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Ambulance services make a vital contribution to high quality, responsive health care in Scotland. Through the Scottish Ambulance Service, the Scottish Executive is investing in more ambulance service staff, modern vehicles, better equipment and state of the art control and dispatch systems to help further improve the effectiveness of the service.

The Scottish Executive also sets performance indicators for the Scottish Ambulance Service, including emergency response times. The Executive monitors performance against these targets, as of course does the ambulance service itself. It is the responsibility of the ambulance service to ensure that its resources are deployed to optimise its performance and to meet demand.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-11442, on 24 January 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

We are working among other things to avoid inappropriate development in areas at high risk of flooding, to support councils in putting effective flood prevention schemes in place, to improve flood warning systems, and to ensure effective co-ordination of the work of public agencies in the event of flood damage.

The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform is responsible for external relations including the co-ordination of European Union policy and relationships with the institutions, member states and regions of the European Union. In particular he will be responsible for the development of policy and the delivery of the Executive’s objectives in relation to Scotland’s International Image and the Fresh Talent initiative.

The Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport will have particular responsibility for the Executive’s policy on, and contribution to, international development.

Both the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform and the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport will support the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in representing and promoting Scotland.

The department is working to a timetable that will see draft orders for the scheme published in May. If issues are raised which cannot be resolved by negotiation it may be necessary to hold a public local inquiry, but if this is not required then I expect tenders to be sought by the end of this year with work scheduled to start in the early summer of 2006. The subsequent contract period will last two years.

The Scottish Public ServicesOmbudsman office has published guidance setting out what action a member of thepublic may take if they are dissatisfied with a decision made by the Ombudsman orwith the quality of the service provided to them by the Ombudsman office.

The guidance is available onthe Scottish Public Services Ombudsman website at:

http://www.scottishombudsman.org.uk/complaints_about_spso/.

The number of children immunised as part of the Angus community child health immunisation programme can be found in the table in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 34639).

The information requested can be found in the table in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 34913).

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman service represents the ultimate point in the public sector complaints system in Scotland. Anyone who remains dissatisfied after the Ombudsman has concluded her consideration of their complaint has the option of pursuing the matter in the courts.

The British Association for Immediate Care Scotland does not provide emergency medical care but does provide training in emergency care for health care professionals.

The Executive is looking to NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to continue to support the emergency care training programme for British Association for Immediate Care Scotland (BASICS) members when the Remote and Rural Areas Initiative (RARARI) funding comes to an end in March 2005. NHS Education for Scotland is currently considering future arrangements with the education officer of the British Association for Immediate Care Scotland.

BASICS members perform an invaluable role using their enhanced emergency skills in responding to medical emergencies especially in remote and rural areas of Scotland. Many operate as first responders making themselves availableto the Scottish Ambulance Service to be used where they may be the nearest available resource to an incident. The Scottish Ambulance Service and NHS boards are discussing the possibility of providing a tracking and communications device for members which would help with these arrangements.