Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - 
Scotland's environment watchdog has frozen charges for operators for the second year in a row.
A second successive year with no increase in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency's (SEPA) charges means that since 2008 operators have seen a rise of only 6.4%, well below the UK Retail Price Index increase of 17.7%.
John Ford, SEPA's Director of Finance and Corporate Services, said:
"SEPA has a responsibility to ensure that the costs of regulatory activities are recovered through charges. While the majority of charging schemes contain the facility to increase fees automatically each year on 1 April, we chose not to do so in 2010/11, to support Scotland's economic recovery. The fact that we can continue this freeze into this year is a very real economic benefit to operators, and reflects the efficiency savings that we have been achieving in recent years."
Minster for the Environment Stewart Stevenson said:
"By freezing charges for another year SEPA is contributing to the Scottish Government's central purpose of increasing economic growth. Keeping charges at 2010-11 levels is good news for business."
Karen Adam is now the MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast
