Scottish Parliament to debate on Paisley as Scotland’s Choir Town

I greatly enjoyed attending the Swingle Singers concert, part of the Voices in Paisley Choral Festival 2008 which drew to an end at the weekend and I have been delighted to give my full support to Paisley’s aspirations to be recognised as Scotland’s Choir Town.

Organisers of the Voices festival, The Paisley Festival Company work hard to promote concerts locally and to pushing Paisley to the forefront, gathering national recognition as a centre for all types of choral activity and staking the claim for Paisley to be known as Scotland’s Choir Town.

I lodged a motion in the Parliament at the beginning of October to congratulate the continued success of the Paisley Choral Festival and to draw support amongst MSPs for Paisley to become known as Scotland’s Choir Town.

I am delighted to announce the motion has gathered enough support from my fellow MSPs to take the matter further to a Members Debate in the Scottish Parliament on November 13th.

Congratulations to Renfrewshire’s Services to Protect Children and Young People

I was pleased to support the motion in the Scottish Parliament which congratulated these vital services for their excellent HM Inspectorate report recently published after an inspection in April and May 2008. A wide range of services all involving the protection of children, including health, police, the local authority and the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration as well as services provided by voluntary and independent organisations were covered by the inspection.  Renfrewshire’s services received three excellent ratings, 12 very good ratings and three good ratings. Congratulations and well done to all involved.

Scottish Safety Anomaly

Health and Safety Executive statistics published on 29 October 2008 showed that in 2007-08 there were 32 fatal injuries and 2,721 major injuries to workers in Scotland, compared to 229 and 27,976 in the United Kingdom as a whole, and that the rate of fatal and major injuries in Scottish was 115.1 per hundred thousand, compared to 105.8 for the UK as a whole

Additionally, only 52% of related prosecutions were successful in Scotland, compared to 89% in the rest of the UK so despite improvements across the UK, there is a persistent anomaly in the figures for Scotland that needs to be addressed.

Serious consideration should be given to steps that can be taken within Scotland to address this anomaly. A motion has been lodged in the Scottish Parliament to bring this matter to greater attention – I keenly supported this.

Free Tours Announced At Holyrood

The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) has announced Guided tours to visitors are to be provided free of charge from September 2009.

The move will bring tours into line with the Parliament’s free school visits and education programme, its free crèche for visitors and its free public exhibitions and events held regularly across the Parliament.

The hour-long guided tours will continue to be offered six days a week. Visitors will continue to be given an in-depth understanding of the role and work of Parliament, the work of its MSPs, and the history and architecture of Holyrood.

Since Holyrood opened in 2004 more than 210,000 visitors have taken guided tours.  Figures show that four out of five visitors to Holyrood are resident in Scotland.

The Parliament will also begin offering art tours on a pre-book basis for specialist groups and interested individuals. The tour will take in twenty works of art located across Holyrood, with a further seven works of art already available to view in the public areas of the Parliament. The Parliament’s art collection showcases a variety of types of work, including oil paintings, sculpture, photography and textiles. Much of the art was specially commissioned for the building.

For more details phone  0131 348 5000 or visit our website at: www.scottish.parliament.uk

And Finally….

Fun was had by all at a fundraising event in Arkleston on Halloween night!

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