None of Scottish Homes houses at any time transferred to Communities Scotland. All Scottish Homes tenants were supplied with a newsletter in September 2001, which explained the future for Scottish Homes and its remaining tenants. A copy of the newsletter has been put in the Parliament's Reference Centre.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The number of patients admitted to hospital in each of the last three years with a diagnosis related to a firearms¹ incident are shown in the table

	Year ending 31 Dec:
Treated in:	1999	2000	2001P
NHS Glasgow	30	36	42
NHS Scotland	140	138	136

^P Provisional.Notes:1. includes incidents involving handguns, rifles, air guns and unspecified.

It is for chief constables to determine how best to adhere to the Lord Advocate's guidance. Whilst the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland continues to provide forces with comprehensive guidance on all national policing issues concerning racial diversity. The Commission for Racial Equality in Scotland are also aiming to publish, for consultation, their draft Statutory Code of Practice and associated guidance for devolved public bodies in Scotland, including police forces, in early May. The code will provide practical guidance to bodies on how to fulfil both their general and specific duties and will be supported by examples of best practice.

The following table gives the number of firearms covered by certificates in Scotland and in Strathclyde on issue at 31 December 1999 and 31 December 2000. Figures for 2001 will not be published until autumn 2002. The information held is not broken down below force level.

Firearms on certificate		1999	2000
Scotland	Possessed	62,421	58,862
	Authorised to be purchased/acquired	11,272	9,934
	Total	73,693	68,796
Strathclyde	Possessed	11,314	10,857
	Authorised to be purchased/acquired	1,937	1,513
	Total	13,251	12,370

Note: The recorded totals in the table, may include an element of double counting in that two or more individuals may each hold a certificate that allows them to possess the same firearm.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.