Chamber and committees

Created on 1 April 2009, Marine Scotland assumed administrative responsibility for delivering the regulatory requirements under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 (as amended) and the Coast Protection Act 1949 which apply to the aquaculture industry. The licensing functions associated with these acts in Scotland will be aligned in due course.

Any new aquaculture development requires a number of consents. Marine Scotland is not solely responsible for the regulation of the aquaculture industry as under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 as amended local authorities, and under The Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2005, SEPA will continue to discharge their responsibilities.

As the lead marine management organisation in Scotland, Marine Scotland will consider how best the regulation of, and the consent process applying to, the aquaculture industry can be delivered.

We have taken forward a variety of actions in relation to this report including the consultation draft of the new National Waste Management Plan will outline Scotland''s approach to sustainable waste management and business opportunities arising from Scotland becoming a Zero Waste society. We are already taking forward work with Scottish Enterprise and the Waste and Resources Action Programme on business opportunities in recycling. The Think Tank has further considered issues such as producer responsibility; climate change and waste infrastructure and I expect these matters to be covered in their final report. As part of the consultation on the National Waste Management Plan, we intend to consider the links between waste and energy.

Funded by Scottish Government Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) have let a research contract to consider in depth the practical, economic and environmental issues associated with banning more materials from landfill. This work is being led by WRAP''s Scotland office and extends across the United Kingdom, after other Government Departments across the UK expressed strong interest in the Scottish Government''s work in this area. The contract has now been tendered and the inception meeting for the research took place on 17 April. The research contract includes a seminar in Scotland on landfill bans with key parties. The consultation on the National Waste Management Plan will also include material on potential landfill bans and will seek views on this issue.

We aim to start the three months consultation in June of this year.

The Zero Waste Think Tank will report with recommendations on a variety of issues including, business resource efficiency; waste, carbon and energy; waste regulation and other policy levers, and delivery. A full and final report from the Think Tank to ministers will be submitted to the government shortly. The government will respond publicly to these recommendations.

In the meantime, the Think Tank has suggested a number actions which we have already taken forward, such as the inclusion of section 53 in the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill on sending waste data to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA); work on landfill bans, where the Waste and Resources Action Programme have let a contract for us to analyse the practical implications of introducing more bans; work on plastics reprocessing, where the Waste and Resources Action Programme have established a capital grants scheme for us; a pilot on recovering heat from energy from waste plants, which REMADE Scotland have taken forward, and work on obtaining more recyclable material from litter, which Waste Aware Scotland have taken forward.

We have also discussed with SEPA a Think Tank Proposal on electronic Duty of Care notes, to improve waste data, and have discussed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities a Think Tank proposal to establish a public owned company on behalf of local authorities to sell recyclate.

Forestry Commission Scotland will control foxes to meet conservation interests (for example, in areas where there are populations of ground nesting birds) for research purposes and where deemed appropriate, to assist its neighbours in the agriculture and game management sectors.

Construction waste containing hazardous wastes may be disposed of to appropriate landfill.

For guidance on the handling of waste containing ozone-depleting substances, and on landfill generally, I refer the member to the website quoted in the answer to question S3W-21461 on 10 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.

Through the concordat, we have made clear that it is for councils to decide how best to allocate their funding to meet agreed national and local outcomes. They are accountable for their funding decisions. It is for councils to decide how they meet the public sector equality duties. They may fund local organisations that promote and support equality and diversity or use other methods.

The single outcome agreements (SOA) reflect the priorities and agreed outcomes for each council and include relevant supporting indicators and targets. Copies of all 32 SOAs which were agreed with local authorities on 30 June 2008 can be obtained via the Improvement Service website by following the following link. Community Planning Partners will aim to publish revised single outcome agreements for 2009-10 at the beginning of June.

http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/component/option,com_docman/Itemid,43/task,cat_view/gid,561/.

The single outcome agreements (SOA) reflect the priorities and agreed outcomes for each council and include relevant supporting indicators and targets. It is for each community planning partnership (CPP) to derive its local outcomes which should be drawn from an integrated profile of the social, economic and environmental conditions of the area concerned. In reaching agreement with CPPs on their single outcome agreement, the Scottish Government will be looking for evidence that local outcomes reflect an area''s strategic priorities and that they are capable of being linked to one or more of the National Outcomes.

Copies of all 32 SOAs which were agreed with local authorities on 30 June 2008 can be obtained via the Improvement Service website by following the following link. CPPs will aim to publish revised single outcome agreements for 2009-10 at the beginning of June.

http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/component/option,com_docman/Itemid,43/task,cat_view/gid,561/.

This information may be found in the Summary of Responses for each of the public consultation exercises published by the Scottish Government at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/203481/0054256.pdf

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/244256/0068289.pdf.