Scottish Parliament e-Brief

Issue 133, 30^th September 2002

SECTION 1 - BUSINESS THIS WEEK

THE CHAMBER

IN COMMITTEE
The likely highlights in the Committee Rooms this week include:

• Enterprise and Lifelong Learning meets at Highlands and Islands Enterprise HQ in Inverness to take evidence on the Tourism Inquiry. Among those giving evidence are VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise, and the British Tourist Authority.
• Local Government is also out and about, meeting in the Council Chambers in Paisley to take evidence on its "Renewing Local Democracy - Phase 2 Inquiry." Renfrewshire Council will give evidence along with the Improvement and Development Agency and Welsh Local Government Association.
• Subordinate Legislation will consider delegated powers in the Title Conditions Bill and the Water Environment and Water Services Bill.
• Audit will consider correspondence on its report "Overview of the National Health Service in Scotland 2000/01" and in private discuss a possible Inquiry into the Review of the Management of Waiting Lists in Scotland.
• Education will take evidence on the Protection of Children Bill from a wide range of witnesses including CoSLA, the Social Services Council, the Commission for the Regulation of Care, and a range of voluntary organisations dealing with young people.
• Rural Development will take evidence on the controversial issue of the Cairngorms National Park from Deputy Rural Development Minister, Allan Wilson, and in private consider its report on Integrated Rural Development.
• Justice 1 and Justice 2 hold a joint meeting to take evidence on Stage 2 of the budget process 2003-04 from Justice Minister, Jim Wallace, and Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC.

SECTION 2 - NEWS

FUNDING BOOST FOR NEW COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
Every local authority in Scotland is to benefit from significant additional resources to roll out the new community schools approach across Scotland, it was announced today.

New community schools bring teachers, social workers, family workers and health personnel together to develop services centred on the needs of children and their families.

The Executive is committed to rolling out the new community school approach across every local authority area by 2006 and to every school by 2007. Schools will also be encouraged to become "health promoting" schools.

In Inverclyde, the allocations for 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 respectively are £305,520 and £407,360.

Local authorities were provided with details of their allocations in 2003-04 in December last year.

The development of Health Promoting Schools complements the development of New Community Schools. The Scottish Health Promoting Schools Unit was launched by Deputy Health Minister, Mary Mulligan, in May 2002

A Health Promoting School is one which enables pupils, teaching and non-teaching staff, parents and the community it serves to take action for a healthier life, school and society. More specifically it takes action to promote the adoption of lifestyles conductive to good health, provide an environment which supports and encourages healthy lifestyles and enable pupils to take action for a healthier community and healthier living conditions.

Full Story

SCOTLAND'S POPULATION AT 5.06 MILLION
The results from Scotland’s Census in 2001 were released today. The resident population on Census Day, 29^th April 2001, is estimated at 5,062,011, showing a marked decline in Scotland’s population compared with previous estimates.

Corresponding Census day figures for the rest of the UK, also published today, are:

The Census results provide the most accurate picture to date of Scotland’s population. Previous 2000 mid-year estimates are now revealed to have overstated Scotland’s population by some 50,000 or 1%. In some parts of Scotland, including Glasgow, Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire, East Dunbartonshire, and North Ayrshire, the previous overestimate is even greater. In some areas, including Dundee City, Argyll and Bute, and Moray, the previous population figures were underestimated.

Full Story

SECTION 3 - NOTES ON THIS WEEK’S CHAMBER BUSINESS

WEDNESDAY focuses on Stage 1 of the Local Government in Scotland Bill.

The overall aim of the Bill is to provide a framework to enable the delivery of better, more responsive public services. The measures in the Bill are intended to "make it easier for councils to do their jobs, while giving them more responsibility to act within an appropriate framework, to work in partnership with other bodies and the communities they serve, and to embed a culture of quality, equality and improvement".

The three main provisions of the Bill are:

• It places a duty of Best Value on local authorities and abolishes the last vestiges of Compulsory Competitive Tendering;
• It places Community Planning on a statutory footing; and
• It provides for a Power of Wellbeing enabling local authorities to do anything likely to promote or improve the well-being of their area.

