Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive does not publish league tables of school examination results.

As part of its Review of Teaching Funding, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council employed a consultant to perform a study into the efficient cost of teaching in higher education between February and September 2000 at a cost of £57,550.

The allocation to individual institutions of formula-based grants for 2001-02 academic year, which cover the majority of the funding to be allocated, will be published by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council in March. There will be some further allocations for particular grants throughout the year.In-principle decisions on the total SHEFC budget for 2001-02 were made at the Council's November 2000 meeting and announced in "Highlight" on its website in December. Detailed decisions on the overall allocation of funding made by the Council at its February meeting will be published through the same medium later this month. SHEFC is also currently undertaking a Review of Teaching Funding to inform future years' allocations. Any recommendations for change would not be implemented before 2002/3. A consultation paper was published on 19 December and a further paper was published on 9 February providing the rationale for the Council's proposals and technical descriptions of how illustrative figures were derived to inform discussion and response to the consultation.

A full reply was issued on 24 November 2000.

The Scottish Enterprise budget for developing the Scottish Labour Market Intelligence Unit in the current financial year is £275,000, of which £25,000 will be contributed by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. In future the Unit will be known as Future Skills Scotland. The financial implications of its operational role are still being quantified by Scottish Enterprise.

Any changes in the Scottish Budget are for the Executive to propose and Parliament to agree.The operation of the Barnett formula is set out in the Statement of Funding Policy. This is available on HM Treasury's website, www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/news.html.

We receive occasional correspondence on road traffic law. This law is mostly reserved. Its implementation falls to the Lord Advocate and the courts. The Lord Advocate determines the appropriate charge and the courts the appropriate penalty. At present the maximum penalty for this offence is 10 years' imprisonment.

Scottish Ministers are committed to ensuring that Scotland has an effective as well as a strong police service and a range of measures have been taken to free up the time of the police officers for front line duties. These include promoting the use of new technology, for example through initiatives such as the Integration of the Scottish Criminal Justice Information Systems and the Scottish Police Information Strategy. We are also encouraging the use of support staff to take on duties that do not require the skills and powers of a police officer, and we are examining other ways. For example, we funded a pilot into delivering citations by post rather than by police officers, and are considering ways of extending this process throughout Scotland.

Scottish Ministers are considering the basis for distribution and following the wind-up of the Scottish Transport Group we will be bringing forward proposals on distribution for the approval of the Scottish Parliament.

Although it has undertaken no research on this specific aspect, the Scottish Executive believes that adequately funded police forces are an essential ingredient in any broad-based strategy which seeks to tackle crime and disorder.