Chamber and committees

The Executive has not made anational estimate of the additional revenue that would be raised through such alevy. The information required toreliably make such an estimate is not held by the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Assessors or local authorities.

Any changes to the role orfunctions of the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland,who oversees public appointments in Scotland, is a matter for Parliament.

The Public Appointments andPublic Bodies etc, (Scotland) Act 2003 established the Commissioner for PublicAppointments in Scotland. The commissioner is appointed on the nomination of the Scottish Parliament and is entirely independent of Scottish ministers. Thecurrent commissioner took up post on 1 June 2004.The commissioner’s role is to oversee that all regulated appointments by ministersare made fairly and openly and, as far as possible, that all categories ofpeople have the opportunity to be considered for public appointments. The act providesfor the commissioner to consult with Parliament in the preparation of her Codeof Practice on Public Appointments and to report to Parliament any failure by ministersto comply with the code. The act also requires that the commissioner must laybefore Parliament each year a report on the exercise of her functions.

The information required toreliably estimate the amount of additional revenue that would be raised byextending business rates to all vacant and derelict land is not held by theExecutive, the Scottish Assessors or local authorities.

The introduction of a new computersystem would be an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise to consider withinthe powers and subject to the requirements of its financial framework and the Scottish Public Finance Manual.

A report containing an analysis of the public consultation carried out in connection with the Scottish Executives reviewof NHS prescription charges was published on the Scottish Executive website on Tuesday 20 March 2007. Further details can be found at:www.scotland.gov.uk/publications/2007/03/19093547/0.

The Executive is still considering this report and an announcementon the outcome will not be made before the dissolution of Parliament.

The employment status of individualsis a matter for them and their employers. I refer the member to the answer to questionS2W-30252 on 18 December 2006. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Performance reviewarrangements for Executive agencies are focused on ensuring delivery ofspecific outputs within the framework of accountability to Ministers asdetailed in the agencies framework document. Individual targets and performanceindicators are set out in corporate and or/business plans and are kept underreview by relevant Scottish Executive departments, at least on an annual basis.

I provided the Justice 1Committee with the Executive’s formal response to this report on 23 March.

Local authorities are independentcorporate bodies and are responsible for their own staffing matters. The LocalGovernment Code for Employees in Scotland, produced by COSLA assists local authoritiesin setting out minimum standards of conduct expected of its employees. It providesguidelines on relationships with the public and political neutrality. Local authoritiesmay also have their own codes which have the same affect as the National Code.In the event that any local government employee breaches the code of conduct thatis in place, a report can be submitted to the council’s monitoring officer, whois then required to submit a full report for consideration to the full council ifthe monitoring officer considers that the council, or any of its committees or officers,has contravened any enactment or code of practice which is in place.

The costs referred to weremet by the Scottish Executive.