Chamber and committees

A Smart, Successful Scotland (SSS), together with the progress measures in MeasuringProgress Towards a Smart Successful Scotland, set the strategic direction forthe enterprise networks. SSS requires Scottish Enterprise to take a number of cross-cuttingissues, including social justice, into account in pursuing the priorities set out.Relevant progress measures include: the proportion of 16 to 19-year-olds not ineducation, training or employment and reducing the gap in unemployment rates betweenthe worst areas and the Scottish average.

As set out in its Operating Plan,Scottish Enterprise contributes to the Executive’s social justice milestones, includingreducing the proportion of unemployed people and increasing the employment ratesof groups relatively disadvantaged in the labour market.  Details of related activitiesand targets are set out in Scottish Enterprise’s Operating Plans.

In September 2003 Iannounced that, after listening to the sector and other stakeholders, I wouldpublish a draft Bill to provide the regulatory framework that Scottishcharities need and deserve. I am pleased to publish today a draft Charities andTrustee Investment (Scotland) Bill for consultation.

The draft Bill is awide-ranging piece of legislation, bringing Scottish charity law requirementstogether in one place. It sets out a number of important measures including:

creating a Scottishdefinition of a charity, with a public benefit requirement;

providing for thenewly-established Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator to become anindependent statutory body with an enhanced range of powers, including grantingcharitable status and maintaining a statutory register of all charitiesoperating in Scotland, and

provisions to betterregulate fundraising activity by and for charities.

The draft bill also takesforward a number of measures which have been called for by charities for sometime, including the creation of the new Scottish Charitable IncorporatedOrganisation, making charity re-organisation easier and widening trustees’investment powers.

Copies of the draft bill (Bib.number 32822) and associated consultation paper (Bib. number 32823) have beenplaced in the Parliament’s Reference Centre, and an electronic version will bemade available on the Executive’s website at www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations.The consultation period ends on 25 August.

I look forward tointroducing the bill to Parliament at a suitable opportunity, once I haveconsidered the views that will be expressed during this consultation period.

The employment provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which will be extended from October 2004 to cover employers of all sizes, apply to non-departmental public bodies. These provisions do not include a requirement to publish annually the numbers of employees with learning disabilities or any other form of disability.

Measures taken by individual public bodies in respect of employees with learning disabilities are operational matters for those bodies, and information on them is not held centrally.

The report of the StrategicGroup on Women, Improving the Position of Women in Scotland: An Agenda for Action was published on 28 November 2003 in both hard copy and on the Scottish Executive website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/social/ipwsaa-00.asp. Three supporting papers were also published on thewebsite.

Over 500 hard copies havebeen sent to or handed out at various meetings and events to a wide variety of individualsand organisations in Scotland with an interest in the position of women,including over 200 organisations registered on the database of Scottish women’sorganisations maintained by Glasgow Women’s Library and Engender with financialsupport from the Scottish Executive and the members of the steering group of the newScottish Women’s Convention.

Consultation with women’sorganisations on the report’s recommendations will be conducted as part of theExecutive’s on-going consultation with women’s organisations on a range ofissues and through a series of specific meetings during the first quarter of 2004.

The Scottish Executive gave an initial response to the report of the Strategic Group on Women,Improving the Position of Women in Scotland: An Agenda for Action, whenit was published on 28 November 2003 which is available at:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/pages/news/2003/11/SEc349.aspx.

The Scottish Executive intends to publish a more detailed response to the report in spring2004.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-5837 on 11 February 2004. 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.

The Executive has made £500,000per year available between 2003-06 to pilot, and encourage the development of,urban community transport. The funds will be spent in some of the more sociallydisadvantaged City Council areas. Bids have been received from the four city councilsand awards will be announced shortly.

The Executive plans to awardurban community transport grants to the four City Councils during February2004. We shall monitor the performance of the pilot projects in partnershipwith the Councils and the Community Transport Association.

The Expert Group onProstitution, under the chairmanship of Sandra Hood OBE, has had five meetings so farand its work is still in the early stages. The Group has visited Dundee and Edinburgh togather information about prostitution in those cities. Speakers were invitedfrom local authorities, police, and local groups to give evidence. Similarvisits are planned to Glasgow and Aberdeen. The group has also visited HM Prison Cornton Vale.The group has also considered a large amount of written information about theissues raised by prostitution in Scotland and in other jurisdictions.

The Sheriff Principal in Glasgow isworking with the Scottish Executive, COPFS, Courts Service, police and other agencies todevelop a pilot domestic abuse court in Glasgow. It is intended that this court will commenceoperation in June.