Chamber and committees

I have asked Mike Ewart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

The Scottish Prison Service provides support for the families of prisoners in a number of ways. The majority of prisons in Scotland have Family Contact Development Officers who are an important point of contact for prisoners and their families and who are available to offer information and advice. The Scottish Prison Service also works positively with third sector partners in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for families affected by imprisonment and are currently undertaking a review of visit facilities across the estate.

VisitScotland is committed to the marketing of Scotland, at home and abroad, as a quality, value for money destination for all. Their marketing strategy is based on sophisticated research, through which they segment their marketing activity and target consumers according to the age, gender, income and lifestyle of potential visitors. They take those people with disabilities into consideration in their activities, to ensure that Scotland is also promoted as an accessible tourism destination.

As part of continuous improvement, VisitScotland and the tourism industry are exploring ways to:

attract more disabled visitors to Scotland;

extend the range and quality of information on accessibility to accommodation and tourism facilities;

gain better information about the experience of disabled visitors, and

record the numbers of employed disabled people and ensure they are equitably treated.

Examples of these activities are: the VisitScotland Disability Equality Scheme, publications for the visually-impaired, e-marketing activities, Quality Assurance scheme for those with impaired mobility.

The Government Economic Strategy (GES) sets out how we will focus on creating a more successful country through increasing sustainable economic growth. It is a wide-ranging strategy that recognises that all the arms of government need to play a role in strengthening the Scottish economy. This includes working with other public, private and third sector partners to ensure that enterprise and business development support is responsive, focused and accessible to all sectors of Scottish society, including disabled people.

Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise play a key role in delivering aspects of the GES.

Both enterprise agencies support the Equality Matters in Business project, a pioneering Scotland-wide project that aims to enhance the advice and support given to small and medium sized enterprises on the business benefits of good practice in equality and diversity. It is a two year scheme running to March 2009 which covers all strands of equality, focuses on the demand for diversity and addresses the barriers that prevent the supply of a diverse workforce.

Statistics are not available on the outcome of this project however, monitoring procedures are being put in place to record the number of businesses advised and an evaluation is currently being carried out.

The Scottish Government has committed over £120 million from 2008-09 to 2010-11 to tackle alcohol misuse, the majority of which has been provided to NHS boards for the provision of alcohol brief interventions and treatment and support services.

We have also recently consulted on a range of proposals to change Scotland''s relationship with alcohol and reduce alcohol-related harm and will be announcing shortly our framework for action.

Information on alcohol related hospital discharges is available from the Information Systems Division (ISD) alcohol website at:

http://www.alcoholinformation.isdscotland.org/alcohol_misuse/files/Alcohol_hospital_statistics_2007.pdf.

Table 2 has data for acute hospitals up to 2006-07 and table 7 for psychiatric hospitals up to 2005-06. Information is collected from discharge records and not admissions.

We are in regular touch with licensing boards as they work through the transition period to the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 coming fully into force on 1 September 2009. As set out in the act, consideration of applications and the issuing of licences is a matter for each licensing board.

Eligibility for the central heating programme inherited from the previous administration is laid down in the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme Regulations (HEES). The HEES regulations specify that it is pensioners who are eligible for the programme rather than people receiving disability-related benefits. From April 2009, the programme will be replaced with the Energy Assistance Package: a one-stop shop providing a holistic approach to tackling fuel poverty through benefits checks, energy tariff advice and physical energy efficiency measures. For the first time, low income families with a disabled child under 16 may be able to receive help beyond basic insulation measures. To implement this change, new regulations are being prepared which will be laid before Parliament in January.

I have no plans to change the application processes at this stage, other than those proposals set out in Revitalising Justice “ Proposals to Modernise and Improve the Criminal Justice System which to be contained in the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. However, I am happy to consider any representations about how the application forms and processes might be improved following completion of the transition period. Any changes to forms after transition will need to maintain the balance between being relatively simple to complete and providing the licensing board with enough information to allow them to take a decision.

Details are as follows:

Ward	Number of Contracted GPs
Milngavie	12
Bearsden North	4
Bearsden South	15
Campsie and Kirkintilloch North	28
Bishopbriggs North and Torrance	1
Bishopbriggs South	18
Lenzie and Kirkintilloch South	9
Kirkintilloch East and Twechar	02
East Dunbartonshire total	87

Source: GP Contractor Database, ISD Scotland.

Notes:

1. The table shows the number of GPs working in East Dunbartonshire practices, by electoral ward, as at 30 September 2007. The allocation of GPs to wards is based on the postcode of the main general practice address and does not take account of instances where practices run branch surgeries in other locations. It should also be noted that people resident in one ward area can often be registered with a general practice in another ward area, subject to them living within the relevant practice boundary. The figures do not include out-of-hours services and GPs doing only locum work.

2. One practice in Campsie and Kirkintilloch North ward runs a branch surgery at Twechar.

3. GP numbers for 2008 will be published at local authority level on 27 January 2009 at:

www.isdscotland.org/GPpracs&pops.

The information is given in the following table.

Recorded Crimes and Offences involving air weapons, Scotland, 2003-04 to 2007-08

Local Authority	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Aberdeen City	6	6	5	20	7
Aberdeenshire	6	5	7	13	2
Angus	14	8	10	7	4
Argyll and Bute	4	2	3	7	12
Clackmannanshire	3	6	4	5	1
Dumfries and Galloway	14	21	10	22	17
Dundee City	28	18	13	10	17
East Ayrshire	3	0	12	26	30
East Dunbartonshire	4	0	3	18	10
East Lothian	11	24	20	18	24
East Renfrewshire	0	0	11	7	14
Edinburgh City	151	147	132	98	67
Eilean Siar	0	0	0	0	3
Falkirk	6	17	9	6	5
Fife	12	6	6	35	23
Glasgow City	19	29	113	108	99
Highland	0	0	0	6	20
Inverclyde	0	8	6	11	6
Midlothian	21	43	24	20	13
Moray	0	1	2	11	3
North Ayrshire	2	18	20	25	27
North Lanarkshire	6	7	28	68	39
Orkney Islands	0	0	0	0	2
Perth and Kinross	12	11	13	6	3
Renfrewshire	14	3	29	13	29
Scottish Borders	34	20	20	9	4
Shetland Islands	0	0	1	1	2
South Ayrshire	5	0	10	15	11
South Lanarkshire	10	7	33	43	22
Stirling	4	3	1	3	2
West Dunbartonshire	3	2	25	22	23
West Lothian	45	74	48	31	26
Total	437	486	618	684	567