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I have asked Tony Cameron,Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is asfollows:

The majority of this workwas carried out on 22 December 2003 and is planned to be fully completed by 23 January 2004.

I have asked Tony Cameron,Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is asfollows:

A 1/80th share of themaintenance of the private roads and street lighting system within the village of Upperton.

The Scottish Executive todayissued its response to the consultation by the Department for ConstitutionalAffairs on constitutional reforms, including the setting up of a UK SupremeCourt to replace the House of Lords sitting as an appeal court.

The Executive welcomes theproposal for the setting up of a UK Supreme Court as a means of ensuring that Scotland’sconstitutional position is maintained. The Executive believe that the creationof the UK Supreme Court would respect the unique nature of the Scottish justicesystem.

The Executive indicated itsview in July that it saw no case for departing from the long tradition ofScottish civil appeal cases going from the Court of Session to the House ofLords nor of supplementing the criminal appeal system by a further route to thenew UK Supreme Court.

In its response, the Executive agree that the right of appeal to the House of Lords on civil mattershas served the Scottish justice system well. A tradition of high quality anddurable decisions has built up in a way which has ensured valued and valuableconsistency throughout the UK. The Executive see no reason to upset the currentbalance.

Equally, the Executive donot believe that there is any need to modify current rights of appeal inrelation to criminal matters to give the new UK Supreme Court jurisdiction inthose respects simply for the sake of consistency. There are considerabledifferences between the systems of criminal law in Scotland andEngland and the current system has served the Scottish justice system well.

The view of the Executive isthat in relation to devolution issues under the Scotland Act, the UK SupremeCourt is the appropriate forum for final determination of all such matters. The full text of the response is at www.scotland.gov.uk/00018515.

Non-profit-makingsports clubs in Scotland are able to receive 80% mandatoryrate relief if they register as charities with the Inland Revenue. Localauthorities have discretionary powers to top up this relief up to the maximum100%. Sports clubs that do not meet the requirements for mandatory rate reliefare eligible for up to 100% discretionary rate relief from their localauthority; this is fully funded by the Scottish Executive. Sport clubs which occupy premises with a rateable value of£10,000 or less are eligible for between 5% and 50% small business rate relief.

The Executive has allocated tolocal authorities £180 million Quality of Life funding over the three-year periodto 2005-06. This funding will be used to improve the local environment and increaseopportunities for children and young people. A number of local authorities haveidentified projects involving alternative sports which I welcome.

I refer the member to the answergiven to question S1W-24583 on 28 March 2002, I undertook to continue to reportquarterly on the numbers of letters received by ministers and our performance inanswering them.

All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

Previous figures included informationon invitations which, by their nature, may not always require to be considered inthe same time scale as other items of correspondence. With that in mind and to givea clearer picture of the Executive's performance in dealing with letters to ministers,I have decided that invitations will no longer be counted in the total, however,monitoring and tracking of replies to invitations continues. This is therefore thefirst quarter in which I am reporting performance on letters only and not invitations.

In the quarter April to June2003, 1,994 letters were received for ministerial reply, of which 74% received areply within 17 working days and 90% received a reply within 25 working days. Inthe same period ministers received 561 invitations.

Road lighting is often identified as one of the main sources of light pollution. At present both the Executive and local authorities work to the relevant British Standards for road lighting installation and employ technologies which take full account of advances in efficiency and design. All trunk road lighting schemes are also designed in accordance with the best practice guidance set out in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges. The objective is to provide lighting which achieves night-time road safety objectives whilst minimising adverse environmental impacts and intrusion. All new and replacement trunk road lighting is of a less polluting type which offers superior control of the emitted light, giving a reduction in the amount of light spillage into the night sky.Planning controls can also play a part in reducing light pollution from other types of lighting schemes. Where there is a proposal for which a planning application is required, the planning authority may take action to mitigate the potential adverse effects of any external lighting. This might include imposing suitable planning conditions to prevent or minimise light pollution.In addition to the above framework, one of the commitments in the Partnership Agreement is to reduce light pollution and save energy by specifying appropriate lighting standards. The Executive intends to develop and publish guidance on public lighting which will meet these aims.

Yes. The Scottish Prison Service offer a range of support services to enable any employee who is absent due to ill-health to return to work as quickly as possible. This is supported by medical advice supplied by the Occupational Health Advisors to the Service.

The Code of Practice on Access to Scottish Executive Information, which informs decisions made on whether or not to disclose information, will remain in place until the statutory Freedom of Information regime is brought into force on 1 January 2005. Copies of a report providing statistics on the operation of the code during 2002 have been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 28052). The report has also been published on the Scottish Executive's website.

Implementation of the proposals on anti-social behaviour in the partnership agreement is being taken forward as one of the Executive's top priorities. We will publish draft proposals for an anti-social behaviour bill for consultation before the summer recess.