These provisions are intended to be complementary and Local Councils are already implementing Best Value and Community Planning on a voluntary basis.

1. Best Value

The Bill provides for a duty to secure Best Value in local government service provision and fully replaces Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT). Unlike CCT, the emphasis of Best Value is on quality of service and continuous improvement, not the lowest price available.

The Bill:

• Places a duty on local authorities to make arrangements which secure best value;
• Amends the audit and scrutiny arrangements of the Accounts Commission for Scotland;
• Repeals CCT legislation;
• Provides a legislative basis for proper accounting practice;
• Provides a power for ministerial intervention where a local authority is not complying with best value duties;
• Changes the local authority arrangements for performance reporting; and
• Provides a power for Scottish Ministers to issue guidance on Best Value.

2. Community Planning

The Bill introduces a statutory basis for community planning, defined by the Policy Memorandum as "essentially a process to secure greater engagement from communities in the planning and local delivery of services and to secure effective joint working between agencies in promoting the wellbeing of communities". This might include, for example, joint working between Local Enterprise Companies, Health Boards, Police Boards and Fire Boards and representatives of local communities.

The Bill:

• Places a duty on local authorities to initiate, facilitate and maintain the community planning process;
• Places a duty on a number of other key bodies to participate in the community planning process;
• Places a requirement on local authorities to publish reports on the implementation of community planning in their area;
• Amends the Accounts Commission for Scotland’s powers to allow the collection of performance information relating to Community Planning; and
• Gives a power for Scottish ministers to issue guidance.

3. The power of wellbeing

This section allows local authorities to take positive measures to advance wellbeing within their communities. This provides a wide-ranging power designed to allow local authorities to work in more innovative and flexible ways in the interests of their communities. The policy memorandum states that this is: "designed to change the current approach where local authorities may only carry out those functions required or permitted by various pieces of legislation and to re-establish a strong community leadership role for Scotland’s local authorities".

The Bill:

• Provides a general power for local authorities to improve the wellbeing of their area and people within that area;
• Provides a power for ministers to issue guidance and to expand on the use of that power;
• Issues a number of limits on the use of that power; e.g. the power cannot be used in a way that duplicates the functions of another body; and
• Allows for powers of ministerial intervention where a local authority is not complying with best value duties and where intervention is justified in order to protect the public interest from substantial harm.

Click here to read the Bill as introduced
Click here to read the Explanatory Notes
Click here to read the Policy Memorandum

The day concludes with a Member’s Business debate on Development of RAF Turnhouse Site from the Conservative's Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.

THURSDAY is a Committee day and sees three debates from the Standards Committee on matters with which fans of the Committee News will be familiar: the Code of Conduct, Member's Interests and Lobbying.

To take the three in order, the very short debate on the Code of Conduct will discuss one technical change.

At the moment, an MSP who makes a complaint to the Standards Committee cannot report the fact to the media when the case is live. The amendment will clarify when a case becomes live.

The report on Member's Interests proposes a Committee Bill to replace, as anticipated in the Scotland Act, the Members’ Interests Order with an Act of the Scottish Parliament.

The Act would also revise slightly the substantive content of the rules. While most of the changes are of a dry and technical nature, one may generate some debate - the registering of possible future interests.

Click here to read the report in full

Finally, the Lobbying Report, published in February of this year, was the product of an eighteen month Inquiry and proposes that the Parliament's Code of Conduct for Members be revised to provide enhanced guidance to MSPs when dealing with lobbyists.

The report also recommends that commercial lobbying companies acting on the behalf of third parties be required to register details of their staff and clients. If implemented, this will be the first such scheme in the UK.

Click here to read the report in full

In the afternoon, after Question Time and First Minister's Question Time, there will be an Executive Debate on Action Against Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke.

Unfortunately, the motion has not yet been published and so both the focus of the debate and whether any announcement can be expected remain unclear.

The full text of the motion will be published in the Business Bulletin in due course and a transcript of the debate will be available from the Official Report from 08:00 on Friday.

The day concludes with a Member's Business debate on the Gourock to Dunoon Ferry Service from the Liberal Democrats' George Lyon.

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