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The Scottish Government will continue to pursue the best interests of Scotland in its relationship with the UK Government. As the First Minister set out in his letter to the new Prime Minister yesterday, we would expect our working relationship to be based on widely accepted principles of mutual respect and parity of esteem.

Our key focus is on protecting the recovery and we will therefore press the UK Government to honour the plans in place for Scotland''s budget, in particular for 2010-11, and Scotland''s public services. We will look for progress on releasing the Fossil Fuel Levy Fund and on releasing Barnett consequentials to Scotland arising from regeneration-related spending on the Olympics. We will also seek agreement that no change would be made to the current system of financing devolved government without consultation and agreement with the devolved administrations.

On 21 January the First Minister was questioned in the Scottish Parliament about an exchange of letters between the Minister for Environment and the Home Office concerning the placing of paths across the Balmoral estate. The First Minister explained that the Scottish Government had asked the Home Office to institute a leak inquiry to establish how this breach in the principle of confidentiality of communications, particularly on sensitive matters such as Royal security, had come about.

I can now report the following:

i. an investigation was conducted by the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Justice, with the full co-operation and assistance of Scottish Government staff, in parallel with the investigation by the Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government;

ii. the Scottish Government contribution to these investigations established conclusively that the source was not a Scottish Government civil servant, despite the allegations to this effect which were given prominence in the press at the time;

iii. the First Minister has had constructive discussions with Sir Gus O''Donnell, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service, about how to deliver their shared objective of preventing unauthorised disclosure of  inter-Governmental correspondence.

iv. Sir Gus O''Donnell has assured the First Minister that he views such breaches of confidentiality as unacceptable and that he has ensured that appropriate lessons have been learned.

The public consultation on the Local Authority Public Information Notices (Electronic Publication) (Scotland) Order 2010 received 141 responses of which 24 were in support and 117 against. We have decided not to proceed with the legislative changes at this time. We will however continue working with COSLA, local government and the wider public sector to support the use of the online portal to supplement the press adverts and to bring the additional benefits the portal offers to the users.

The government has made clear its intention to impose a pay freeze from 2010-11 for higher paid staff in the public sector and this will apply to the most senior managers in NHSScotland. The details of how this will be implemented will be announced in the new financial year.

In anticipation of this, and taking into account the current economic climate, the government has agreed a very stringent pay settlement for 2009-10 for NHS executive and senior managers.

It must be remembered that this pay award relates to work done in 2008-09 and that the pay of executives and senior managers in NHSScotland is performance related. Nevertheless, our firm commitment to pay restraint is evident in the 2009-10 settlement for this group. We have removed all non-consolidated payments. We have frozen the pay ranges of the most senior managers (those on grades D to I) and have limited the pay progression for high performers within these frozen ranges. The cost of this will be contained within the existing paybill.

For senior managers (those on grades A to C, with salaries between £42,425 and £76,134) we have approved an increase of 1.5% to the pay ranges and modest performance based progression with effect from October 2009. The overall increase to the paybill for this group will be 1.76% of the 2008-09 total.

The pay award for 2009-10 will be promulgated by a circular to the NHS and copies are available at http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/publications/publication.asp.

The Scottish Government is increasing accessibility to towns, cities and villages through both the planning system and the provision of accessible transport. Increased accessibility is promoted using the Shared Space approach to road design, and in particular, Home Zones featuring street surfaces which are not physically divided by kerbs.

While the Scottish Government does not have any immediate plans to create exemplar journeys in towns, cities and villages across Scotland, Traveline Scotland provides up to date details on any public transport journey within Scotland, including comprehensive information on the mobility and access aspects of the journey.

I am today able to confirm that ScotRail performance during the trial period has met the criteria for continuation of the Franchise Agreement through to 2014 as contracted.

I am pleased to report that smoking prevalence continues to fall in Tayside - from a level of 31.2% in 1999 to 21.0% in 2008. (Source: Scottish Household Survey). This sits favourably with the national average of 25.2%.

This information is not collected routinely from police forces.

However as part of the Violence Reduction Unit''s on-going anti-violence campaign, police in Scotland have, over the past year (April 2008 to March 2009), seized over 2,000 litres of alcohol from underage and illegal street drinkers.

Table 1. Chronic liver disease mortality rates per 100,000 population, by sex and by deprivation category (SIMD06), 1978-2008.

