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The Scottish Legal Aid Board, at present, does not hold information on the ethnicity of applicants. Applications for advice and assistance are monitored by gender only and this is reported in the board's annual report.As a public body, under the recently laid Race Relations Act 1976 (Statutory Duties) (Scotland) Order 2002, the board will be required to publish a race equality scheme setting out how they intend to fulfil their duties under the order. All bodies have until 30 November 2002 to comply with the order.

Since autumn 2001, both the thresholds for parent and spouse contributions and the amounts available for support for students over 18 have been the same regardless of whether the student is on a further or higher education course. We are considering whether there are additional changes which should be made to the support arrangements in order to achieve further alignment.

Institutions already have a significant degree of flexibility in the use of Hardship Funds. Institutions themselves decide how to disburse the Hardship Funds to individual students within guidelines laid down by the Scottish Executive. For example, institutions are allowed to offer short-term repayable cash advances; to use up to 10% of their total Higher Education (HE) allocation to provide scholarships or bursaries and to provide payments of up to £3,500 per year to individual students without recourse to the Executive. Each institution is also free to determine its own "means-test" and the frequency of instalments. Institutions have also now been advised that they may vire up to 20% of their Mature Students' Bursary Fund (MSBF) allocation to their HE Hardship Funds, provided that this is consistent with the objective of targeting support on assisting mature students with childcare costs. This will enable institutions to adjust the distribution of their funding allocations based on their actual student population in the current academic year, as MSBF is phased in.

Good progress has been made. Over 1,400 central heating systems have now been installed and Eaga hope to install 3,500 heating systems by March 2002.

The final response to the questionnaire was received in mid-February and the results are being analysed. I expect to report on the results in the next few weeks.

The Ministerial Working Group's report was published today, and is available on the Scottish Executive website.

The NHS in Scotland provides the conduit for the bulk of the £26 million per annum Health Improvement Fund resources, which includes priorities to improve the diet of children through supporting the provision of fruit in pre-school settings and breakfast clubs and fruit/salad bars in school settings. NHS boards have received their allocations and notification of the priority topics and it is for boards, in partnership with other local interests, to determine how best to meet local needs to improve community health in their local areas. I look forward to receiving the evaluation report from the pilot Fruit Plus initiative in Glasgow, which is partly funded through the Health Improvement Fund.

The Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) is represented on the Joint Advisory Committee which is overseeing the development of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework.

We have already said that we are aiming to make better use of technology and civilian staff as well as cutting paperwork. The drive to reduce bureaucracy is being taken forward on a range of fronts including, for example, the review of common police services; through the implementation of best value principles; through provisions in the forthcoming legislation and in other ways to release more police officers for front line work; and through investment in better information and communications technology. These measures are just part of the wide-ranging reform agenda for the police in Scotland which we are taking forward in partnership with police authorities and police associations.

Staffing information below trust level is not available centrally but will be held by local NHS management. Contact details for NHS management personnel are available on: .