Chamber and committees

The National Cultural Strategy committed the Executive to initiate a national audit of collections in museums and galleries, beginning with the industrial museums. £250,000 has been made available for the audit and an interim report was published in October 2001. In addition, a Strategic Change Fund of £3 million over three years has been announced for the sector. In December 2000, the Executive announced a funding package of £1.26 million over three years towards the running costs of the Scottish Fisheries Museum, the Scottish Maritime Museum and the Scottish Mining Museum in recognition of their financial difficulties, and grants of £60,000, £160,000 and £200,000 respectively have been paid during the financial year 2001-02. In addition, a further £110,000 has been paid in 2001-02 to the Scottish Maritime Museum to address their cash flow and deficit problems.

I have no plans to visit Kilmartin Museum. The Scottish Executive has responsibility for the National Museums and Galleries, whereas responsibility for the 400 or so non-national museums lies with local agencies. I understand that arrangements had been made for Allan Wilson in his capacity as Deputy Minister for Sport, Arts and Culture to visit Kilmartin Museum but the visit had to be cancelled due to pressing parliamentary business. Subsequently, a meeting with ministers was offered in either Glasgow or Edinburgh. The offer was not accepted. I understand that Scottish Museums Council, who advise the Executive on local museum matters, have invited representatives of the Kilmartin House Trust to a meeting to take place shortly.

There could be difficulties in deciding how international best practice can inform the development of national policy on museums in Scotland. We will take account of best international practice taking appropriate account of the differences in historic pattern of provision, legal and financial frameworks between Scotland and other countries.

Scottish Museums Council is the Executive's main adviser on local museums and the main channel of Executive support for Scotland's 400 or so local museums and galleries. Scottish Museums Council is conducting the national audit of the museums sector, and is leading on developing the criteria for the Strategic Change Fund, and sits on the steering group for industrial museums. Officials have regular meetings with Scottish Museums Council to discuss key policy issues. I have agreed to meet next month with the Director, Jane Ryder, to discuss future developments in the museum sector.

The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) has no plans to provide free of charge to schools the information held by it and available online. The GROS currently has its major Digital Imaging of the Genealogical Records of Scotland's people (DIGROS) programme under way. This aims by the end of 2003 to provide access online to digital images of all the historical records GROS holds (beginning with the 1901 Scottish census). This programme involves considerable expenditure on the part of the taxpayer, which needs to be recouped. Income from the site is also ploughed back into expanding and improving the service.The GROS is, however, looking at other options for facilitating and broadening access to its online service by institutions on behalf of their users.Many local authority library and archive services have bought microfilm copies of the old parochial registers and various census returns for their areas, and it is of course open to them to make these available to schools as freely as they wish.

I have nothing to add to the answer given to question S1W-19901 on 11 January 2002.

The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) has no plans to make online access to the 1901 census through the Scots Origins website available free of charge to schools. The process of making these records available online involved considerable expenditure on the part of the taxpayer, which needs to be recouped. Income from the site is also ploughed back into expanding and improving the service.The GROS is, however, looking at other options for facilitating and broadening access to its online service by institutions on behalf of their users.Many local authority library and archive services have bought microfilm copies of the census returns for their areas, and it is of course open to them to make these available to schools as freely as they wish.

The draft Guidance on the Circumstances in which Parents may Choose to Educate their Children at Home was available on the Scottish Executive website on 27 December 2001. It had been mailed to key interested parties and organisations prior to this, on 20 December 2001, to ensure that those with a direct interest in the guidance received the consultation document first. A covering letter was issued with all hard copies of the draft guidance, stating to whom responses should be made, and by when. The initial version of the document posted on the Scottish Executive website did not state to whom or by when responses should be made. This was rectified on 8 January 2002.

The draft Guidance on the Circumstances in which Parents may Choose to Educate their Children at Home was issued on 20 December 2001, as soon as drafting and printing were complete. The consultation period on the draft guidance runs until 29 March 2002 to ensure that all parties have sufficient time to respond.

The Scottish Executive engages in consultation activity throughout the entire year, and consultation papers are released at times to meet expressed commitments, to suit the consultees and the policy timetable. Consultation periods which include the winter holiday season normally extend their duration by 7-14 days to accommodate this.