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Births, Deaths and Marriages in 2005
The number of births in Scotland has reached the highest level since 1999, the Registrar General has announced.

As he published his second Vital Events Quarterly Return for 2005, Registrar General for Scotland , Duncan Macniven, said:

“We should not make too much of quarterly figures like these. However, it is encouraging to note that in the second quarter of this year the number of births (13,544) was 1.5% higher than in the second quarter of 2004 and that taking the past six months as a whole, births have been at a higher level than we have seen for six years.

"For Scotland as a whole deaths slightly exceeded births, by 0.1%, but births outnumbered deaths in seven out of the 15 Health board areas.”

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SECTION 3 - NOTES ON THIS WEEK’S CHAMBER BUSINESS

WEDNESDAY begins with the Preliminary Stage debate of the Waverley Railway (Scotland) Bill.

This is a Private Bill which, very simply, paves the way for a railway line to be built between Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders.

The Private Bill Committee charged with examining the Bill has recommended it proceed.

This is followed by an Executive debate on Membership of the Committee of the Regions.

The Committee of the Regions was established by the Maastricht Treaty in 1994 as an advisory body of the European Union, to include local and regional authorities in European-level decision making.  The chief function of the CoR is to comment on EU policy and legislation which may impact on the work of local and regional government.

During this period, the principle of subsidiarity was established to ensure that, where possible, decisions are made at the democratic level "closest to the people". The promotion of this principle has been one of the prime ambitions of the CoR, which acts by producing Opinions on European Commission and Council proposals, communications and reports.

The Treaty specified that the CoR should comprise "representatives of local and regional bodies", but did not specify the precise form of sub-member government which should be represented. Consequently, members represent the whole sphere of sub-member state government throughout Europe , including regions, provinces, counties, municipalities and districts.

The day concludes with a Member's Business debate on Affordable Rented Housing from John Home Robertson (LAB).

As THURSDAY sees 2 by-elections taking place, Chamber business will be slightly curtailed.

The day begins with a Justice 2 Committee debate on the report of its Inquiry into Youth Justice.

Published in June, the report expressed “profound concerns” over a lack of stability in funding for support services to young offenders.  The report also highlighted gaps apparent in some crucial services – notably diversionary services, mental health services and addiction services.

While stressing that the Committee welcomes the Executive’s national strategy for youth justice, the report made the following recommendations:

On multi-agency working:

• To sustain effective services, agencies need more clarity about the sources of funding and more stability about continuity of funding. There is too much short term initiative-based funding, and single projects are funded from a confusing variety of sources;
• The Executive should consider putting a stronger legal duty on local authorities to take corporate responsibility for young offenders;
• Local authority youth justice strategy groups need clearer direction about their membership, role and remit;
• Education services are not sufficiently aware of the importance of their contribution, nor effective in delivering it and clearer guidance from the Executive is needed; and
• Agencies are struggling to achieve effective data sharing and a new statutory duty to share information between agencies should be considered.

On gaps in services:

• Diversionary services which can prevent youth crime at an early stage appear patchy and under-developed. The Executive should audit and evaluate current services and provide guidance on the minimum acceptable provision;
• The availability of substance misuse services for young offenders appears very variable and needs to be addressed;
• The Committee has serious doubts about the adequacy of mental health services for children and adolescents and urges the Executive to continue to pursue this as a matter of urgency;
• The Committee calls for a national strategy covering residential/secure placements to ensure that secure places are not used when they are not appropriate; and
• The increased attention for throughcare during and after residential/secure placements is welcomed, but the Committee calls for the national standards on throughcare to be audited and enforced to the same extent as other standards for youth justice.

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This is followed by General Question Time and First Minister’s Question Time.  Unusually, this is directly followed by Themed Question Time (for the featured departments, see Section 1 above).

The day then concludes with a Member's Business debate on the Role of Firefighters in Remote and Rural Areas from David Davidson (CON).