Chamber and committees

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive, Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The information requested is not held centrally.

The information requested may be available from the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive, Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The information requested is not held centrally.

The information requested may be available from the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.

There are no plans to acquire these statues. Phase 1 of the Parliament’s Art Strategy is now complete and decisions on the nature of phase 2 will be considered by the SPCB next year.

New scientific information generated by the Fisheries Research Service in partnership with the Scottish fishing industry has been made available to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). The ICES Advisory Committee on Fishery Management is scheduled to publish advice on monkfish for fisheries managers on 22 October. By way of immediate action, we have secured around 705 tonnes of monkfish quota in international swaps with other member states during the course of this year and we will continue to pursue this avenue in the coming weeks.

Individual policy areas in the Scottish Executive taking part in the Scotland in the Netherlands programme will follow up the ministerial programme. The nature of the follow up will vary depending on the individual activity. In some cases the follow up activity may be an influencing of future policy decisions based on knowledge gained through the Dutch experience. In other cases follow up may be of a more tangible nature such as the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s intention to offer a further scientific seminar in Scotland next year, as they did following the Scotland in Sweden programme in 2002.

Councillor Milligan is planning to visit international ports, airports and other gateways throughout Scotland. He will travel to London and Dover to see analogous facilities there. He will also make short visits to cities in Northern Europe and North America to compare facilities there with those in Scotland. Other visits may be planned at a later stage.

Councillor Milligan will present his finding by the end of the year. This is not a long timescale and he has not been asked to produce any interim report.

Scotland and Poland enjoy strong historic ties and I am pleased to note that partnerships continue to flourish today between our two countries across manysectors.

The Scottish Executive has participated in a wide range of activity to increase links between Scotland and Poland. The Scottish Executive EU Office liaises closely with the Polish national representation in Brussels (where the Pomerania and Malopolska regions recently opened offices in Scotland House) and with regional offices in Poland with a view to identifying potential opportunities for partnerships between organisations in the two countries. Officials have also visited Poland to increase awareness of Scotland in Polish administrations and to widen and deepen contacts with Poland.

In June 2004, the Scottish Executive welcomed two secondees from the Polish School of National Administration and held a seminar to introduce Polish stagiaires in Brussels to Scotland House and to the Fresh Talent initiative.A Polish scientist was amongst those invited to attend a bioscience workshop organised by the Executive in June under the “crossroads for ideas” public diplomacy campaign in conjunction with FCO and the British Council.

Polish journalists have been invited to visit Scotland in October to learn about the International Image project announced by the First Minister in July.

Scottish Development International is working in partnership with a range of agencies including UK Trade & Investment, Scottish Council for Development and Industry and the Euroinformation Centres to promote business opportunities in Poland and the other new member states. This includes supporting companies on trade missions and attending exhibitions. Companies attended two events in Poland last year with attendance at a further three planned for this year.

Such follow-up activity would be undertaken by specific policy areas of the Executive along with their counterparts in the region visited. As such, no specific report, covering the areas where follow-up activity has taken place, is available.

The Scottish Executive has developed a framework for evaluation of all aspects of a promotional programme abroad, including post event follow up. The framework is being used during the Scotland in the Netherlands programme which is currently underway. The report will be available in spring 2005 and this will be used to further develop the framework if necessary.

The following table shows the number of single and joint degree chemistry graduates from those higher education institutions offering chemistry degree programmes between 1998-99 and 2002-03, the latest year for which this information is currently available.

Chemistry Graduates from Scottish Higher Education Institutions 1998-99 to 2002-03

	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03
Total	457	431	454	417	382
University of Abertay	*	*	*	*	*
The Robert Gordon University	9	15	16	13	14
The University of Paisley	35	23	25	22	23
Glasgow Caledonian University	33	28	20	21	21
Napier University	12	11	21	15	5
University of Edinburgh	71	95	89	79	59
University of Glasgow	65	51	61	63	73
University of Strathclyde	88	81	81	82	78
University of Aberdeen	41	37	35	26	11
Heriot-Watt University	41	35	39	45	37
The University of Dundee	14	8	13	10	5
University of St Andrews	40	39	34	32	38
The University of Stirling	*	*	*	*	*
Bell College	0	0	0	0	11

Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency.

Note: Some cells have been suppressed to protect confidentiality. Suppressed cells are denoted by an asterisk.

I did not attend the informal EU Council of Health Ministers and neither I, nor my deputy, will be attending the EU Council on 4 October. The Working Time Directive is a reserved matter but Executive ministers have participated in developing the UK line.