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The Scottish Government rejects that conclusion. Curriculum for Excellence aims to raise standards for all young people through a more flexible, coherent and enriched curriculum. It is for schools and local authorities to ensure they get the right balance of subject knowledge within broad curricular guidance and drawing on available resources.

Practitioners are empowered to make teaching of history relevant and engaging drawing on local, national and international contexts while maintaining a focus on changes that have shaped Scotland. The curriculum encourages deeper learning which may involve a smaller number of topics and the History Excellence Group is working to produce further guidance for teachers and schools to provide learners with a coherent experience of history from early years to senior phase.

The Scottish Government rejects that view. Learners in Scotland have benefitted from a wide range of high-quality resources to support the learning and teaching of history which have been developed and approved in consultation with the history profession. The History in Curriculum for Excellence Group, established in 2008, informed the development of the excellent Scotland''s History online resource launched in October 2009 and resources on the new Higher History have been welcomed. Support from the Heritage Education Forum, Scran, Glow and other developments in recent years have made available resources and exciting learning experiences in and out of school across Scotland.

Resources are kept under constant review and the History Excellence Group is developing further guidance for teachers and schools to provide learners with a more coherent experience of history from early years to senior phase as part of Curriculum for Excellence.

Scottish Government officials have been in daily contact with farmers and key stakeholders to understand industry priorities during the severe winter weather.

The Scottish Government secured the case for an emergency relaxation of the EU drivers'' hours enforcement, to help inward and outward distribution of urgent feed and fuel supplies.

Over 18,000 farmers and crofters have already been paid their single farm payment (SFP) this year, over £463 million which represents 98% of the total SFP net budget. The payments made on the earliest possible date, 1 December 2010, were a record since the scheme began.

The following table shows the number of charges under the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, Section 52(1) which were reported to Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in the last three financial years, and which were dealt with by direct measures.

Direct measures includes all decisions other than instructions for court proceedings or no action, i.e. fiscal fines, compensation offers, combined fiscal fine and compensation offers, diversions, work orders, warnings and referrals to the Scottish Children''s Reporter Administration. It is notable that a significant proportion of the charges of this type received by COPFS and dealt with by direct measures were referred to the Scottish Children''s Reporter Administration (1,848 in 2007-08, 1,284 in 2008-09, and 861 in 2009-10).

The information is presented below using court jurisdictions as the COPFS database does not contain information to identify parliamentary constituency boundaries and court jurisdictions do not match parliamentary boundaries.

Charges: Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, Section 52(1)

Court Jurisdiction	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Aberdeen	236	427	282
Airdrie	93	137	86
Alloa	81	49	46
Arbroath	32	89	50
Ayr	133	245	106
Banff	4	14	23
Campbeltown	18	23	12
Cupar	120	107	36
Dingwall	41	54	35
Dornoch	9	2	8
Dumbarton	223	86	98
Dumfries	59	72	133
Dundee	82	137	107
Dunfermline	169	199	120
Dunoon	3	4	42
Duns	10	31	24
Edinburgh	255	318	165
Elgin	47	98	48
Falkirk	111	141	183
Forfar	36	54	56
Fort William	17	35	20
Glasgow	553	511	596
Greenock	119	50	94
Haddington	95	8	19
Hamilton	195	178	154
Inverness	82	122	91
Jedburgh	22	81	20
Kilmarnock	359	313	162
Kirkcaldy	262	316	193
Kirkcudbright	7	18	25
Kirkwall	18	36	9
Lanark	17	44	18
Lerwick	55	25	18
Livingston	28	136	158
Lochmaddy	3	5	4
Oban	11	15	13
Paisley	84	200	117
Peebles	16	7	10
Perth	78	105	100
Peterhead	56	62	60
Rothesay	20	1	10
Selkirk	19	21	52
Stirling	118	102	103
Stonehaven	56	34	18
Stornoway	17	46	27
Stranraer	12	23	20
Tain	35	27	22
Wick	52	29	124
COPFS Total as Direct Measures	4,002	4,749	3,873
Charges reported under the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, Section 52(1)	17,740	15,679	14,536

Notes:

The information in this table has been extracted from COPF''s case management database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency the database will record details only of the amended charge.

The database is charge-based. The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.

£116,340.46 has been paid out from the Post Office Diversification Fund for Scotland so far.

The following table shows the number of charges reported to Procurators Fiscal under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, Section 33(1).

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) database does not contain information to identify parliamentary constituency boundaries and court jurisdictions do not match parliamentary boundaries. As a result, the information has been split into court jurisdictions.

Information about any action taken by local authorities is not held centrally.

Charges: Environmental Protection Act 1990, Section 33(1)

Court	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Aberdeen	-	-	2
Airdrie	5	5	6
Arbroath	-	1	-
Ayr	-	-	1
Banff	-	2	-
Campbeltown	-	1	-
Cupar	1	-	2
Dumbarton	-	4	1
Dumfries	2	2	1
Dundee	-	-	7
Dunfermline	2	1	4
Dunoon	-	1	-
Edinburgh	68	43	67
Falkirk	7	5	1
Glasgow	5	40	5
Greenock	-	-	5
Hamilton	5	1	3
Inverness	-	-	2
Kilmarnock	-	5	-
Kirkcaldy	-	9	2
Livingston	6	2	4
Oban	-	1	-
Paisley	-	4	-
Peterhead	-	1	-
Stirling	-	1	-
Stonehaven	-	1	-
Stornoway	2	2	-
Stranraer	-	-	1
Tain	-	1	-
Wick	-	-	1

 

 The information in this table has been extracted from COPF''s case management database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency the database will record details only of the amended charge.

The database is charge-based. The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.

Two hundred and fifteen applications were received by the closing date of 30 September 2010. Details of the 49 successful applicants have been published on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Business-Industry/support/podiversificationfondscot/awardlist#top.

Devolving a greater degree of control to head teachers is something that I am keen to support. I will soon be making an announcement for plans on this matter.

The Quality Standards for Adult Hearing Rehabilitation Service was published in April 2009. It makes clear that NHS boards should provide effective ongoing life time maintenance of hearing aids. In particular it states that all hearing aid repairs should be carried out within two days of the repair service receiving the hearing aid.

To assist NHS boards to measure their progress towards meeting the quality standards for the adult hearing rehabilitation service an Improvement Quality and Outcomes in Adult Audiology Rehabilitation service through Critical Evaluation “ a Quality Rating Tool for Audiology Service was also issued in April 2009.

The information requested is not available centrally.