Chamber and committees

The outturn efficiency for the Scottish Sustainable Development Forum (SSDF) was delivered by incorporating the secretariat function within the remit of the Sustainable Development Commission Scotland and setting a fixed budget at the start of the year for events.

During the past year, Scottish Natural Heritage has revised the SNH website which now provides improved access to a broader range of indicators, including the 22 Scottish Biodiversity Indicators. The indicators are updated annually where survey data allows, the most recent update was March 2010. These indicators can be found at www.snh.gov.uk/publications-data-and-research/trends/scotlands-indicators.

Scottish Natural Heritage has provided Audit Scotland with a report on improvements to the biodiversity indicators. Scotland''s biodiversity indicators have undergone continuous improvement since 2007 in relation to the quantity and quality of the data; the rigour of statistical analysis, and the speed of releasing data.

I understand that the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation has decided that at this time they no longer wish to pursue an amendment to the Scottish Farmed Salmon PGI specification.

We are planning to develop new guidance for public bodies on their biodiversity duty following the meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010. That meeting will consider future directions for biodiversity strategy in an international context, which will be relevant to setting targets and objectives for biodiversity protection at a national and local level. The biodiversity duty contained in the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 makes direct reference to the Convention on Biological Diversity. We intend to hold discussion with local biodiversity stakeholders during the autumn to consider the requirement for and the scope of any additional guidance.

The responsibility for delivering the Zero Waste strategy lies with the Scottish Government. The Scottish Future Trust (SFT) is supporting local authorities in developing and delivering solutions to meet the requirement of both the EU Landfill Directive and the emerging requirements of the Scottish Government''s Zero Waste Plan and I have asked Barry White, Chief Executive of the Scottish Futures Trust to give details of this support. His response is as follows:

The Scottish Futures Trust has been invited by Glasgow City Council, North, South and East Ayrshire Councils, West Lothian Council, Edinburgh and Midlothian Council and North Lanarkshire Council to support the development and delivery of their residual waste treatment projects.

For Glasgow, the North, East and South Ayrshire collaborative project and the Edinburgh and Midlothian collaborative project, SFT sits on the project board and works alongside the council''s project teams. Together these projects deal with more than a quarter of Scotland''s residual waste.

For West Lothian Council, SFT will undertake independent peer reviews at key milestones during procurement as well as being a centre of expertise resource for the project team.

For North Lanarkshire Council, discussions are at an early stage to determine how best the SFT can support the council''s project team.

In addition to the above, SFT is also undertaking a number of actions in partnership with COSLA, SoLACE and the Scottish Government. With COSLA, SFT is working on a data collection exercise to enable the public and private sector to have a clearer picture as to the individual waste infrastructure plans of each of the 32 local authorities to meet both landfill diversion and recycling targets. With SoLACE, SFT has been asked to facilitate future discussions as to how best those local authorities, not currently in procurement, could deliver their future waste infrastructure requirements.

SFT has also initiated, as part of the development of its centre of expertise role, a waste procurement forum to share and disseminate best practice and lessons learnt and set up a training session for local authority waste officers on commercial issues relating to residual waste projects.

The Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation has requested that the single document be amended to more accurately reflect the current specification of the Scottish Farmed Salmon PGI.

Yes, Scottish farmed salmon produced to organic standards is included in the Scottish Farmed Salmon PGI.

The single document is intended for information purposes and is to contain the main points of the specification.

The Scottish Government provide funding to 13 local family mediation services in Scotland amounting to £920,550 per annum. Some of those services run child contact centres although the Scottish Government do not fund these directly.

It is the responsibility of each local authority to develop and deliver waste management facilities and services that meet local needs and circumstances. If local authorities wish to work in partnership to deliver waste infrastructure or services then the Scottish Government would encourage and support such an approach where this represents best practice and delivers value for money.

Scottish Futures Trust has identified waste as one of its key priorities and works with local authorities across Scotland to help ensure that best value is achieved. Currently, Scottish Futures Trust is supporting a number of joint authority projects and authorities moving forward on an individual basis.