Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government funded the development of A Toolkit for Teachers: Dealing with Homophobia and Homophobic bullying in Scottish Schools by LGBT Youth Scotland in partnership with Learning Teaching Scotland, issued to every secondary school in Scotland in February 2009.

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/Images/LGBT%20low%20res%207''01''09_tcm4-512286.pdf.

This contains guidance in relation to dealing with homophobic incidents.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/08/13102651/0.

Additionally, we issued guidance in 2007 to accompany the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007. The recent issue of the FIT DVD by Stonewall Scotland to all secondary schools supports discussion around this issue. http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_school/fit/default.asp.

We do not hold this information centrally.

It is for local authority and schools to set their own arrangements for dealing with homophobic incidents. The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 makes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation unlawful and requires schools to make sure that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) pupils or the children of LGBT parents, do not receive different and less favourable treatment to that given to other pupils. Schools need to ensure that homophobic bullying is taken as seriously and dealt with as firmly as bullying on any other ground. Her Majesty''s Inspectorate of Education also assess the school''s handling of bullying within inspection as part of the pre-inspection survey of pupils, parents, teachers and school staff, seeking their views on feelings of safety and welfare. Furthermore, the Scottish Government actively promotes the health and wellbeing of LGBT pupils through Curriculum for Excellence and the Toolkit for Teachers: Dealing with Homophobia and Homophobic Bullying in Scottish Schools.

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/Images/LGBT%20low%20res%207''01''09_tcm4-512286.pdf.

The Scottish Government wholly funds Respectme (£347,000 pa) to provide direct support to local authorities, schools, youth groups and all those working with children and young people in relation to bullying, including homophobic bullying.

Zero Waste Scotland “ the Scottish Government''s new single Zero Waste delivery programme “ delivers a number of initiatives which can help charities and community organisations to access recycling services:

Its Business Resource Efficiency programme provides advice to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) (which includes the majority of third sector organisations) on ways to reduce waste, recycle more and use resources more efficiently. This programme includes on-site advice and training and is delivered by the Green Business Partnership in conjunction with stakeholders such as the Federation of Small Businesses Scottish Enterprise and local Chambers of Commerce.

This programme also maintains a searchable online directory of recycling collections available to SMEs and third sector organisations at www.wasteawarebusiness.org.uk.

The third sector support programme will start a new project in 2010-11 aimed at helping the wider third sector in Scotland become greener, by providing assistance and support on waste prevention, reuse and recycling options.

The Scottish Government is aware of Project Prevention and does not support this organisation. This organisation offers cash incentives to individuals who are having problems with substance misuse to commit to long term, and potentially permanent birth control.

The Scottish Government and its partners are focussed on ensuring that appropriate advice, guidance and support on birth control and family planning services are part of drug treatment services, and are accessible to people with drug problems. Helping an individual to achieve sustained recovery and, if and when they are ready, supporting that individual to have a healthy pregnancy and to bring up their child in the future, is integral to national strategies such as The Road to Recovery (Drugs) and Respect and Responsibility (Sexual Health), and national frameworks such as Changing Scotland''s Relationship with Alcohol and Early Years.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to publish such a report. We believe that it is still too early to be able to assess fully what the recent package of land reform legislation has achieved for people in rural areas and to report objectively on the diversity of land ownership and the community ownership of land, as was suggested in 2003.

Part 2 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, which allows rural communities in Scotland the opportunity to register a pre-emptive right to buy land, provides a mechanism to address patterns of private land ownership.

We continue to monitor the practical operation of the Community Right to Buy provisions and will publish a report once these have generated sufficient evidence of the impact of land transfer.

Our intention remains to change the eligibility criteria from 1 April 2011. Scottish Government officials are in regular contact with the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence to ensure that this takes place.

Under EC Regional Aid rules 2007-13 there are minimum conditions periods which apply to offers of RSA for investment or job creation projects. However, conditions can and do vary above the minimum level on a project by project basis. The statutory conditions periods for grants made since 3 May 2007 are set out as follows:

Offers from 3 May to 30 June 2007	Offers post 30 June 2007
Aid for Initial Investment Projects: Jobs “ 18 months from date of final payment. Assets “ 60 months from date of first payment or 18 months from date of final payment, whichever is the longer. Aid for Job Creation Projects: Jobs & Assets “ 60 months from date of first payment or 18 months from date of final payment, whichever is the longer.	Aid for Initial Investment Projects: Jobs “ 18 months from date of final payment. Assets “ 36 months (SME) or 60 months (Large Enterprises) from date of final payment. Aid for Job Creation Projects: Jobs “ 36 months (SME) or 60 months (Large Enterprises) from date of creation of each job Assets “ 36 months (SME) or 60 months (Large Enterprises) from date of final payment.

 

Asylum seekers and refugees have access to all NHS services on the same basis as the local population and NHS boards will ensure their mental health needs are met on the basis of comprehensive needs assessment and delivery of culturally sensitive services.

In addition, with Scottish Government funding, NHS Health Scotland runs a multi-agency programme of mental health improvement work with asylum seekers in Glasgow. The Sanctuary project is run with a range of partners including the Scottish Refugee Council; the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture, and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The three main strands of the project are: (1) mental health awareness-raising with asylum seekers and refugees through community conversations; (2) specialised training for mental health staff across a range of sectors regarding the particular mental health needs of asylum seekers and refugees, and (3) a DVD about the asylum seeking process and its impact on mental health, which is to be incorporated into the training.

 

The Environmental Statement submitted by Scottish & Southern Energy and Scottish Power as part of the Beauly to Denny application states that helicopters will be used for the stringing of all cables over the whole length of the line, and also for the transportation of plant and materials to isolated areas where it is either impossible or impractical to build access tracks.