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A reply was issued today.

The Scottish Executive remain committed to delivery in full of all recommendations of the agreement A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century.Following Spending Review 2000, the funding agreed for implementation of the agreement was £174 million in 2001-02, £285 million in 2002-03 and £405 million in 2003-04. The Scottish Budget in September 2002 identified an additional £282 million for implementation in 2003-06 (£11 million /£108 million /£163 million over the three financial years). The Scottish Executive and COSLA have now agreed funding in addition to that already identified of £80 million over the three years 2003-06 (£25 million /£20 million /£35 million). This will ensure that all the elements within the agreement are delivered on time and reinforces the commitment of all parties to full implementation.

The Scottish Executive meet regularly with COSLA on all aspects of implementation of the agreement A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century. The Scottish Executive and COSLA agreed funding arrangements for the three years from 2001-02 to 2003-04 when the agreement was signed early in 2001. Additional resources were announced in the Scottish Budget in September 2002 to cover costs up to 2005-06.The Scottish Executive have recently agreed with COSLA the provision of additional resources of £80 million over the three years 2003 to 2006, a considerable element of which is designed to help those authorities, including Highland Council, who have carried higher teachers' salary costs than assumed in funding calculations.

Statistics for the three complete years 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2001-02 as well as for the year 2002-03 to date are given in the table. It should be noted that the National Health Service (Scotland) (Injury Benefits) Regulations 1998 provide for successful applicants to receive a supplement to their income to bring their post injury income up to a proportion of their pre-injury income, that proportion depending on the degree of disability. "Successful" does not, therefore, mean that an additional payment is made. Reviews and appeals take into account the way the disability has developed since the original application and can be in respect of the degree of disability as well as the existence of disability. Hence, there are reviews of successful original applications.

	Applications			% Succesful
	New	Review	Appeal	New	Review	Appeal
1999-2000	118	32		81.40%	81.30%
2000-01	76	30	1	75.00%	80.00%	100.00%
2001-02	80	34	1	85.00%	64.70%*	100.0%
2002-03	68	11		91.20%	54.50%*

Note:*Excluding cases on-going.

The decision on whether to agree to such a meeting is entirely a matter for UK ministers. Tax and equity issues formed part of the case made by Scottish ministers to the Treasury which secured additional funds of £26 million for distribution to beneficiaries.

The buying out of Highlands and Islands Airports Limited (HIAL) Public Finance Initiative (PFI) deal on the development and operation of the Inverness Airport Terminal is not under consideration by Scottish ministers. The contractual parties to the deal are reviewing the PFI structure, to ensure that it continues to be effective in delivering the intended benefits for the operation and development of the terminal and airport. The Scottish Executive fully supports this review. The estimated cost of PFI payments until the end of the contract is based on a (variable) volume based payment multiplied by the estimated passenger throughout. This is applied through a cost model which is subject to commercial confidentiality.HIAL and the Scottish Executive will continue to pursue the development of new routes from Inverness and other HIAL airports through the Interim Route Development Fund and the company's marketing strategy. In the past six months this has resulted in delivery of a new Manchester service and an additional London (Gatwick) service.

The Scottish Executive has every confidence that the Water Industry Commissioner for Scotland is promoting the interests of customers of Scottish Water in keeping with his responsibilities as set out in the Water Industry (Scotland) Act 2002. We expect the relatively small investment in maintaining the Water Industry Commissioner's office to contribute significantly to ensuring that customers will pay the minimum necessary for sustainable, effective water and waste water services.

The Scheme of Charges that determines charges for businesses and households was agreed between Scottish Water and the Water Industry Commissioner on 31 January 2003. The overall level of charges has been set to raise the revenue needed for investment to improve water and waste water services. Scottish ministers have accepted the recommendation from the Water Industry Commissioner that, in principal, charges schemes should reflect the costs of providing the service.

It remains the case that the SPCB still regards the details of the amount of fees paid to professional consultants as commercially confidential for reasons given previously and a breakdown of these fees cannot presently be given.

The Executive is committed to working with the scallop industry to protect scallop stocks and to explore the scope for new research in the context of amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP). The Scottish Scallop Advisory Committee, which includes representatives of the scallop industry, Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department, Fisheries Research Services and the Food Standards Agency, is making good progress with the identification and pursuit of appropriate research. We have also allocated Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance funds to an industry-led project to investigate scallop portion sizes in the EU. No final decision has yet been taken by Scottish ministers as to whether the proposed tiered regime for ASP will be implemented in Scotland.