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The information requested is not held centrally.Waiting time information for drug misuse treatment is not held consistently by drug services across Scotland. We are, however, currently seeking from Drug Action Teams some local information on waiting times for some drug services as part of the annual corporate planning arrangements.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) collated nitrate data from 809 sources in the proposed Aberdeenshire, Banff and Buchan NVZ, including private water supplies, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) groundwater monitoring network, public water supply sources and its own boreholes. Information about these sources can be found in table 5.5 of the report Groundwater nitrate vulnerable zones for Scotland (Parliament's Reference Centre Bib. number 18567), prepared by BGS for the Department. The distribution of the sample sources can be found in Fig. 5.16 of the report.Private water supplies are monitored in accordance with the Private Water Supplies (Scotland) Regulations 1992, which lay down the standards for these supplies and specify the duties of local authorities, in respect of sampling and analysis. Sampling frequency depends on what the supply is used for, how much is used and how many people use it, and can vary between once every five years to four times per year. The SEPA policy is to monitor groundwater sources in its network four times per year. Detailed information about individual sources and sample numbers, can be found on the GIS CD-ROM, which accompanies the BGS report.

The network of 48 Social Inclusion Partnership's which has been established across Scotland includes both urban and rural areas. Rural areas such as Moray are being supported as well as traditional urban areas, such as Glasgow.

Thirteen meetings of the Ministerial Committee on Rural Development were held during the period from 1 September 1999 to November 2001: on 1 September, 5 October, and 25 November 1999; 31 January, 13 March, 5 April, 6 September and 8 November 2000; 30 January, 26 March, 14 June, 11 September and 14 November 2001. In January 2002, the name of the committee was changed to the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Rural Development, with the following membership: the Minister for Environment and Rural Development, the Minister for Social Justice, the Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning, the Minister for Finance and Public Services, Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development and the Deputy Minister for Tourism Culture and Sport. Details of the membership of Cabinet Sub-Committees are available on the Scottish Executive website. So far this year the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Rural Development has met once, on 5 February 2002. All meetings discussed a variety of issues that impact on Rural Development in Scotland.As indicated in the Guide to Collective Decision Making, a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 5884) and on the Scottish Executive website, the Executive operates on the basis of collective responsibility and does not disclose details of the internal processes through which decisions have been made. For that reason, the Executive does not normally comment on which ministers attended specific meetings.

Twelve local authorities are considered as delivering pre-school education in "very rural" areas, i.e. areas where more than 15% of the population live in communities of less than 1,000. The "rural" allocations which form part of the 2002-03 local government settlement are shown in the following table. The distribution methodology used took account of the population share of three- and four-year-olds in the 12 authorities concerned.

Local Authority	Rural Grant
Aberdeenshire	£1,348,000
Angus	£370,000
Argyll and Bute	£431,000
Dumfries and Galloway	£827,000
Eilean Siar	£255,000
Highland	£1,207,000
Moray	£310,000
Orkney	£184,000
Perth and Kinross	£489,000
Scottish Borders	£506,000
Shetland	£258,000
Stirling	£242,000
Scotland	£6,427,000

As of 4 March, the owners of 80 fishing vessels have accepted decommissioning grant offers under the Fishing Vessels (Decommissioning) (Scotland) Scheme 2001, out of 102 vessels currently subject to grant offers. Of these vessels, 70 have submitted, and had approved, plans to begin the decommissioning process. Nine vessels have been scrapped so far: four in Scotland, two in England, two in Northern Ireland and one in Denmark.

The Scottish Further Education Funding Council, which is responsible for these matters, developed the new approach to measuring student activity.

The estimated impact on each college will not be known until the council has developed a detailed implementation plan. The council has indicated that there will be no consequential changes to funding until academic year 2003-04 at the earliest.

Given the large number of matters under consideration and potential outcome permutations, it was not practical for SFEFC to estimate the impact of everything being consulted on.The council has indicated that it now proposes to work closely with colleges in preparing an implementation plan, if necessary making adjustments to aspects of these proposals; and that it will not expect any college to have to manage a significant funding change in just one year.

This information is not held centrally. Allocation of funding to individual projects is an operational matter and as such is the responsibility of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.