Chamber and committees

A consultation exercise following the publication of the recent report by the consultants KPMG has now been completed. It will be for the Scottish Further Education Funding Council and the Glasgow colleges, who commissioned the report, to consider the responses to the consultation exercise and the case for subsequent action. The Boards of Management at two separate groups of Glasgow colleges are currently exploring the possibility of merger. These groups comprise (a) Glasgow College of Building and Printing, Central College of Commerce and Glasgow College of Food Technology, and (b) Stow College and North Glasgow College.

The activities of the Clyde Shipyards Task Force have already contributed to a substantial reduction in the original number of compulsory redundancies announced by BAE SYSTEMS, from 1,000 to nearer 500. The task force has also considered longer term issues relating to the company's strategy for the shipyards, the skills required to support this strategy, and the community regeneration and land use issues arising in the Scotstoun and Govan areas. The task force is currently preparing its draft report which will reflect these issues and its remit "to consider the immediate and longer term strategic issues facing the Clyde shipbuilding industry, particularly naval, and to identify the changes necessary to ensure a competitive industry to exploit future opportunities." The draft report and recommendations will be considered at the next meeting of the task force on 7 December.

An unsuccessful applicant can appeal to Eaga against the decision. The case will be reviewed by Eaga's Manager for Scotland who had no part in the original decision.

In October this year I made available an additional £7 million to the Scottish Further Education Funding Council, to be used to support colleges which have shown a determination to take the necessary action to secure their long-term financial viability. Allocation of the £7 million to individual further education colleges is a matter for the council.

It will be for the Chief Medical Officer in England to announce arrangements for publication of the report. The Executive will then decide whether to adopt or adapt its good practice guidelines.

I am currently considering the outcome of the consultation exercise and options for the way forward. I will be discussing the issues with my ministerial colleagues, and intend to make an announcement around the end of the year.An analysis of the responses to the consultation exercise will be published on the Executive website shortly.

The Scottish Executive have no specific plans to target 12-year-olds with health promotion programmes beyond those already offered in health services throughout Scotland. 76% of children in this age group in Glasgow are registered with a general dental practitioner. Through targeting younger children from six years of age onwards and making payments to dentists for preventive treatments will reduce dental disease in 12-year-olds considerably. Research would suggest that programmes such as the enhanced capitation and preventive scheme recently introduced into NHS dental services this year, could reduce dental disease in 12-year-olds by up to 50%.

The information contained in the reply to question S1W-18237 on 8 October 2001 cannot be shown on a constituency basis.

I understand from the Scottish Ambulance Service that the board is scheduled to consider the full business case for priority-based dispatch at the beginning of 2002. The Executive expects to receive the full business case following that meeting, and will reach a final decision as soon as possible thereafter.

The current approach to the monitoring of the RSI target is detailed in my reply to question S1W-18044 on 11 September 2001. Full details of the methodology being employed are contained in the report referred to in that reply, which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 15838).The gender and age breakdown of the people found to be sleeping rough is also provided in that report at an all Scotland level. The second set of quantitative data was collected in October and the next report will include a breakdown by gender and age at local authority level for both the May and October exercises.