Chamber and committees

Further to my answer to your question S2W-21968 answered on 18 January 2006, the following funding was made available to each local authority for flood prevention schemes.

Local Authority	(£000)
Aberdeenshire	231
Aberdeen City	270
Argyll and Bute	1269
Dumfries and Galloway	638
City of Edinburgh	3134
East Ayrshire	5,294
East Dunbartonshire	7,063
Inverclyde	116
Moray	677
North Ayrshire	472
Perth and Kinross	1382
Renfrewshire	1326
West Lothian	629

 

Further to my answer to question S2W-21968 on 18 January 2006, the funding made available each financial year to each local authority for flood prevention schemes is tabulated below.

Local Authority	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
	(£000)	(£000)	(£000)	(£000)	(£000)
Aberdeenshire		231
Aberdeen City			270
Argyll and Bute			850		419
Dumfries and Galloway				483	155
City of Edinburgh					3,134
East Ayrshire			3,728		1,566
East Dunbartonshire	5,238				1,825
Inverclyde	116
Moray				677
North Ayrshire			472
Perth and Kinross	315				1,067
Renfrewshire	543	783
West Lothian			629

 

We are aware there are still households within some communities that are out of reach of broadband, such as those in Ewes. With the help of independent technical advice, we are currently considering potential solutions. We will first outline our approach to this problem, with delivery of individual solutions following later in 2006-07. In the meantime, I would encourage anyone in the Ewes area who is affected to contact the Executive’s telecommunications policy team to ensure their needs are recorded.

It would be possible to prosecute an offence relating to fishing without a licence in the Scottish side of the Solway Estuary in an English Court. Fishing licensing arrangements are set up on a UK basis. The only licensing regime that applies exclusively at present on the Scottish side of the Solway is that established for fishing vessels throughout UK waters by an Order under section 4 of the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967. Section 14 of that act states that an offence can be treated as having been committed in any part of the United Kingdom. The relevant Order is the Sea Fish Licencing Order 1992 (SI.1992 2633) (as amended) which has UK extent and proceedings for a breach of which can be applied anywhere in the UK. There have, however, been no instances of such an offence committed in Scotland being prosecuted in England or vice versa since devolution.

The Integrated Services Delivery and Governance Modelling Project currently involves the 27 local authorities set out in the list below. A wide range of their principal community planning partners and other public service organisations are also involved in the project at this time.

It is intended to conclude the initial research phase of the project by April and I would hope to consider the project’s findings in early May this year. Shortly thereafter I hope to publish the principal findings.

Aberdeen City Council

Aberdeenshire Council

Argyll and Bute Council

City of Edinburgh Council

Clackmannanshire Council

Comhairles nan Eilean Siar/Western Islands

Dumfries and Galloway Council

East Ayrshire Council

East Dunbartonshire Council

East Lothian Council

East Renfrewshire Council

Falkirk Council

Fife Council

Glasgow City Council

Highland Council

Inverclyde Council

Midlothian Council

Moray Council

North Ayrshire

Orkney Islands Council

Perth and Kinross Council

Scottish Borders Council

Shetland Council

South Ayrshire Council

Stirling Council

West Dunbartonshire Council

West Lothian Council.

The provisions of the Family Law (Scotland) Bill will come into effect in the late spring or early summer of 2006.

NPPG 19 does not in itselfplace an obligation on planning authorities to notify Scottish Ministers of aparticular planning application. Paragraph 69 does, however, refer to instanceswhere planning authorities are required to give such notification underplanning and other procedures.

In particular, the Town andCountry Planning (Notification of Applications) (Scotland) Direction1997, contained in Circular 4/1997 - Notification of PlanningApplications, requires planningauthorities to notify Scottish ministers of planning applications in which theauthority have an interest.

Specifically, planningauthorities are required to notify Scottish ministers of any planningapplication where they propose to grant planning permission for any development:

(a) in respect of which the authorityhas a financial interest, or

(b) which is to be locatedon land wholly or partly in its ownership or in which it has an interest;

in circumstances where:

(i) the proposed developmentdoes not accord with the adopted or approved local plan for the area or hasbeen the subject of a substantial body of objections; and

(ii) the Town and Country Planning(Development by Planning Authorities) (Scotland) Regulations 1981(a) do not apply to the proposeddevelopment.

Both NPPG 19 – RadioTelecommunications and Circular 4/1997 – Notification of PlanningApplications are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. numbers 15218 and 33972 respectively).

The undernoted local authorities have applied for funding for flood prevention schemes in the last five years. All were successful.

Local Authority

Aberdeenshire

Aberdeen City

Argyll and Bute

Dumfries and Galloway

City of Edinburgh

East Ayrshire

East Dunbartonshire

Inverclyde

Moray

North Ayrshire

Perth and Kinross

Renfrewshire

West Lothian.

This is an operational matter for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, which regularly monitors environmental radioactivity in Scotland, including Caesium-137 derived from Chernobyl fall-out. Its results are published annually, in the joint publication Radioactivity in Food and the Environment, copies of which are held in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. The most recent report was published in 2005 and gives results for 2004.

The 25% recycling and composting target by 2006 is a Scotland wide target, not an individual local authority target. As the latest figures from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency show, we are making good progress. The Landfill Allowance Scheme imposes limits for each authority on the amount of biodegradable municipal waste they can landfill and penalties can be imposed on authorities that breach these limits.