Chamber and committees

The emissions projections used by the Scottish Government and the Committee on Climate Change take account of the recession based on the 2009 growth forecasts. These show emissions falling by 0.4% between 2007 and 2008, by 1.2% between 2008 and 2009, and by 0.1% between 2009 and 2010. It is not possible to say how much of the decrease in greenhouse gas emissions projected for 2008 and 2009 is due to the recession and how much is due to UK and Scottish Government policies.

There is a significant degree of uncertainty when projecting emissions, and the Committee on Climate Change acknowledged this when giving advice to the Scottish Government.

As part of the national performance framework the Scottish Government annually publishes the indicator on social economy turnover, this includes the social enterprise sector.

This information is available on the Scotland Performs website:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/indicators/socialEconomy.

We are currently working with third sector stakeholders, including social enterprise representatives on developing more detailed statistics for the sector. This will include data on social enterprise.

As there is no legal definition or regulation for social enterprise, there is no single source of data to support mapping of the sector. We fund the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition as a strategic partner of Scottish Government to provide advice and information about the sector. The coalition are also part of the Third Sector Research Forum whose focus is to consider improvements to information gathering.

We do not hold this information centrally.

It is for local authority and schools to set their own arrangements for dealing with homophobic incidents. The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 makes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation unlawful and requires schools to make sure that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) pupils or the children of LGBT parents, do not receive different and less favourable treatment to that given to other pupils. Schools need to ensure that homophobic bullying is taken as seriously and dealt with as firmly as bullying on any other ground. Her Majesty''s Inspectorate of Education also assess the school''s handling of bullying within inspection as part of the pre-inspection survey of pupils, parents, teachers and school staff, seeking their views on feelings of safety and welfare. Furthermore, the Scottish Government actively promotes the health and wellbeing of LGBT pupils through Curriculum for Excellence and the Toolkit for Teachers: Dealing with Homophobia and Homophobic Bullying in Scottish Schools.

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/Images/LGBT%20low%20res%207''01''09_tcm4-512286.pdf.

The Scottish Government wholly funds Respectme (£347,000 pa) to provide direct support to local authorities, schools, youth groups and all those working with children and young people in relation to bullying, including homophobic bullying.

The Scottish Government funded the development of A Toolkit for Teachers: Dealing with Homophobia and Homophobic bullying in Scottish Schools by LGBT Youth Scotland in partnership with Learning Teaching Scotland, issued to every secondary school in Scotland in February 2009.

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/Images/LGBT%20low%20res%207''01''09_tcm4-512286.pdf.

This contains guidance in relation to dealing with homophobic incidents.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/08/13102651/0.

Additionally, we issued guidance in 2007 to accompany the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007. The recent issue of the FIT DVD by Stonewall Scotland to all secondary schools supports discussion around this issue. http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_school/fit/default.asp.

Zero Waste Scotland “ the Scottish Government''s new single Zero Waste delivery programme “ delivers a number of initiatives which can help charities and community organisations to access recycling services:

Its Business Resource Efficiency programme provides advice to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) (which includes the majority of third sector organisations) on ways to reduce waste, recycle more and use resources more efficiently. This programme includes on-site advice and training and is delivered by the Green Business Partnership in conjunction with stakeholders such as the Federation of Small Businesses Scottish Enterprise and local Chambers of Commerce.

This programme also maintains a searchable online directory of recycling collections available to SMEs and third sector organisations at www.wasteawarebusiness.org.uk.

The third sector support programme will start a new project in 2010-11 aimed at helping the wider third sector in Scotland become greener, by providing assistance and support on waste prevention, reuse and recycling options.

The Scottish Government is aware of Project Prevention and does not support this organisation. This organisation offers cash incentives to individuals who are having problems with substance misuse to commit to long term, and potentially permanent birth control.

The Scottish Government and its partners are focussed on ensuring that appropriate advice, guidance and support on birth control and family planning services are part of drug treatment services, and are accessible to people with drug problems. Helping an individual to achieve sustained recovery and, if and when they are ready, supporting that individual to have a healthy pregnancy and to bring up their child in the future, is integral to national strategies such as The Road to Recovery (Drugs) and Respect and Responsibility (Sexual Health), and national frameworks such as Changing Scotland''s Relationship with Alcohol and Early Years.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to publish such a report. We believe that it is still too early to be able to assess fully what the recent package of land reform legislation has achieved for people in rural areas and to report objectively on the diversity of land ownership and the community ownership of land, as was suggested in 2003.

Part 2 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, which allows rural communities in Scotland the opportunity to register a pre-emptive right to buy land, provides a mechanism to address patterns of private land ownership.

We continue to monitor the practical operation of the Community Right to Buy provisions and will publish a report once these have generated sufficient evidence of the impact of land transfer.

Our intention remains to change the eligibility criteria from 1 April 2011. Scottish Government officials are in regular contact with the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence to ensure that this takes place.