The administration of the sheriff courts is the responsibility of the Scottish Court Service whose accounts are published and laid before the Scottish Parliament annually. The service's Annual Report and Accounts for 2000-01 is available from the Parliament's Reference Centre. The report for 2001-02 is currently being prepared.The Scottish Court Service is an Executive Agency of the Scottish Executive Justice Department and its funding and expenditure forms part of the Justice budget.

Yes.

The Executive undertook a review of existing planning legislation and concluded that the current planning system, with its inbuilt checks and safeguards, is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) without further amendment.However, we keep under review the need to amend existing law and procedures to comply with the Convention and shall continue to do so, particularly in consequence of any relevant developments in ECHR and domestic case law.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27839.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27839.

There are no central records kept of courses attended by individual GPs. However, GPs are encouraged to look at their own personal learning needs (based on the principles of adult learning), and the needs of their patients. Each GP receives an annual Postgraduate Education Allowance to support an agreed amount of training in areas approved by the Postgraduate Deaneries. In the future, the GP appraisal process will assist GPs to identify their learning needs with the help of trained appraisers.

The Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001 offers an additional, and important, form of protection for individuals at risk of abuse. We issued press releases at the passing of the bill and the coming into force of the act, so as to give widespread publicity to the new measure. However, our main aim has been to ensure that those giving advice to the public should be aware of the Act and be able to give balanced advice on the circumstances in which it may be of help. To that end we have liaised with bodies such as Scottish Women's Aid and Citizens' Advice Scotland to ensure that they are able to give accurate advice, and have asked local multi-agency partnerships on domestic abuse to disseminate information locally. The legal professions were also alerted to the new act.We have commissioned research into the use of the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001. We do not yet have figures for court actions initiated under the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001, nor where a power of arrest has been attached. However, the research is due to report later this year and we will provide the findings to the Parliament at this time.

The information requested is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27839.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-27839.