Under the provisions contained in Part IV of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, employers must notify the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, in writing, if they propose to make 20 or more redundancies within a month. The Department of Trade and Industry therefore hold information on those proposed redundancies that fall within the scope of the Act. Data on individual companies is not made public as this information is potentially commercially sensitive. Companies are not required by the Act to confirm how many of the notified redundancies actually took place. Nor is the data collated in the disaggregated form requested.

The Scottish labour market is dynamic. The monthly labour market statistics from the Office of National Statistics give net employment changes from quarter to quarter. There are large shifts between employment, unemployment and inactivity each month/quarter. Any attempt to measure job loss figures is likely to be swamped by these large flows.The Labour Force Survey (run by the Office of National Statistics) provides data on a quarterly basis for redundancies, although it is a survey of households and individuals, not businesses. The information collected on redundancies relates to whether an individual was made redundant in the three months prior to the survey interview. The data, however, is not sufficiently large to disaggregate reliably below an all-Scotland level.Jobs are constantly being created and lost across the country as firms start-up, expand, contract, close or merge. It would be a substantial burden on business - and indeed - all employers to require notifications of all job changes.

The Scottish Executive supports public transport improvements through the Public Transport Fund. To access the fund, local authorities present projects to the Scottish Executive, individually or in partnership with other local authorities, for consideration.The provision of local bus services is a matter for individual bus operators and the relevant local authorities.

I refer the member to answer given to question S1W-20928 on 7 January 2002.

It is unacceptable for patients who need treatment from an NHS consultant to be refused admission to the waiting list for consultation. I am assured by NHS Lothian that, other than the case in Lothian Primary Care Trust which was highlighted in early December, and which has now been addressed, there have been no instances of closed waiting lists in Lothian in 2001.

On 28 November the General Secretary of ADES issued guidance to all Directors of Education on local authorities' use of discretion over the provision of additional pre-school education for children born between September and December whose parents are considering deferral. This is in line with the recommendations of the Working Group on deferrals set up by ministers in July 2000.

Fieldwork for Scottish Executive commissioned research on the impact of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 will get under way early in 2002.Scottish Executive action in a number of areas includes improving access to specialist legal advice and assistance, provision of additional funding for English language support, community development and integration in Glasgow. We are also establishing the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum to take forward the devolved interests in refugee integration in partnership with the public, private and voluntary sectors.

The Scottish Executive intends to collect information relating to deferral requests from local authorities as part of its annual survey of placing requests starting with school year 2001-02. The information will include the number of requests made to defer entry to primary P1, the numbers granted, refused, under consideration and withdrawn, and the reasons given for refusal. The results will be published in a statistical news release.Separate arrangements are being made to collect and publish information relating to school year 2000-01.

The working group on the re-integration of pre-school education grant considered the recommendations of the Deferrals Working Group as part of their examination of the costs of re-integration. They agreed that the additional costs associated with children who become four in January or February and defer their entry into primary school would be affordable within the £137 million pre-school education grant to be reintegrated from April 2002.The reintegrated pre-school education grant forms part of the recently announced Local Government Settlement for 2002-03. Separate spending assessments for individual services are not identified nor subject to "ring fenced" conditions of grant.

A small number of speculative enquiries have been received to date but there have been no firm offers acceptable to Motorola. Scottish Development International, in conjunction with Chesterton Blumenauer Binswanger, the property agents appointed by Motorola, continues to market the facility on a worldwide basis. It is for the company, not the Scottish Executive, to pursue expressions of interest in the first instance.