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The award of contract was conducted in accordance with EC procurement guidelines. The team who undertook the work demonstrated within the Scottish Prison Service that the Medacs proposal was the most economically advantageous proposal in terms of quality and costs.

No.

There is no set frequency. The current contract exists for five years.

Policies across the whole range of Scottish Executive responsibilities aim to provide better services for disabled people. Through consultation with service users and disability groups the Executive aims to ensure that the needs and requirements of disabled people are identified and enhanced.In addition, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, such as providing extra help or making changes to the way they provide their services. From October 2004 they may also have to make reasonable adjustments to the physical features of their premises to overcome physical barriers to access.

There was no representative from the Scottish Executive at the informal meeting of the Council of the European Union on Justice and Home Affairs on 13 and 14 September. Negotiations within the European Union are conducted by the UK Government, taking due account of the views of the devolved administrations. The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the UK Government on a wide variety of EU-related issues, including those that were discussed on 13 to 14 September.

As a reserved policy area, links with the EU institutions are co-ordinated by the Home Office, on behalf of all UK administrations. We place high priority on working with our European partners to tackle the drug problems we share by, for example, exchanging information on best practice.In 2000, the EU Council of Ministers agreed to the adoption of the EU Action Plan on Drugs as a mechanism to implement the EU Drug Strategy (2000-04). The plan sets out a range of actions to be taken by the EU to reduce the damage caused to health and to society by drug misuse and associated crime. Objectives fall within four main areas: prevention of drug misuse, particularly among young people; improved treatment of drug misusers; reducing drug trafficking and the availability of drugs, and international co-operation, with particular focus on countries applying to join the EU, and those areas which either produce illegal drugs, or which are on transit routes for drugs bound for Europe.Our Drugs Strategy and Action Plan for Scotland are consistent with these objectives.

Eaga do not collect information by local authority area. However, in the FK postcode area there have been 392 applications since the central heating programme began. Two hundred and seventy-six applications have been approved for the initial survey and 87 installations have been completed to date.

Resources for drug treatment are allocated to NHS boards. I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-25154 on 1 May 2002, which details total and per capita allocations to NHS boards from 1998-99 to 2002-03. Funding for 2003-04 will remain the same as 2002-03.I also refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-28682 today, which details allocations to local authorities from the Changing Children's Services Fund for the period 2001-02 to 2003-04. 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/search_wa.

Decisions on police officer ill-health retirements are the responsibility of the employing authorities and information on the reason for police officer ill-health retirements is not routinely collected or held by the Scottish Executive. In response to question S1W-913, the information was sought specially from individual police forces. However, the Executive does not normally seek information specifically from third parties for the purpose of answering parliamentary questions. This is in keeping with the Executive's current Guidance on Scottish Parliamentary Questions, a copy of which has been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre, and was the approach taken in replying to question S1W-27621.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to respond. His response is as follows:To enable SPS to maximise best value for money for the taxpayer both in relation to the negotiations for the present contract and so as not to prejudice commercial competitiveness during future contract negotiations.