Chamber and committees

This information is not held centrally.

All children are eligible to receive 475 hours of free, pre-school education per year from approximately the term following their third birthday until the end of the term immediately before they are first eligible to attend primary school.

The duty to provide pre-school education lies with local authorities. It can be delivered in a local authority centre or school or in settings in the private, independent and voluntary sectors which are in partnership with the local authority.

There are no specific legal obligations on train operators to provide toilet facilities on board trains.

There are no legal requirements for the provision of toilet facilities on trains.

However, Transport Scotland uses the Service Quality Regime (SQUIRE) to enforce First ScotRail''s obligation to maintain on-train toilets where fitted, in good, clean working order. This obligation is placed on First ScotRail through the Franchise Contract.

The standards and legal requirement for UK rolling stock design are currently a reserved matter and are therefore the responsibility of the Department for Transport (DfT).

The Scottish Government has no plans to review legal requirements for the provision of toilets on trains.

There are no plans to make representation to the European Commission in respect of changing procurement Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC.

The criteria which can be used to reject potential suppliers from being issued with an Invitation to Tender document are set out in European Directive 2004/18/EC, which is transposed into national legislation through Regulation 23 of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2006. The Scottish Government has no scope to amend Regulation 23.

We are currently reviewing our policy on the provision of potable water.

No. Public procurement legislation requires open, fair and transparent competition. It would be illegal for any local authority to show a preference for any goods or services because they are to be locally sourced or to any supplier(s) because of where they are located.

Local authorities have to comply with procurement legislation and, for lower value contracts, their own procurement policies. When selecting which potential suppliers should be invited to tender for public sector contracts, public procurement legislation only allows selection criteria to be used which addresses candidates'' economic and financial standing and their technical or professional ability, provided that the supplier has been assessed as meeting certain standards in regard to business probity “ for example, payment of taxes, and not having committed an act of grave misconduct in the course of its business.

When evaluating the tenders received, ethical issues may be taken into account provided that tenderers have been advised of this before submitting their bids, that the ethical issues are directly related to the performance of the contract in question and that such issues are consistent with the principles of equality, transparency and proportionality.