Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27839.

There are no central records kept of courses attended by individual GPs. However, GPs are encouraged to look at their own personal learning needs (based on the principles of adult learning), and the needs of their patients. Each GP receives an annual Postgraduate Education Allowance to support an agreed amount of training in areas approved by the Postgraduate Deaneries. In the future, the GP appraisal process will assist GPs to identify their learning needs with the help of trained appraisers.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27839.

The Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001 offers an additional, and important, form of protection for individuals at risk of abuse. We issued press releases at the passing of the bill and the coming into force of the act, so as to give widespread publicity to the new measure. However, our main aim has been to ensure that those giving advice to the public should be aware of the Act and be able to give balanced advice on the circumstances in which it may be of help. To that end we have liaised with bodies such as Scottish Women's Aid and Citizens' Advice Scotland to ensure that they are able to give accurate advice, and have asked local multi-agency partnerships on domestic abuse to disseminate information locally. The legal professions were also alerted to the new act.We have commissioned research into the use of the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001. We do not yet have figures for court actions initiated under the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001, nor where a power of arrest has been attached. However, the research is due to report later this year and we will provide the findings to the Parliament at this time.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27839.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27839.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The Chief Executive of the Scottish Court Service (SCS) has provided information on the running and general maintenance costs for each court. This information is set out in the following table. It excludes capital expenditure and staff-related costs. Information on 2002-03 is not yet available.

Court	1999-2000			2000-01			2001-02
	Running Costs	Maint-enance	Total	Running Costs	Maint-enance	Total	RunningCosts	Maint-enance	Total
Lochmaddy	£50,100	£4,800	£54,900	£53,500	£6,300	£59,800	£48,300	£1,300	£49,600
Tain	£60,000	£36,800	£96,800	£59,300	£54,300	£113,600	£61,000	£8,700	£69,700
Dingwall	£66,900	£3,600	£70,500	£72,800	£2,500	£75,300	£63,400	£35,100	£98,500
Portree	£45,500	£16,000	£61,500	£44,800	£6,200	£51,000	£46,100	£1,000	£47,100
Peebles	£50,700	£1,500	£52,200	£53,100	£3,400	£56,500	£53,100	£1,800*	£54,900

*In addition, SCS spent £35,500 in respect of stabilisation work at Peebles.

The Executive has not been made aware of any such problems.

To be eligible for the central heating programme in the private sector all applicants or their partner must be aged 60 or over. Applications to date show that a very large number are in their 70s. All applicants would naturally like central heating as quickly as possible. The programme generally delivers central heating on a first come first served basis to avoid having to determine the relative needs of thousands of applicants, but exceptional cases will be considered on an individual basis.