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This information is not available centrally.

The Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health (SCIEH) has been commissioned to carry out work to provide robust estimates of the total number of persons living with Hepatitis C – both diagnosed and undiagnosed – in Scotland. This includes estimates of the distribution of cases by region and disease stage. The SCIEH is also undertaking work to estimate the future burden, including cost, of HCV disease over the next two decades. Preliminary output from this work should be available shortly and will inform the development of prevention initiatives, and the assessment of care and treatment needs.

The regulation and safety of medicines is reserved and is the responsibility of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MRHA), or, for certain types of drugs, the European Medicines Agency (EMEA).

The MRHA has advised that any new drug applications, including those for Hepatitis C must achieve the required standards of safety, quality and efficacy before being granted a licence. The Scottish Executive would welcome any new drug therapies, which satisfied these criteria.

The guidance available to NHSScotland on which patient groups have access to treatment for Hepatitis C can be found at: http://www.nhshealthquality.org/nhsqis/qis_Publications3.jsp?pContentID=1187&p_applic=CCC&p_service=Content.show&.

The Scottish Executive housing statistics branch gathers information from councils on numbers of vacant council houses and lettings; and on numbers on and changes in local authority housing lists. Communities Scotland gathers information from housing associations on vacancies and lettings. Sources of the latest available published information are:

Vacant council houses and lettings: Quarterly Statistical Bulletin HSG/2004/2, available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00320-00.asp.

Numbers on and changes in local authority housing lists: Quarterly Statistics Bulletin HSG/2003/4, available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00266-00.asp.

The latest volume of Scottish Registered Social Landlord Statistics 2002-2003, published in April 2004 is available on the CS Website at:

http://www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk/web/FILES/R&IStats200203.pdf.

These sources do not distinguish people seeking to rent council or housing association property in their area for the first time. Information from local authorities relates to the council as a whole and does not provide separate information for rural areas within the council area. Similarly, Information gathered from each housing association does not separately identify rural from other areas served by the association.

The Executive does not have statistical information on numbers wishing to purchase or to rent privately.

In preparing local housing strategies councils assess local housing markets to, among other things, identify actual or potential shortages with the aim of developing strategies to address these. The review of affordable housing currently being undertaken by the Executive includes an assessment of shortages based on the available information, which will inform policy proposals.

In February we published Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) 7: Planning and Flooding. SPP 7 states that new development should not take place if it would be at significant risk of flooding, or if it would increase the probability of flooding elsewhere. This new policy should be implemented by local authorities in the first instance, as the planning authorities for their areas.

We will publish a Planning Advice Note to supplement SPP 7 later this year.

Throughout Scotland, local authorities and the emergency services take the issue of flood prevention and flood warning very seriously. In all areas likely to be affected by flooding, generic multi-agency response plans exist to deal with this risk. Furthermore, each area is represented by multi-agency flood liaison/response groups, which can be brought together at the earliest sign of potential risk of flooding. Further details of the multi agency response can be found on the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s website (www.sepa.org.uk).

It is for local authorities to identify cost effective measures to protect properties in their areas from flooding. However, the National Technical Advisory Group on Flooding Issues, established by the Executive last autumn, is developing improved national guidance on flood-risk management for publication later this year. This guidance will help local authorities in meeting the Executive’s long standing requirement for grant aid, that flood prevention schemes demonstrate value for money.

The Executive has recently commissioned consultants to develop a data-base of all flood defences constructed by local authorities under the provisions of the Flood Prevention (Scotland) Act 1961. This data-base will provide information and condition assessments of these flood defences.

However, management of flood defences is not a matter for the Executive: instead, this is for local authorities or landowners. While the availability of the proposed data-base will help in the management of assets it is not the Executive’s responsibility to draw up asset management plans.

The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) already holds indicative flood-risk maps for the Scottish mainland; copies of these are available for inspection at SEPA’s offices. SEPA also supplied copies of the maps to planning authorities in 1997.

Last October I announced additional funding to enable SEPA to commission second generation flood-risk maps for the whole of Scotland. These updated maps will benefit from the latest available techniques, thereby allowing further refinement of indicative flood-risk areas.