Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the UK Government on a wide range of issues, including the Aggregates Tax. Responsibility for dealing with the European Commission on UK taxation matters lies with HM Treasury.

The table shows the budget and a breakdown of expenditure for Scottish Natural Heritage since 1997-98.

	1997-98 £ million	1998-99 £ million	1999-2000 £ million	2000-01 £ million
Running Costs	17.0	16.9	17.7	18.5
Capital Costs	1.3	1.4	1.6	2.1
Programme Costs	18.7	18.9	19.9	20.8
Total Budget	37.0	37.2	39.2	41.4

Running costs include all salary, superannuation and associated expenditure on buildings, travel, energy etc. A large proportion of the salary costs relate to people working directly for the benefit of the natural heritage.Capital costs include the purchase or improvement of assets, many of which directly support activities benefiting the natural heritage.Programme costs is direct expenditure enhancing and conserving the natural heritage via grants, site safeguard agreements and research contracts etc.

I understand that NOSWA received the final report on 4 October, analysed its content, and passed it to the member on 29 October, and to local community representatives.

The poisoning of wildfowl from lead deposited through shooting is widely accepted as a serious problem. The Scottish Executive was consulted in July of this year on the possible restriction on the use of lead shot and the responses are being analysed.A number of reports have been published giving international summaries of the problem. The answer to question S1W-3574 gave a comprehensive list of relevant reports but copies of all these documents are not held centrally by the Executive. A further key report, titled Lead Poisoning in Waterbirds. International Update Report 2000 was published this year by Wetlands International. A copy has been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 17127).

I have Cabinet level responsibility for tourism and both Alasdair Morrison and I are working extremely hard with VisitScotland to support the industry at this difficult time.

The announcement on 22 August was about the School Buildings Improvement Fund, which provides for capital grants to education authorities under the Grants for School Improvements (Scotland) Regulations 1997 for expenditure on school buildings. These resources are being distributed to authorities on the basis of the education element of the formula, which is at present used for the allocation of capital consents on non-housing programmes under section 94 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. Full details of the grant arrangements are set out in Scottish Executive Education Department Circular 6/2001, copies of which are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre. The following table shows the distribution of the grant for financial year 2001-02.School Buildings Improvement Fund

Authorities	£000
Aberdeen City	372
Aberdeenshire	528
Angus	276
Argyll & Bute	260
Clackmannanshire	114
Dumfries & Galloway	337
Dundee City	321
East Ayrshire	296
East Dunbartonshire	305
East Lothian	210
East Renfrewshire	239
Edinburgh, City of	784
Eilean Siar	106
Falkirk	321
Fife	827
Glasgow City	1,251
Highland	541
Inverclyde	225
Midlothian	214
Moray	206
North Ayrshire	333
North Lanarkshire	870
Orkney Islands	78
Perth & Kinross	298
Renfrewshire	414
Scottish Borders	255
Shetland Islands	86
South Ayrshire	276
South Lanarkshire	795
Stirling	213
West Dunbartonshire	247
West Lothian	402
Scotland Total	12,000

No review group has been set up to look specifically at this area. The review of the commitment payment scheme in Scotland is being taken forward as part of the UK negotiations on the consultants' contract currently underway between the UK Health Departments and the British Medical Association (BMA). The Scottish Executive Health Department is fully involved in the UK negotiations.In order to ensure that any changes to the scheme are appropriate to Scottish needs, a Scottish consultation document Rewarding Commitment and Excellence in the NHS (Scotland) was published in April this year by the Scottish Executive Health Department. Responses were received from a range of sources, including NHS Trusts, Royal Colleges/Universities, the BMA, health boards and patients' representatives, and these are currently being considered by the department.

This a matter for the banking sector to consider, in relation to the range of new technologies available and fraud prevention procedures currently in use or being developed.

Whilst the Executive welcomes such a crime prevention initiative, the scheme relies upon the voluntary co-operation of the public and the support of the retail sector. We will be interested to see any evaluation of the effectiveness of the scheme.

In addition to the actions set out in the Biodiversity Species Action Plan for capercaillie, the Scottish Executive, Scottish Natural Heritage, Forestry Commission, Caledonian Partnership, RSPB and others have developed a bid for funding from the EU LIFE Nature programme directed at enhancing capercaillie populations within and adjacent to capercaillie Special Protection Areas (SPAs). It is also likely that there will be a large scale demonstration project targeted at undesignated sites.

I also announced in September the provision of £700,000 for the removal and marking of deer fences in Scotland through a scheme being administered by the Forestry Commission. An additional two capercaillie SPAs have also been submitted to the European Commission for classification.

Additionally, a Scottish Statutory Instrument is currently before the Scottish Parliament which will include the capercaillie on Schedule 1, Part 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. This will provide capercaillie with greater protection by making it illegal to hunt the species, and will make offences punishable by increased penalties.