Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally.Waiting time information for drug misuse treatment is not held consistently by drug services across Scotland. We are, however, currently seeking from Drug Action Teams some local information on waiting times for some drug services as part of the annual corporate planning arrangements.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) collated nitrate data from 809 sources in the proposed Aberdeenshire, Banff and Buchan NVZ, including private water supplies, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) groundwater monitoring network, public water supply sources and its own boreholes. Information about these sources can be found in table 5.5 of the report Groundwater nitrate vulnerable zones for Scotland (Parliament's Reference Centre Bib. number 18567), prepared by BGS for the Department. The distribution of the sample sources can be found in Fig. 5.16 of the report.Private water supplies are monitored in accordance with the Private Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations 1992, which lay down the standards for these supplies and specify the duties of local authorities, in respect of sampling and analysis. Sampling frequency depends on what the supply is used for, how much is used and how many people use it, and can vary between once every five years to four times per year. The SEPA policy is to monitor groundwater sources in its network four times per year. Detailed information about individual sources and sample numbers, can be found on the GIS CD-ROM, which accompanies the BGS report.

The network of 48 Social Inclusion Partnership's which has been established across Scotland includes both urban and rural areas. Rural areas such as Moray are being supported as well as traditional urban areas, such as Glasgow.

Thirteen meetings of the Ministerial Committee on Rural Development were held during the period from 1 September 1999 to November 2001: on 1 September, 5 October, and 25 November 1999; 31 January, 13 March, 5 April, 6 September and 8 November 2000; 30 January, 26 March, 14 June, 11 September and 14 November 2001. In January 2002, the name of the committee was changed to the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Rural Development, with the following membership: the Minister for Environment and Rural Development, the Minister for Social Justice, the Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning, the Minister for Finance and Public Services, Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development and the Deputy Minister for Tourism Culture and Sport. Details of the membership of Cabinet Sub-Committees are available on the Scottish Executive website. So far this year the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Rural Development has met once, on 5 February 2002. All meetings discussed a variety of issues that impact on Rural Development in Scotland.As indicated in the Guide to Collective Decision Making, a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 5884) and on the Scottish Executive website, the Executive operates on the basis of collective responsibility and does not disclose details of the internal processes through which decisions have been made. For that reason, the Executive does not normally comment on which ministers attended specific meetings.

Twelve local authorities are considered as delivering pre-school education in "very rural" areas, i.e. areas where more than 15% of the population live in communities of less than 1,000. The "rural" allocations which form part of the 2002-03 local government settlement are shown in the following table. The distribution methodology used took account of the population share of three- and four-year-olds in the 12 authorities concerned.

Local Authority	Rural Grant
Aberdeenshire	£1,348,000
Angus	£370,000
Argyll and Bute	£431,000
Dumfries and Galloway	£827,000
Eilean Siar	£255,000
Highland	£1,207,000
Moray	£310,000
Orkney	£184,000
Perth and Kinross	£489,000
Scottish Borders	£506,000
Shetland	£258,000
Stirling	£242,000
Scotland	£6,427,000

As of 4 March, the owners of 80 fishing vessels have accepted decommissioning grant offers under the Fishing Vessels (Decommissioning) (Scotland) Scheme 2001, out of 102 vessels currently subject to grant offers. Of these vessels, 70 have submitted, and had approved, plans to begin the decommissioning process. Nine vessels have been scrapped so far: four in Scotland, two in England, two in Northern Ireland and one in Denmark.

The Scottish Further Education Funding Council, which is responsible for these matters, developed the new approach to measuring student activity.

The estimated impact on each college will not be known until the council has developed a detailed implementation plan. The council has indicated that there will be no consequential changes to funding until academic year 2003-04 at the earliest.

Given the large number of matters under consideration and potential outcome permutations, it was not practical for SFEFC to estimate the impact of everything being consulted on.The council has indicated that it now proposes to work closely with colleges in preparing an implementation plan, if necessary making adjustments to aspects of these proposals; and that it will not expect any college to have to manage a significant funding change in just one year.

