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There are no annual statistics produced specifically for the natural heritage sector. However, some analysis has been undertaken in reports commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Scottish Government, although each report looks at different aspects of the natural heritage contribution. The details are as follows:

Report name	Published	Estimated Contribution	Number of Jobs
SNH Commissioned Report 72: The role of the natural heritage in generating and supporting employment opportunities in Scotland	2004	£2.2 billion	93,000
Valuing our Environment - The Economic Impact of Scotland''s Natural Environment (SNH)	2008	£17.2 billion	242,000
SNH Commissioned Report 398: Assessing the value of nature based tourism in Scotland	2010	£1.4 billion	39,000
The Economic Impact of Wildlife Tourism in Scotland (Scottish Govt)	2010	£64 million	2,760

 

Copies of the reports can be found on the following web links:

http://www.snh.org.uk/pubs/detail.asp?id=489

http://www.snh.org.uk/pubs/detail.asp?id=1035

http://www.snh.org.uk/pubs/detail.asp?id=1548

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/05/12164456/0.

The Leeds University, Wildland Research Institute report Review of the Status and Conservation of Wild Land in Europe is a useful contribution to the debate on wild land following on from the European Parliament resolution of February 2009 calling for special status and stricter protection for wilderness zones in Europe and the Natura 2000 network. The research examined approaches to the management of wild land elsewhere in Europe comparable to that found in Scotland with a view to identifying lesson from their experiences relevant to the future care of wild land in Scotland.

A key recommendation of the report is for the identification of wild land areas so that these may be safeguarded. Scottish Natural Heritage''s (SNH) wildness mapping project will give a more detailed view of the extent and location of relative wildness than the current indicative search areas of wild land. The new maps will inform revisions to SNH''s guidance and advice regarding wild land in Scotland.

I understand that Scottish Natural Heritage plans to publish an update on its Natural Heritage Indicator, Visual influence of built development and land use change by the end of January 2011. This will confirm that the area of Scotland from which no built development is visible reduced from 31% in January 2008 to 28% in December 2009. This is in the main caused by wind turbine development and its associated visual influence which is greater than development at ground level.

As we made clear in 2007, the Scottish Government is determined to simplify and streamline the public bodies'' landscape in Scotland, reducing costs and bureaucracy, while improving service delivery. We continue to consider all of our public bodies in this context.

The Scottish Government rejects that conclusion. Curriculum for Excellence aims to raise standards for all young people through a more flexible, coherent and enriched curriculum. It is for schools and local authorities to ensure they get the right balance of subject knowledge within broad curricular guidance and drawing on available resources.

Practitioners are empowered to make teaching of history relevant and engaging drawing on local, national and international contexts while maintaining a focus on changes that have shaped Scotland. The curriculum encourages deeper learning which may involve a smaller number of topics and the History Excellence Group is working to produce further guidance for teachers and schools to provide learners with a coherent experience of history from early years to senior phase.

The Scottish Government rejects that view. Learners in Scotland have benefitted from a wide range of high-quality resources to support the learning and teaching of history which have been developed and approved in consultation with the history profession. The History in Curriculum for Excellence Group, established in 2008, informed the development of the excellent Scotland''s History online resource launched in October 2009 and resources on the new Higher History have been welcomed. Support from the Heritage Education Forum, Scran, Glow and other developments in recent years have made available resources and exciting learning experiences in and out of school across Scotland.

Resources are kept under constant review and the History Excellence Group is developing further guidance for teachers and schools to provide learners with a more coherent experience of history from early years to senior phase as part of Curriculum for Excellence.

The organisation of schools is a matter for local authorities and head teachers. As more schools organise on a faculty basis, there has been a decrease in the number of principal teachers of history. This is not unique to history and advice from HM Inspectorate of Education suggests that principal teachers are seeking appropriate advice and collaborating with colleagues to plan courses that are coherent, relevant and engaging, with an appropriate place for history in the curriculum.

In Scottish education we encourage leadership at all levels. There may not be a principal teacher in history but that does not mean that there is nobody leading the subject.

Scottish Government officials have been in daily contact with farmers and key stakeholders to understand industry priorities during the severe winter weather.

The Scottish Government secured the case for an emergency relaxation of the EU drivers'' hours enforcement, to help inward and outward distribution of urgent feed and fuel supplies.

Over 18,000 farmers and crofters have already been paid their single farm payment (SFP) this year, over £463 million which represents 98% of the total SFP net budget. The payments made on the earliest possible date, 1 December 2010, were a record since the scheme began.

£116,340.46 has been paid out from the Post Office Diversification Fund for Scotland so far.

The following table shows the number of charges under the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, Section 52(1) which were reported to Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in the last three financial years, and which were dealt with by direct measures.

Direct measures includes all decisions other than instructions for court proceedings or no action, i.e. fiscal fines, compensation offers, combined fiscal fine and compensation offers, diversions, work orders, warnings and referrals to the Scottish Children''s Reporter Administration. It is notable that a significant proportion of the charges of this type received by COPFS and dealt with by direct measures were referred to the Scottish Children''s Reporter Administration (1,848 in 2007-08, 1,284 in 2008-09, and 861 in 2009-10).

The information is presented below using court jurisdictions as the COPFS database does not contain information to identify parliamentary constituency boundaries and court jurisdictions do not match parliamentary boundaries.

Charges: Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, Section 52(1)

Court Jurisdiction	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Aberdeen	236	427	282
Airdrie	93	137	86
Alloa	81	49	46
Arbroath	32	89	50
Ayr	133	245	106
Banff	4	14	23
Campbeltown	18	23	12
Cupar	120	107	36
Dingwall	41	54	35
Dornoch	9	2	8
Dumbarton	223	86	98
Dumfries	59	72	133
Dundee	82	137	107
Dunfermline	169	199	120
Dunoon	3	4	42
Duns	10	31	24
Edinburgh	255	318	165
Elgin	47	98	48
Falkirk	111	141	183
Forfar	36	54	56
Fort William	17	35	20
Glasgow	553	511	596
Greenock	119	50	94
Haddington	95	8	19
Hamilton	195	178	154
Inverness	82	122	91
Jedburgh	22	81	20
Kilmarnock	359	313	162
Kirkcaldy	262	316	193
Kirkcudbright	7	18	25
Kirkwall	18	36	9
Lanark	17	44	18
Lerwick	55	25	18
Livingston	28	136	158
Lochmaddy	3	5	4
Oban	11	15	13
Paisley	84	200	117
Peebles	16	7	10
Perth	78	105	100
Peterhead	56	62	60
Rothesay	20	1	10
Selkirk	19	21	52
Stirling	118	102	103
Stonehaven	56	34	18
Stornoway	17	46	27
Stranraer	12	23	20
Tain	35	27	22
Wick	52	29	124
COPFS Total as Direct Measures	4,002	4,749	3,873
Charges reported under the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, Section 52(1)	17,740	15,679	14,536

Notes:

The information in this table has been extracted from COPF''s case management database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency the database will record details only of the amended charge.

The database is charge-based. The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.