Chamber and committees

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish Executive has issued an information pack "ClickThinking - Personal Safety on the Internet" to all Scottish education authorities and schools. The pack includes policy guidelines and background information for local authorities to help them to develop strategies for safe Internet access in schools. Technical solutions are an important element of such strategies. The NGfL programme of the Excellence Fund can be used to pay for filtering and blocking software or services.

The Scottish Executive is committed to implementing the Action Plan in the National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland. This will include a review of legislation and legal processes.

Aspects of abuse prevention covered in inspection, in relation to drugs and alcohol, include evaluation of the structure and delivery of programmes for personal and social development at all stages, examination of procedures for dealing with drug-related incidents and evaluation of the extent to which schools promote a healthy lifestyle.Aspects of child protection covered in inspection, in relation to bullying, physical assault, sexual assault or racial matters include seeking information on any allegations or incidents over the previous five years, evaluating the effectiveness of the school's procedures in dealing with such matters, taking account of parents' and pupils' views on the school's child protection procedures and generally evaluating the school's policy and practice for child protection. Whilst inspections do not specifically cover aspects of abuse in the home, they do include the appropriateness of procedures for dealing with any disclosures.

Question S1W-7421 was answered on 27 November 2000.

Not at present. The Scottish Executive has issued an information pack "ClickThinking - Personal Safety on the Internet" to all Scottish schools and to a wide range of other bodies dealing with children. The pack gives guidance to children and young people, their parents or carers, teachers and others who work with young people on using the Internet in a safe and informed way; and includes a set of resources for schools and families. The pack can be found on the Internet at www.scotland.gov.uk/clickthinking.

Nurses can only provide medication where authorised to do so under a Patient Group Direction, issued by their NHS Trust. Whether any such Direction would extend to emergency contraception would be for health boards and NHS Trusts to consider in the light of local needs. In all their actions, health professionals will have regard to issues of confidentiality and consent. As noted in 'Our National Health: a plan for action, a plan for change', the Executive expects each health board to work in partnership with local authorities and voluntary organisations to ensure that young people have access to a range of sexual health support and services.

We are currently considering the development in Scotland of the RaceActionNet Directory on Racial Harassment. The Directory is designed to provide a range of multi-disciplinary contacts up to date knowledge and new ideas for individuals and organisations committed to combating racial abuse and attacks and to support victims. Additionally, organisations may apply for funding from the Scottish Executive 'Make Our Communities Safer' Challenge Competition for such programmes. Indeed, we have received several applications in the current round of the Competition which aim to tackle racist crime. The Scottish Executive has also committed substantial funding to the 'Safer Scotland' Campaign which involved all eight Scottish police forces and the British Transport Police in a number of collaborative initiatives to reduce violence in our communities. The Campaign which started in October 2000 has resulted in a considerable reduction in the number of certain types of violent crime compared with the figures for the corresponding period in the previous year.

The Scottish Executive Central Research Unit is in the process of developing its Crime and Criminal Justice Research Programme for 2001-2004. The Programme will, in due course, be presented to Ministers for approval. It is not, therefore, possible at this stage to say what research will be commissioned over the next 5 years and how much will be earmarked for research on domestic violence. Currently, the Scottish Executive is funding an evaluation of the Zero Tolerance 'Respect' pilot. The research commenced in December 2000 and will run until July 2001. There is also a proposal to commission research into domestic abuse against men in early Spring 2001, to run until December 2001. The costs of individual research studies are not normally published as this could contravene commercial confidentiality.

The Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) collects information on the extent of domestic violence from a nationally representative sample of adults living in private households across Scotland. The Survey is carried out approximately every four years, the most recent being in 2000. Its main purpose is to provide an alternative indicator to police statistics of the volume and distribution of crime. The survey also includes a set of questions, which are completed by all respondents (male and female) aged 16-59, specifically focusing on force and threats from partners and ex-partners. Self-completion questionnaires were obtained from around 3,000 adults in the 2000 SCS. The Scottish Executive is to carry out a review of the SCS and this will consider, among other matters, whether the Survey should be run more frequently.