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Our social justice milestone is that all young people leaving local authority care should achieve at least English and Maths standard grades.

Most offenders under 18 are not subject to criminal proceedings. There is a presumption that cases reported against offenders under the age of 16 will be dealt with by the Reporter to the Children's Panel unless there are compelling reasons in the public interest to take criminal proceedings. Further, offenders aged 16 and 17 who are subject to a supervision requirement may also be dealt with by the Reporter.In the event that court proceedings are taken against a persistent young offender, there are at present no special provisions to expedite the case. However, consideration is being given to the priority accorded to cases against child offenders (i.e. those under 16).In addition, the committee set up under Sheriff Principal John McInnes is to examine the operation of the summary justice system. It is hoped that increased efficiency of the summary courts will impact upon the speed at which all offenders, including persistent young offenders, are brought before the courts.

If we judge it appropriate to announce some decisions earlier than others then we shall do so. The majority of the recommendations dealing with widening access to council membership are for bodies other than the Executive to take forward.

Information is not available centrally on the cost to the NHS of patients failing to keep appointments. Information is available on the numbers of patients who did not attend their first out-patient appointment with a consultant, and on the average cost of a consultant out-patient attendance. This information is published on the Information and Statistics Division website at:http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/isd/Scottish_Health_Statistics/SHS2000/M5.pdfhttp://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/isd/Scottish_Health_Statistics/subject/Costs/2001/index.htmThe Executive believes that best progress in reducing the number of patients failing to attend their NHS appointments will be achieved through improved communications between the NHS and patients and by re-designing services around patients. This is now being actively taken forward by a senior NHSScotland working group.

No assessment has been made of the impact of class sizes on examination results in Scotland. As part of the agreement A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century, the Scottish Executive has agreed to commission research into the correlation between class sizes and attainment.

The trunk road maintenance contracts require the Operating Companies to carry out safety inspections of the trunk road network to ensure, as far as is reasonable, that incidents similar to those recently experienced on the M8 motorway causing severe traffic delays are kept to a minimum.

We are examining the recommendations in this report, supported by two of our Social Inclusion Partnerships, which relate to services for pregnant women and infants.

Disclosure Scotland is being established within the Scottish Criminal Record Office for purposes of issuing criminal record certificates under Part V of the Police Act 1997. It had been intended that certificates would be available from January 2002 but we have deferred the start date until April 2002 so as to align it with the start date for England and Wales.

Since the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995, there has been no centrally held register of disabled people. It is estimated that there are around 616,000 disabled people of working age in Scotland (19% of the working age population). Of these, 247,000 are in employment (7.6% of the working age population). (Source: Labour Force Survey summer 2000 estimate).The latest figure available for staff in the Scottish Executive who have a disability is 2.7% of the total staff. (Figure as at 1 October 2001). Staff are invited to self declare a disability in terms of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 but they are not required to do so.

The Scottish Executive made a bid to HM Treasury's Evidence Based Policy Fund to fund a research project to develop a database of Scottish household income and a modelling capacity to address the increased need for income and poverty related analysis.The bid was successful and following a tendering process, the research contract was awarded to Stirling University in July 2001. The contractors are currently investigating the feasibility of combining existing datasets such as the Scottish Household Survey and the Family Resources Survey to provide a comprehensive base of Scottish information. The project is due to be completed in February 2002.