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The Executive seeks to protect and enhance the land and water resources required for the nation's sport and physical recreation through the planning system. It is part of local authorities' responsibility to take full account in their preparation of development plans, and development control decisions of the community's need, for recreational space and sporting facilities. Planning decisions must be made in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The development plan will therefore form the basis of decisions made by local authorities and Scottish ministers.National Planning Policy Guideline (NPPG) 11: Sport, Physical Recreation and Open Space, states that there should be a presumption against redevelopment of playing fields or sports pitches and that planning permission should not be granted for their alternative use, unless it has been established that they will not be required in future by the school or community. For the purposes of NPPG 11 a playing field is defined as land of 0.4 hectares or more for any pitch sports, including any adjacent tennis courts and bowling greens, and athletic tracks.Under Article 15 of the General Development Procedure Order, sportscotland must be consulted on proposals for development on land last used as a playing field which has not subsequently been built on and development that is likely to prejudice the use of land as a playing field or lead to the loss of land used as a playing field. If a planning authority is minded to grant a planning permission, and sportscotland has made and maintained an objection to the application, the authority must notify the Scottish ministers who can then decide whether to call in the application for their own determination.Robust planning policies are required to safeguard established open spaces, playing fields and access routes where they contribute to local community needs and enjoyment. Local authorities should lead by example and generally resist development of open space and playing fields in their ownership.

In September we published the Digital Inclusion strategy Connecting Scotland's people - this included initiatives which will promote digital inclusion in rural areas.The public access points initiative will expend some £5 million to create more than 1,000 additional public internet access points, and investment will be particularly focussed on areas of Scotland where access to the web is currently poor. The initiative will provide PCs with internet access in places where people already go - for example doctors' surgeries, shops and hairdressers. This will significantly improve public access to the web across much of rural Scotland. We expect to provide the first PCs early next year.In addition, the Digital Communities initiative will expend some £3.5 million in tackling digital inclusion by creating pilot "digital communities" to connect homes to the internet in two disadvantaged areas of Scotland. The objective is to demonstrate how the internet can increase peoples' opportunities and improve quality of life, but at the same time to inform our further efforts to close the digital divide. The two communities chosen will be announced in March 2002, one of which will be a rural community.As noted in the strategy, we are also examining the feasibility of a range of other initiatives to promote digital inclusion.

We have honoured our commitment in the National Cultural Strategy to provide resources of £250,000 for a national audit of all museum collections, buildings and services to establish their relative importance, the first of its kind in Europe. The final results of the audit are due in April 2002. However, an interim report was published on 25 October and included detailed findings relating to industrial museums and Glasgow City museums.In the first instance, the results of the audit will inform the distribution of our new Restructuring Fund of £3 million over three years, which is aimed at helping to put the local museum sector on a sounder financial footing.We are also progressively increasing our annual grant-in-aid to the Scottish Museums Council, the channel for the Executive's support to the non-national museum sector, from £940,000 in 2000-01 to £1,440,000 in 2003-04. The increase of £850,000 over three years (£100,000/£250,000/£500,000) is intended specifically for the development of Information and Communications Technology and education programmes in the non-national sector.

The Executive remains committed to promoting social inclusion across Scotland, including in our rural areas. Our understanding of rural social exclusion is being improved as a result of the Rural Poverty and Inclusion Working Group's report, Poverty and Social Exclusion in Rural Scotland, which was presented to ministers on 30 October. The report makes a number of practical recommendations for measuring the impact of, and tackling, poverty and social exclusion in rural areas. The Executive is already acting on the group's recommendations by taking forward work to improve data availability and to disaggregate existing data on a rural/urban basis. As far as is currently possible, we will provide an urban/rural breakdown of data in the second Social Justice Annual Report, which will be published shortly.

The provision of advice and support for small, medium and large businesses in Scotland is a matter for Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The Scottish Executive continues to work closely with both these organisations to ensure easy access by new and existing small businesses, in all sectors, to the advice and support they need to develop and grow. Small businesses should contact the Small Business Gateway, in the Scottish Enterprise area or the Local Enterprise Company in the Highlands and Islands area, where business advisers can advise on all relevant sources of advice and support available, including from local authorities and the Executive.

Eaga manage the Warm Deal for the private sector. They do not record applications by sector. They record the number of grants awarded. From 1 July 2000 to 30 June 2001 Eaga received 27,823 Warm Deal grant claims. 941 of these were for tenants in the private rented sector. This represents 3.4% of all grants awarded in that period.

The Energy Saving Trust is responsible for publicising the Powershift programme throughout the UK, and does so in a number of ways. We have recently asked the trust to undertake increased promotion of the Powershift programme across Scotland, including in rural areas.

Earlier this year, we commissioned an update of an earlier assessment of Scotland's potential renewable energy resource, which was published in 1993. This work has nearly been completed by the consultants, and I will be announcing its publication shortly, along with a linked report on the Scottish electricity network.

The Executive remains very interested in models of private sector involvement to improve investment in and provision of e-learning. We are continuing to explore with the foundation how an extension of its activities into Scotland might bring about a step-change in access to e-learning.

The Executive remains very interested in models of private sector involvement to improve investment in and provision of e-learning. We are continuing to explore with the foundation how an extension of its activities into Scotland might bring about a step-change in access to e-learning.