places standard is not applicable to our buildings. However, all building services within the Scottish Government are kept under review to ensure that they meet the needs of staff and visitors.

The SPCB provides a Changing Places facility which is accessible to all passholders and visitors in the Holyrood complex. In 2007, the SPCB received a national award under the Changing Places Category for Scotland for achieving this standard. It is located in the garden lobby area and visitors can be escorted from the public area if they wish to access the facility.

The parliament''s Accessible guide for disabled visitors leaflet provides full details on how to access the facility.

I refer the member to the question S3W-21384 on 11 March 2009. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The Scottish Government will consult members of The same as you? Implementation Group, the Users and Carers Group and other interested stakeholders later this year to inform the scope and remit of the research proposal.

During October to December 2008, creditor-led petitions for bankruptcy were lodged by the following categories of creditors:

Councils	HM Revenue and Customs	Businesses	Private Individuals1	Money Lenders2	Other	Total
600	213	191	74	36	4	1,118

Notes:

1. May include creditors from other categories where a named individual has been cited as the pursuer in the Scottish Court Service''s electronic Case Management System.

2. Banks, building societies and credit card companies.

The information provided has been collected by the Scottish Court Service and cannot be searched electronically. A manual trawl of the 1,118 cases was undertaken in order to provide the figures quoted above, but more detailed information giving the names of individual creditors, where allowed under the Data Protection Act, could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Not all petitions presented to the courts result in award of bankruptcy.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy has never reported on numbers of petitions for bankruptcy as she does not collate this information herself.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy does, however, collate and report on the number of awards of bankruptcy following both petitions to the court and debtor applications considered by the accountant herself. Information on awards of bankruptcy can be found on the website at www.aib.gov.uk in the annual report or in the quarterly Insolvency Statistics press release.