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This is a reserved issue and a matter for the Ministry of Defence. There are no routine arrangements in place to notify the Scottish Government of minor on-site incidents at naval sites. The Scottish Government is opposed to the use or holding of nuclear weapons on Scottish soil, and has established a Working Group tasked with reviewing the adequacy of the current licensing and regulatory framework that exists in relation to HM Naval Base Clyde and its impact on environmental, planning and transport issues.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the presence of asbestos in public or other buildings. The presence of asbestos in buildings does not of itself present a risk to health. The risk arises if fibres are released and inhaled. The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2006 place a duty on those who have the responsibility for building maintenance and repair to manage the risk from asbestos. It also includes the requirement to prepare a plan setting out in detail how the risks from these materials will be managed; take the necessary steps to put the plan into action; periodically review and monitor it and the arrangements for acting on it so that the plan remains relevant and up-to-date, and provide information on the location and condition of the materials to anyone who is liable to work on or disturb them.

We have made no representations to the UK Government on this matter. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Air Travel Organisers'' Licensing Scheme is a well established scheme for the protection of package holiday-makers if their tour operator or airline becomes insolvent. Other holiday-makers who pay through credit cards have some protection, while some travel insurance policies also provide airline insolvency protection. We acknowledge the efforts by the CAA to repatriate those XL passengers who were stranded as a result of the company''s insolvency.

The administrators of XL Leisure Group plc have a duty to consider the conduct of its directors. However, notwithstanding this, if any information were presented to us then we would pass this to the Companies Investigation Branch at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to consider.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the percentage of local authority staff comprising of black and minority ethnic employees by department or grade of post. Information from local authorities on the ethnic composition of their total staff was recently requested as part of the Joint Staffing Watch survey. Having received such information from a majority of local authorities, further quality assurance work needs to be undertaken with the statistics before any analysis can be produced. Dependent on the outcome of this work, new analysis on the ethnicity of local authority staff may be published later in the year. Prior to this, individual local authorities may be able to provide further information on the ethnicity of their staff.

Responsibility for employing staff or promoting staff in local authorities is a matter for the local authorities themselves. Local authorities are required to take such action as is necessary to meet their obligations under existing equal opportunities legislation.

The following percentages of minority ethnic staff were employed by Scottish Government directorates at 1 September 2008.

Directorates	% of Minority Ethnic Staff
Economy	0.99
Education	1.02
Environment	0.64
Finance and Corporate Services	1.35
Health	0.44
Justice	1.39
Permanent Secretary	0.00
Total	0.99

 

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-16194 on 23 September 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at .

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-16194 on 23 September 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at .

The most recent complete information is available from the last census, in 2001, when black and minority ethnic people were 2 per cent of the population of Scotland.

A breakdown by local authority area is given in table, Black and minority ethnic groups by Scottish local authority area (percentage of population), available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 46538). The percentage of black and minority ethnic people ranged from 0.4 per cent in Orkney Islands to 5.5 per cent in Glasgow City.