Year			Deprivation quintile (SIMD2006)
	Males	Females	1 - most deprived 20%	2	3	4	5 - least deprived 20%
1979	10.2	6.5	..	..	..	..	..
1980	9.6	6.1	..	..	..	..	..
1981	10.4	7.1	..	..	..	..	..
1982	9.2	7.2	..	..	..	..	..
1983	9.8	7	..	..	..	..	..
1984	9.2	7.3	..	..	..	..	..
1985	9.8	6.8	..	..	..	..	..
1986	8.8	6.2	..	..	..	..	..
1987	9.4	6.5	..	..	..	..	..
1988	9.9	7.1	..	..	..	..	..
1989	10.3	6.7	..	..	..	..	..
1990	11.6	7.8	..	..	..	..	..
1991	10.9	7.9	..	..	..	..	..
1992	10.3	7.3	..	..	..	..	..
1993	12	7.6	..	..	..	..	..
1994	13.7	8.3	..	..	..	..	..
1995	14.6	9.4	..	..	..	..	..
1996	18.3	10.4	29.4	15	11.2	7.7	5.2
1997	19.9	10.7	28.5	17.7	11.9	9	6.9
1998	21	11.1	30.1	18	13.7	9.8	6.4
1999	23.1	12.6	36.2	18.2	15.4	9.3	8.3
2000	26.2	12.1	39.9	21.7	13.6	9.6	8.8
2001	28.6	13.8	44.8	22.8	15.8	12.4	8.6
2002	31	14.3	51.3	25	15.9	11.2	8.2
2003	31.8	15.1	50.8	27.6	17.9	11.1	8.9
2004	28.5	13.1	44.5	26.3	15.7	9.5	7.5
2005	30	15.8	46.9	28.1	18.9	11.2	9
2006	30.2	15.8	48.7	25.7	19.4	12.5	8.3
2007	28.3	14.2	44.6	24.1	16	12.2	9.2
2008	27.7	13.8	41.5	25.8	19.5	9.3	7.7

Source: General Registry Office Scotland. SIMD06: Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2006 (quintiles). (..) Data not available by SIMD06 from 1979 to 1995.

Table 1. Alcohol-related death rates by Scottish parliamentary constituency, as a percentage of the overall UK average rate 2008:

Scottish Parliament Constituency	% of UK Average
Aberdeen Central	161
Aberdeen North	71
Aberdeen South	126
Airdrie and Shotts	213
Angus	119
Argyll and Bute	180
Ayr	175
Banff and Buchan	163
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross	223
Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley	190
Central Fife	145
Clydebank and Milngavie	206
Clydesdale	144
Coatbridge and Chryston	218
Cumbernauld and Kilsyth	204
Cunninghame North	191
Cunninghame South	231
Dumbarton	307
Dumfries	115
Dundee East	347
Dundee West	285
Dunfermline East	164
Dunfermline West	118
East Kilbride	160
East Lothian	125
Eastwood	99
Edinburgh Central	226
Edinburgh East and Musselburgh	198
Edinburgh North and Leith	216
Edinburgh Pentlands	85
Edinburgh South	75
Edinburgh West	77
Falkirk East	132
Falkirk West	119
Galloway and Upper Nithsdale	124
Glasgow Anniesland	105
Glasgow Baillieston	331
Glasgow Cathcart	292
Glasgow Govan	289
Glasgow Kelvin	221
Glasgow Maryhill	420
Glasgow Pollock	249
Glasgow Rutherglen	238
Glasgow Shettleston	574
Glasgow Springburn	333
Gordon	103
Greenock and Inverclyde	371
Hamilton North and Bellshill	285
Hamilton South	248
Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber	198
Kilmarnock and Loudoun	187
Kirkcaldy	205
Linlithgow	140
Livingston	156
Midlothian	148
Moray	195
Motherwell and Wishaw	216
North East Fife	77
North Tayside	144
Ochil	154
Orkney Islands	171
Paisley North	233
Paisley South	288
Perth	152
Ross, Skye and Inverness West	199
Roxburgh and Berwickshire	77
Shetland Islands	124
Stirling	200
Strathkelvin and Bearsden	165
Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale	30
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine	39
West Renfrewshire	197
Western Isles	208

 

Table 2. Alcohol-related death rates by NHS board, as percentage of the overall UK average rate 2008:

NHS Board Area	% of UK Average
Ayrshire and Arran	194
Borders	60
Dumfries and Galloway	119
Fife	139
Forth Valley	157
Grampian	121
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	267
Highland	195
Lanarkshire	207
Lothian	142
Orkney	171
Shetland	124
Tayside	197
Western Isles	208

Source: General Registry Office Scotland. Alcohol death rates in tables 1 and 2 are expressed as a percentage of UK average rates. Less than 100 = under UK average, Greater that 100 = over UK average.

These figures are provisional.