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Local authorities have powers under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 to provide short-term refuges for children who appear to be at risk of harm. The role of the local authority in providing refuge is to provide the child with somewhere safe to stay and any other services consistent with safeguarding the child's welfare.The Executive has established a working group containing a range of external experts to consider the support needs of children who run away from home and children abused through prostitution. The working group has suggested that the Executive should undertake an assessment of how local authorities are meeting the needs of young people for refuge, the levels of demand and examine models of good practice before issuing additional guidance on the provision of refuge support. The Executive has identified up to £600,000 in funding to take forward work on refuge provision and £57,000 for a study led by Barnardo's to identify effective services for young people abused through prostitution, with a particular focus on ensuring that there are alternatives to secure accommodation.

The national healthy eating campaign, "healthyliving", was launched on 7 January 2003. An announcement about the standards for school meals, which are part of the report of the Expert Panel on School Meals, will be made shortly.

National and international recruitment continues to be pursued against the background of recognised shortages in the oncology specialties across the UK. In this, the Beatson Oncology Centre is supported by the HR Department within the North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust. Dr Bryson and his colleagues continue to have the full support of the Chief Executive of Greater Glasgow NHS Board, the Chief Executive of the North Glasgow Trust and the Scottish Executive.

The Executive has established a working group containing a range of external experts to consider the support needs of children who run away from home and children abused through prostitution. The working group has established that there is a lack of data on the numbers of young people sexually exploited through prostitution and has proposed that research should be commissioned by the Executive on the scope of the problem.

A senior official from the Scottish Executive Justice Department and a chief officer from a Scottish police force are the members from Scotland who attend the Firearms Consultative Committee.

The Clinical Standards Board for Scotland (CSBS) criteria for breast cancer services standards, state:Essential a minimum of 70% of patients referred to a symptomatic clinic are seen within four weeks from date of GP referral.Desirable a minimum of 80% of patients are seen within two weeks from date of GP referral. In March 2002, the CSBS published their National Overview of Breast Cancer Services alongside 17 local reports on service provision for breast cancer services in Scotland. These are available from In May 2002 Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer were distributed throughout NHSScotland. A copy is available from: and .

The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the UK Government on a wide range if issues including collection of student loan repayments.There is no income threshold for payment of the graduate endowment.

We are today publishing a report of the analysis carried out during the Review of Scotland's Cities and a policy statement Building Better Cities which describes proposals for action to deliver growth and opportunities through the future success of Scotland's cities. Copies of both documents are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. numbers 25869 and 25868 respectively).

The report is being published today and will be available on the Scottish Executive website. Copies have also been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 25644).

Deployment of police officers and local crime prevention initiatives are an operational matter for individual chief constables. We are supporting phase four of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland-led Safer Scotland campaign which focuses on high visibility policing and public reassurance and in the period to Christmas will be concentrating on youth issues, including underage and public drinking.