The information requested is given in the following table:

Date of visit	End date(if different)	Minister	Purpose
07/07/1999		Jack McConnell	Fact finding and Structural Funds visit
29/09/1999		Jack McConnell	Pre-Scotland week press briefing
11/10/1999	13/10/1999	Ross Finnie	Scotland Week
10/10/1999	13/10/1999	Donald Dewar	Scotland Week
10/10/1999	14/10/1999	Jack McConnell	Scotland Week
11/10/1999	12/10/1999	Peter Peacock	Scotland Week
13/10/1999		Sarah Boyack	Scotland Week
14/10/1999		Henry McLeish	Scotland Week
14/10/1999	15/10/1999	Rhona Brankin	Scotland Week
15/10/1999		Alasdair Morrison	Scotland Week
22/11/1999		John Home Robertson	Fisheries Council
13/12/1999	14/12/1999	Sarah Boyack	Environment Council
14/12/1999	15/12/1999	Ross Finnie	Agriculture Council
16/12/1999	17/12/1999	John Home Robertson	Fisheries Council
20/03/2000	21/03/2000	Ross Finnie	Agriculture Council
22/03/2000		Jack McConnell	Launch of Structural Funds Equal Opportunities Toolbox. Met with Commissioners Schrey and Barnier
27/03/2000		Sarah Boyack	Meeting with Commissioner de Palacio's Cabinet
27/03/2000		Jack McConnell	Meeting Francis Jacobs of the European Parliament and the Bavarian Regional Office
07/04/2000		Jim Wallace	Meeting with Commissioner Vitorino
09/05/2000		Ross Finnie	Attended Scottish Seafood Exhibition
09/05/2000		Alasdair Morrison	Attended Scottish Seafood Exhibition
05/06/2000	06/06/2000	Jack McConnell	Attended Structural Funds conference
12/07/2000		Jack McConnell	Delivered speech at Flanders Festival and attended CLRAE meeting in Brugge
18/09/2000		Susan Deacon	Meeting with Commissioner Byrne
17/11/2000		Rhona Brankin	Fisheries Council
20/11/2000	21/11/2000	Ross Finnie	Agriculture Council
29/11/2000	30/11/2000	Jim Wallace	Justice and Home Affairs Council
06/12/2000		Henry McLeish	Meeting with Commissioner Kinnock and meeting with Scottish MEPs
11/12/2000		Sam Galbraith	Opened Scotland in Europe Cultural Exhibition in Scotland House and met with Commissioner Wallstrom
14/12/2000	15/12/2000	Rhona Brankin	Fisheries Council
28/01/2001		Jack McConnell	Meeting Nigel Sheinwald and Swedish Representative Office
05/02/2001	06/02/2001	Sarah Boyack	Meeting with Commissioner de Palacio's Chef de Cabinet
05/02/2001		Angus Mackay	Meeting on Objective 2 Structural Funds
12/02/2001		Nicol Stephen	Education and Youth Council
26/02/2001	27/02/2001	Ross Finnie	Agricultural Council
08/03/2001		Sam Galbraith	Environment Council
08/03/2001		Alasdair Morrison	Columba Initative - Launch of the Strategic Plan
16/03/2001		Jack McConnell	Governance Hearing
24/04/2001	25/04/2001	Rhona Brankin	Hosted Forestry Seminar in Scotland House and attended Europe's premier Seafood Exhibition
21/05/2001	22/05/2001	Peter Peacock	Meeting of the Cohesion Fund countries on structural funds
28/05/2001		Henry McLeish	Signed Flanders Co-ordinated Initative
13/07/2001		Angus MacKay	Informal Council meeting on Regional Policy
19/09/2001	20/09/2001	Angus MacKay	Meeting with Commissioner Barnier and met with Scottish MEP's
09/10/2001	10/10/2001	Jack McConnell	Scotland Week: Attended a range of events
09/10/2001	10/10/2001	Henry McLeish	Scotland Week: Attended a range of events
09/10/2001	10/10/2001	Alasdair Morrison	Scotland Week: Attended a range of events
10/10/2001	12/10/2001	Rhona Brankin	Scotland Week: Attended a range of events
11/10/2001		Ross Finnie	Scotland Week: Attended a range of events
16/10/2001		Angus MacKay	Scotland Week: Attended a range of events
17/10/2001		Peter Peacock	Scotland Week: Attended a range of events
16/11/2001		Jim Wallace	Justice and Home Affairs Council
20/11/2001		Ross Finnie	Agriculture Council
17/12/2001	18/12/2001	Ross Finnie	Fisheries Council
29/01/2002	30/01/2002	Wendy Alexander	Attended Nordrhein Westfalen project launch
05/02/2002	07/02/2002	Nicol Stephen	Committee of the Regions Plenary