Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally.

The vast majority of Glasgow City Council's expenditure is on services for its residents, including, for example, education and social work. However, Glasgow's revenue grant allocation takes into account costs associated with commuters, tourists and other people residing out-with the city boundaries. Allowance is also made for costs to the city of cultural and other facilities. In addition, on 9 January 2003, in response to the findings of the Review of Scotland's Cities, the Scottish Executive announced that Glasgow will receive £40 million over the next three years from the City Growth Fund, established to promote the success of our cities and their surrounding city-regions.

As specified in guidance made available on 9 January 2003 to accompany the reports of the Review of Scotland's Cities, release of cities' allocations from the City Growth Fund will be dependent on satisfactory outputs from the proposed City Vision exercises and a brief but clear submission to the Scottish Executive outlining how the money will be spent and what outcomes will be delivered. Authorities' submissions to the Scottish Executive concerning the use of the City Growth Fund will be expected to include:a list of projects or service outcomes the funds are intended to buy; notional expenditure on each of these, with appropriate value-for-money considerations; target dates for delivery; identification of other sources of funds levered in to the projects; consideration of any potential State Aids or other issues impacting on the use of the funds; consultation with community planning partners and the business community in the city, andoutput of consultation with authorities and business interests in the city region.It is anticipated that local stakeholders will work to ensure that activities supported by the City Growth Fund and other funds administered by the Scottish Executive, for example the Quality of Life funds, should be mutually reinforcing where possible. The Scottish Executive recognises that many of the projects involved are likely to have long lead-in times and potentially to face other administrative requirements. Therefore, it is accepted that initial submissions will in some respects be provisional. Authorities will also be expected to provide a brief annual report on those activities supported by the fund, and a final report after three years, detailing the outcomes achieved as a result of support by the fund. The Scottish Executive will write to the local authorities concerned in the next few weeks, to confirm these requirements.

We have no plans for such a document given that firearms legislation is reserved.

The Scottish Executive is consulting with Scottish police forces, via the Scottish Criminal Statistics Committee, about collecting information on the numbers of seizures of illegally held firearms. Scottish police forces hold such information but do not currently record this data in a standard way.

The requested information on the number of firearm certificates issued in 2001 is published in Table 1 of the statistical bulletin Firearm Certificates Statistics, Scotland, 2001. Copies of the bulletin are available in Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 22812).

The requested information on the number of crimes and offences involving the alleged use of firearms in 2001 is published in Table 1 of the statistical bulletin Recorded Crimes and Offences Involving Firearms, Scotland, 2001. Copies of the bulletin are available in Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 24105).

The national healthy eating campaign, "healthyliving", was launched on 7 January 2003. An announcement about the standards for school meals, which are part of the report of the Expert Panel on School Meals, will be made shortly.

National and international recruitment continues to be pursued against the background of recognised shortages in the oncology specialties across the UK. In this, the Beatson Oncology Centre is supported by the HR Department within the North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust. Dr Bryson and his colleagues continue to have the full support of the Chief Executive of Greater Glasgow NHS Board, the Chief Executive of the North Glasgow Trust and the Scottish Executive.

Local authorities have powers under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 to provide short-term refuges for children who appear to be at risk of harm. The role of the local authority in providing refuge is to provide the child with somewhere safe to stay and any other services consistent with safeguarding the child's welfare.The Executive has established a working group containing a range of external experts to consider the support needs of children who run away from home and children abused through prostitution. The working group has suggested that the Executive should undertake an assessment of how local authorities are meeting the needs of young people for refuge, the levels of demand and examine models of good practice before issuing additional guidance on the provision of refuge support. The Executive has identified up to £600,000 in funding to take forward work on refuge provision and £57,000 for a study led by Barnardo's to identify effective services for young people abused through prostitution, with a particular focus on ensuring that there are alternatives to secure accommodation.