Chamber and committees

The Low Pay Commission has been asked to monitor and evaluate the impact of the introduction of the national minimum wage and is due to report to the UK Government next month. The Scottish Executive will examine its recommendations.

Adjustments are already made to the distribution of Grant Aided Expenditure (GAE) allowances for a number of council services to acknowledge the additional costs of serving rural and remote communities. These adjustments were the subject of an extensive review last year, which confirmed these additional costs and recommended a number of alternative adjustments to improve the distribution. We have agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that these changes should be implemented from next year.The distribution of the GAE allowances between councils is kept under annual review through regular consultation between the Scottish Executive and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

Abolition of the feudal system will mean that superiority interests will disappear and all remaining feuduties will be extinguished. Individuals and companies will no longer be able to buy up superiority interests with the specific intention of charging vassals sums of money in return for granting consent to variations of feuing conditions to allow alterations and extensions to property. Superiors will no longer have the right to enforce feudal conditions. It will also no longer be possible for superiors to "irritate" feus, a legal process whereby a superior can repossess a property from the vassal because of an alleged breach of feuing conditions or failure to pay feuduty.

The nature and application of measures announced make it very difficult to arrive at an accurate figure for any particular region. However, we estimate that over the next 2 years the aid package could be worth about £7.5m to Dumfries and Galloway.

In a speech to the Association of Directors of Social Work in May 1998 I enumerated a 7 point plan to modernise social work. This included the need to support front-line staff. They undertook to take forward action on this topic and have been developing a guidance pack on supporting front-line staff. This includes dealing with stress and violence to staff. The guidance pack will be launched in December and I am sure this will help employers deal with this difficult issue.The Scottish Social Services Council will have the responsibility of issuing codes of conduct and practice for both the workforce and their employers. The Scottish Executive, the UK Government and the administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland are commissioning the development of draft codes of conduct and practice. I will ensure that the code of practice for employers includes violence and stress reduction.

The A701 at Moffat is a local road for which Dumfries and Galloway is responsible. I will consider the case for designation once I have received a full submission from the Council.

The Scottish Executive is responsible for the A7 from Galashiels to the English Border. The A7 from Edinburgh to Galashiels is non-trunk and is therefore the responsibility of the local roads authorities.

Some £7.5 million has been spent on improvement measures on the A7 between the English Border and Hawick as part of a Route Action Plan. This included traffic calming and traffic management measures for Langholm town centre to mitigate the effects of trunk road traffic and improve road safety for pedestrians.

A Route Action Plan study is also currently underway on the section of the route between Hawick and Galashiels which will identify local improvement schemes to improve safety and the environment along the route.Any further works on the A7 will be considered along with other proposals for trunk road improvement works.

The Scottish Executive intends to construct a new index of rural deprivation using the detailed results of the next census of population which will take place in 2001. In the meantime, the Scottish Executive is exploring ways to examine rural deprivation by compiling proxy indicators from existing data sources, taking account, where possible, of population trends. Such information about rural Scotland will be supplemented with the results of the Scottish Household Survey as these become available early next year.

The Scottish Executive fully supports staff who want to combine work with domestic responsibilities and has offered job sharing, part time work and other flexible working patterns for a considerable time. Job sharing involves identifying two members of staff with matching skills and abilities and work patterns which will complement each other and we strive to achieve a match in these areas which meets the needs of the staff and the manager involved.We have no record of a request to job share being refused.

The Scottish Executive provides financial aid to the national office of Scottish Women's Aid through grants under sections 9 and 10 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 and section 197 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987.The funding of local Women's Aid groups is a matter for local authorities to decide. In the financial year 1998-99 Scottish Women's Aid was, however, awarded a one-off grant of £150,000 to assist with the increased demand on Women's Aid services arising from the national campaign to raise awareness about domestic violence. I understand that Scottish Women's Aid decided to divide this grant equally between the national office and the 38 affiliated local groups. The Scottish Executive has no plans at present to disburse funds directly to local Women's Aid groups, but we are concerned about the welfare of all of those who are the victims of domestic violence. We look forward to receiving from the Scottish Partnership on Domestic Violence recommendations on how the problem may be further addressed.