Seòmar agus comataidhean

Grant given to the National Trust for Scotland by the Scottish Government since 2006-07 is shown in the following table:

Directorate	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09
Culture, External Affairs and Tourism	£2,431,690.92	£1,671,811.27	£2,809,035.90
Transport	£1,474,091.38	£297,670.92	£147,066.97
Historic Scotland	£481,948	£1,157,836	£417,560

 

Data on the number of international visitors to Scotland is collected and issued by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and is made available on the ONS website.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/default.asp.

Provisional figures for international visitors for the first quarter of 2009 are expected to be made available in July 2009.

Domestic visitor figures are collected in the UK Tourism Survey (undertaken by TNS) and are published on an annual basis only, with the most recent figures  (January 2008 to December 2008) expected in June to July 2009.

Scottish Government are always keen to discuss efficiency initiatives in other administrations, including the other devolved administrations. I have discussed efficiency initiatives with the Northern Ireland Ministers.

The Scottish Government has asked the Working Group on Scotland Without Nuclear Weapons to examine the economic impact of removal of nuclear weapons from HM Naval Base Clyde and would urge the Ministry of Defence to provide access to information to help with this assessment.

This data is not collected by the Scottish Government, as it is a matter for local authorities and schools to determine which language courses they offer.

The closest proxy data we have are numbers of schools making presentations for national qualifications. The following table shows these data from standard grade to advanced higher in publicly-funded schools for 2007-08.

New national qualifications in Mandarin and Cantonese at higher and advanced higher were launched on 7 May 2009 by the Scottish Qualifications Authority to add to their May 2008 launch of qualifications at Intermediate 1 and 2 levels. No national qualifications are currently available in Arabic.

Level	German	Russian	Spanish
Standard Grade	181	1	109
Intermediate 1	21	1	75
Intermediate 2	118	2	114
Higher	187	7	126
Advanced Higher	63	5	38

 

The European Parliament and Council failed to reach a compromise at the conciliation stage on the proposed changes to the Working Time Directive. As such the current legislation will remain in force, allowing the UK to retain the existing opt-out.

If any new proposal is put forward by the Commission in the future the Scottish Government will look closely at what it might mean for Scotland and influence the UK Government accordingly.

Data on the number and uptake of symptomatic tests for bowel cancer is not held centrally.

Data for the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme will be published in August 2009. Data from the Bowel Screening Pilot can be accessed on the Information Services Division website:

www.isdscotland.org/isd/1696.html.

The Scottish Government has no plans to consider the use of identity cards for the purpose of voter identification.

The Prisoner Transfer Agreement states that The requested State shall inform the State requesting the transfer of its decision whether or not to agree to the requested transfer, normally within 90 days of the receipt of the request. If a decision cannot be notified within 90 days of the request, the requested State shall inform the requesting State of the reasons for any delay and use best endeavours to notify the requesting State of its decision as soon as possible.

Whilst I will deal with this application expeditiously I will consider it thoroughly and will ensure I have all relevant information available to me before reaching decisions.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 is reserved to Westminster and the Scottish Government has not undertaken an assessment of its effectiveness in relation to access to toilets.

The Scottish Government is committed to equality for disabled people and the revised Scottish Building Standards, introduced in May 2007, now require the provision of an accessible toilet within all new non-domestic buildings. The form and provision of facilities within such toilets reflects the good practice recommendation identified in the British standard BS 8300 “ Design of buildings and their approaches to meet the needs of disabled people: code of practice.

We are keen to get an early picture of how the 2007 changes have been implemented and any issues which have arisen. As part of this, we intend to undertake discussion with a range of stakeholders, including disability organisations, later this year.