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Work has been on-going to implement the recommendations of the Quality and Practice Review Unit review of the investigation of road traffic deaths. There are no plans to publish a progress report at this stage.

Paths to Justice Scotland raises a number of important issues both in terms of how people try to resolve their legal problems and their perceptions of the legal system. I intend to bear the report findings in mind, in addition to the Microcosm study The Public Perspective on accessing Legal Advice and Information recently carried out by the Scottish Executive Central Research Unit, as we continue to look at developing a community legal service for Scotland and for civil justice more generally.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:SPS' contract for the provision of primary care medical services is to deliver services in accordance with our Standards for the Health Care of Prisoners published in 1998.

General practitioners (GPs) do not hold individual contracts. GPs who wish to provide General Medical Services (GMS) under the national GMS contract must gain admission to the medical list. While practising a GP must comply with the terms of service set out in The National Health Service (General Medical Services) (Scotland) Regulations 1995. Payments to GPs are as allowable under the "Statement of Fees and Allowances payable to General Medical Practitioners in Scotland". Both documents are available on line on the Scottish Health on the Web (SHOW) website.Personal Medical Services (PMS) schemes allow for different contractual arrangements than those possible under GMS. There has to be a contractual change from the national GMS contract to a local PMS contract. The same services which are provided under GMS have to be provided under PMS including 24-hour cover to a registered population. An outline PMS contract is available on the SHOW website.

The information requested is not available.All requests for information received by the Executive and other public authorities covered by the Code of Practice on Access to Scottish Executive Information must be considered under the terms of this code (whether or not the code is cited). For monitoring purposes, requests for information are recorded as "formal" requests under the code if the applicant specifically mentions the code, or where the information is refused or where a charge is to be made. Under the code, charges may be made - on the basis of actual staff costs to search for and retrieve information and, where appropriate, photocopy it - if the cost to the public authority of providing the requested information is above £100. During the period 1 July 1999 to 31 December 2000, 27 requests for information (of many thousands) were recorded as having incurred charges. Details of formal code requests for the calendar year 2001 will be available early this year.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows.The expected cost of social work services for 2001-02 is as follows.

(a) HMP Edinburgh	£300,000
(b) HMP & YOI Glenochil	£260,000
(c) HMP Dumfries	£67,000
(d) HMP Polmont	£190,000

The powers at section 5(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill are included to ensure that ministers can respond to changes in the pattern of public service delivery, bringing public authorities within the coverage of the legislation as appropriate. If the legislation is enacted, consideration will be given in due course as to which bodies will be appropriate for designation for the purposes of the legislation.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:The Controller and his staff are responsible for certain statutory functions as well as for contract monitoring. It is not possible to separately identify the costs associated with ensuring contract compliance. The cost of the Controller's function at HMP Kilmarnock has been:

at Current Prices	Cash Terms (£000)	Real Terms (£000)
1997-98	Nil	Nil
1998-99	Nil	Nil
1999-2000	£140	£146
2000-01	£132	£135
2001 to date	£103	£103

The information requested is not available.All requests for information received by the Scottish Executive and other public authorities covered by the Code of Practice on Access to Scottish Executive Information must be considered under the terms of the code. As the number of requests for information run into many thousands it is not practicable to provide detailed information on the associated costs. For monitoring purposes, statistics are collected on those requests where the applicant specifically mentions the code, or where the request is refused or where charges are made. During the calendar year 2000 there were 44 such requests.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows.The available information is as follows.The number of social workers providing social work service at Edinburgh Prison is currently five and the number of social workers providing social work service at Dumfries is currently 1.5.Glenochil and Polmont have social work service delivered through a contract and the service is therefore based on outputs rather then staff numbers.The information in previous years is not readily available and could not be collected except at disproportionate cost.