Chamber and committees

It is for Chief Constables, in consultation with their Police Authorities, to determine their staffing priorities within GAE levels. The methodology for the distribution of police GAE in Scotland is currently under review including whether there are special factors within individual force areas that need to be taken into account.

The Quigley Committee's report which is required to be delivered by April 2000 will be placed in the Scottish Parliament at the same time as it is laid before the Westminster Parliament. The Scottish Executive will consider its response when it has received the report.

Proposals for a Special Grant to reimburse Scottish local authorities for additional expenditure incurred in connection with the acceptance of displaced persons from Kosovo under the UNHCR Humanitarian Evacuation Programme were sent to local authorities for consultation on 10 December. The consultation period ended in January.We are expecting to lay a Special Grant Report before Parliament on 14 February for this purpose. Subject to Parliamentary approval, grants should be paid in the current financial year. The total amount of grant in 1999-2000 is expected to be £4.9 million, and this is being met in full by the Treasury's UK Reserve.

The rate of grant is negotiated between local authorities and private and voluntary providers concerned. We have recommended that within the £1,175 grant paid this year to local authorities per part-time place a minimum of £880 per place be paid on to their partners. Authorities are required to use any funds retained for the benefit of their partners and to account for this in annual reports to the Executive.

The Scottish Executive was informed about these proposals in November last year. I am aware that the East of Scotland Water Authority wrote in general terms about the scope of the scheme to Scottish Natural Heritage in October 1999. This was followed in November 1999 when the consultants commissioned by EoSWA to produce an environmental impact assessment of a number of options wrote to SNH and others about these proposals.SNH raised a number of matters with the consultants, and will be consulted again when the preferred sites for these tanks have been identified.

The information requested is not available. Costs resulting from the consideration of ECHR issues cannot readily be disaggregated from other costs which are incurred in civil or criminal proceedings, including Legal Aid, prosecution and court costs.

Housing benefit is an issue reserved to Westminster. When local authorities undertake prosecutions, they act as agents for the Department of Social Security. The Scottish Executive does not itself collect figures on these prosecutions.

There have been no further developments affecting Queensberry House since my answer of 10 December to Margo MacDonald (SIW-3026). This reported that there are no plans to demolish Queensberry House and that the SPCB is awaiting the results of detailed specialist investigations and the associated cost estimates of remedial works. The SPCB will continue to keep MSPs informed about the Holyrood building at key stages in the project.

Provision of pre-school education is subject to scrutiny by authorities' own internal auditors, to ensure proper separation of interests and the achievement of value for money from public funds. These disciplines apply no less to pre-school education than to other services where local authorities have a multi-functional role. The Accounts Commission are reviewing practice by local authorities in commissioning pre-school education places with a view to developing recommendations on good practice. I refer also to my answer to question S1W-3313 on the quality and consistency of regulation between private and state nurseries.

College Boards of Management have a statutory duty to provide for the likely needs of potential students of their colleges. Colleges have yet to finalise their prospectuses for the forthcoming academic year.