The Executive is fundinga pioneering new project at Aberdeen University, providing £1.39 million over 2005-10,to embed inclusive approaches to teaching for pupils with additional support needs,including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), within initial teacher education. Thefindings and best practice will be disseminated to other initial teacher educationproviders.

The Executive also provides education authorities with £7.2 million per yearspecifically for the training and development of staff working with pupils withadditional support needs. The priority is to tailor educational provision to meetthe needs of the individual pupil. A further £13.5 million is issued annually toallow local authorities to co-ordinate and provide continuing professionaldevelopment (CPD) for teachers.

Additionally, followingrecent talks with the Executive, the General Teaching Council Scotland has now addedfive new areas to their professional recognition framework, one of which is AdditionalSupport Needs - Autism.

The Education (AdditionalSupport for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 requires education authorities to takespecific action, where appropriate, to help young people with additional supportneeds, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), to make the transition from schoolto post-school life successfully.

The need for appropriateservices for young people during the transition to adulthood will be further addressedin the guidance for commissioners of services for people with ASD, which the ScottishGovernment is currently developing.

The Scottish Governmentis working with the national Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Reference Group to developguidance for commissioners of health and social care services for people with ASD.The guidance will include examples of successful service models for adults withASD to inform developments across Scotland.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-2624 on 23 August 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-2624 on 23 August 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-2624 on 23 August 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The introduction ofwater metering to non-household premises was driven by customers’ responses to theformer Executives’ Paying for Water Services consultation in 2004. It wasclear at that time that customers considered metering as the fairest and most transparentmethod of paying for water services. The analysis of the consultation can be viewedat:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/02/20671/52284.

An effect of thischange will be that customers who use less water should attract a smaller charge.Future charge levels for customers will however depend on a number of factors. Theseinclude specific consumption patterns, rateable values (used to calculate the surfacewater drainage element of the bill), the steps that customers take to manage theirdemand on the public system, the wholesale charging scheme that Scottish Water willapply to licensed retailers and how these retailers decide to charge customers withthe introduction of retail competition from 2008.

NHS Education forScotland (NES) is responsible for determining the specific allocation of specialistmedical training posts across Scotland. The Scottish Government is responsible fordetermining the overall number of training posts in Scotland informed by workforce planning at local and national level.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran have recently appointed 11 consultants as a result ofrecent local recruitment campaigns and their consultant vacancy rate is falling.The Scottish Government continues to work with all health boards to reduce consultantvacancy levels and thereby increase the number of consultants in post. There area number of initiatives currently in place to assist boards in this process, including:

matching the careeraspirations of doctors about to complete their training with current and expectedconsultant vacancies thereby improving the flow of information between doctors intraining and health boards;

providing funding,through an advance appointments scheme, to allow newly qualified consultants totake up post in tandem with the current consultant for a period of up to six monthsthereby easing the transition from doctor in training to consultant, and

improving the advertisingarrangements for consultant vacancies.

Health boards nowproduce workforce plans which include demand predictions for all staff groups. Theseplans are used to help match workforce supply and demand at both a national andlocal level.

Scottish smoke-freelegislation, already one of the most comprehensive in the world, has only been inplace for 18 months. Although the Scottish government remains committed to reducingthe impact of tobacco on Scotland’s health, there are currently no plans tointroduce further restrictions to the legislation.