Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally.

No. I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27777: neither the audit reports received by the Executive nor the Commissioner's Annual Report refer to individuals or specific public bodies.

Information on those public appointments made in the last three years is given in the Executive's annual reports on appointments to non-departmental public bodies. A copy of the reports for 1999, 2000 and 2001 has been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. numbers 3935, 11607 and 19471). The Executive's Public Appointments website (www.scotland.gov.uk/government/publicbodies) also provides up to date details of all current appointments. Information on re-appointments and use of advertisements is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Revised consolidated guidance for officials who work closely with non-departmental public bodies is currently being finalised. The guidance will include a section on public appointment procedures that will complement the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments Code of Practice. The Executive guidance is expected to be made available within the next month to officials within the Executive, and I will place a copy in the Parliament's Reference Centre.

As stated in the answer given to question S1W-28671 on 29 August 2002, the report published on that date marked the completion of the Quinquennial Review of SHEFC. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

There is likely to be a limited impact on the Executive's finances through loan charge support to local authorities. A reduction in interest rates would influence the calculation of loan charge support for local authorities. The impact of a reduction in interest rates on the calculation of loan charges is limited as the calculation also takes account of interest rates on historic debt. In addition we would not recalculate loan support within the fixed three-year local government settlement period.

It is entirely the responsibility of each minister and deputy minister to apportion the time he or she spends on ministerial and constituency duties.

We have today placed both in the Parliament's Reference Centre and on the Executive's website a summary of responses to the issues raised in the consultation on the White Paper Renewing Local Democracy: the Next Steps. In relation to the electoral system, responses to the consultation showed a significant majority in favour of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. In line with the Executive's commitment to making progress on electoral reform, we have decided to prepare a Local Governance Bill that will include STV as the alternative choice to First Past the Post electoral system. We intend to publish the bill before the end of the parliamentary session and it would be then available for decision by the new Executive following the May 2003 elections. We will announce our intentions on the other issues included in the white paper to Parliament in due course.

HM Treasury publish an estimate of impact of the use of the Scottish Parliament's tax varying powers each year in the Financial Statement and Budget Report. This year's document states that a one penny change in the Scottish variable rate of income tax for 2002-03 could be worth approximately £230 million. Although in practice we would expect the revenue generated from a second and third penny to be less, the reduction is likely to be well within the margin of error, so that revenue from the second and third penny can also be assumed to be £230 million.