Scottish Parliament e-Brief

Issue 88, 29^th October 2001

SECTION 1 - BUSINESS THIS WEEK

THE CHAMBER

IN COMMITTEE

This week's likely highlights are:

• Equal Opportunities – will discuss its approach to the report on liaison arrangements with the Chhokar family.
• Procedures – takes evidence from Minister for Parliament, Tom McCabe, Mike Watson (LAB) and Dennis Canavan (IND) for its CSG inquiry.
• Europe – takes evidence from MEPs for its Governance in the European Union and Future of Europe Inquiries. Members reconvene in the afternoon to consider a draft report on the Euro and the state-of-preparedness in Scotland.
• Audit – takes evidence from the Chairman and Acting Principle of Moray College on the recent report by the Auditor General on the financial mismanagement at the college.
• Justice 1 – will take evidence from Premier Prison Services Ltd on Kilmarnock Prison.
• Local Government – returns to its Local Government finance inquiry, taking evidence from the Local Government Association.
• Rural Development – begins consideration of Stage 2 of the Protection of Wild Mammals Bill.
• Education – meets in private to consider 4 draft reports: Scottish Ballet, Gaelic Broadcasting, Budget 2002-03 and the School Education (Amendment) Bill.

More detail will follow in tomorrow's Committee News.

SECTION 2 - NEWS

CHANGES TO CIVIL LEGAL AID SYSTEM
Two significant changes to civil legal aid have been announced by Deputy Justice Minister, Iain Gray.

The changes, proposed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, are to contributions and special urgency cases.

The changes to contributions are designed to produce three improvements:

• the Board will shortly introduce a new 20 month payment period for contributions in all civil cases;
• where solicitors can accurately estimate the costs of a case, the Board will initially restrict contributions to this estimate; and
• the Board will also provide better information to legal aid applicants about contributions.

The second change, in the special urgency category of case, is the introduction of payment by instalment to the Board, ending the current practise of the "notional" contribution being paid up-front to the solicitor.

In many civil legal aid cases urgent court work is required before the grant of legal aid is made. Many people are asked to pay a lump sum to the solicitor at this stage but are unable to do so and therefore cannot go ahead with their legal action. In future, applicants will be able to pay the contribution directly to the Board in instalments. This will be particularly significant to certain vulnerable groups such as victims of domestic violence.

Research carried out by the Scottish Legal Aid Board indicates that:

• over 2000 of the people each year who pay a contribution will be able to pay this over a longer term; and
• about 2500 people each year who are involved in urgency cases could pay their contribution in instalments to the Board, rather than 'upfront' to their solicitor.

Full Story

£1 MILLION TO PROTECT PLACES OF WORSHIP
The Scottish Executive has announced that it will make £1 million available to improve security at sites of ethnic community worship in Scotland.

The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland has been asked to identify what steps might be taken to pre-empt potential attacks on Mosques, Hindu and Sikh Temples, Synagogues and other places of worship.

Police forces are likely to carry out crime prevention surveys to determine the level of risk and to identify the measures, CCTV systems for example, required to deal with that risk.

Full Story

SECTION 3 - NOTES ON THIS WEEK’S CHAMBER BUSINESS

The main business on WEDNESDAY is an Executive debate on Asylum Seekers and Refugee Integration.

At the time of writing, the motion has not been published. However, a significant announcement on this issue will be made at Westminster today. It is likely, then, that the Scottish Parliament debate will focus on the details of the Westminster announcement as they impact on Scottish Parliament matters.

Member's Business comes from Labour's Cathie Craigie and discusses World Alzheimer's Day.

THURSDAY morning is devoted to a lengthy debate led by the Enterprise on Lifelong Learning (ELLL) Committee on its report into its Inquiry into the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council Reviews of Higher Education Teaching and Research Funding.

As fans of the Committee News will know, the ELLL Committee has been critical of the way the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) handled its review of teaching funding for Scotland's higher education institutions.

The Committee's report on the issue, published last Tuesday, argues that SHEFC "Profoundly Mishandled" the review and calls for the Executive to establish an independent review body, outwith SHEFC, to examine the cost of teaching in Scotland's universities.

The following recommendations on teaching funding are included in the Committee's report:

• The Committee believes that the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council should go back to the drawing board on the review of funding of teaching.
• The Committee recommends that the Minister establish an independent review body from outwith SHEFC with a remit to examine the costs of teaching.
• The object of the independent review should be to identify a formula for allocation with a strong evidence-base. It should be carried out over the course of the next year. This will allow implementation at the earliest reasonable point, academic year 2003-4.
• The Committee believes that a review is necessary and has no desire to turn back the clock. Where there is, however, consensus within the sector, (for instance on additional funding to support widening access, students with disabilities and part-time students), these issues should be taken forward with interim arrangements.

Click here for a more detailed four-page summary of the report's recommendations on funding teaching

The Committee's recommendations on research funding highlight:

• the Committee's concern that current research funding policy is not necessarily reinforcing the links between academia and industry;
• the fact that the Committee does not support the SHEFC proposal to exclude level three departments from the receipt of formula-based research funds, as it would exclude many new universities from support; and
• the Committee's belief that universities need to examine some of their own internal rules and structures to see whether they militate against the effective commercialisation of research.

Click here to read the full report

After Question Time and First Minister's Question Time, the final two stages of the Police and Fire Services (Finance) (Scotland) Bill will be debated.

See e-Brief 85 for a full briefing note on exactly what this straightforward Bill proposes to do.

The day concludes with a Member's Business debate on Inverness Airport and Links with Hub Airports from Margaret Ewing (SNP).

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