Chamber and committees

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

Installations in theprivate sector are only available by postcode area. As at the end of August 2007,a total of 4,524 households have received central heating systems in the KA postcodearea.

In the public sector,East Ayrshire Council has installed 246 systems and South Ayrshire has installed117 since the inception of the programme.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The information isonly available by postcode area. The Programme Managing Agent (Scottish Gas) hasindicated that there are currently 852 applicants awaiting central heating installationin the KA postcode area.

The most recentprevalence estimate for Scotland is that up to 60,000 children under 16have a parent with a drug problem. Of these, it is estimated that between10,000 and 20,000 live with a parent with drug problems. We do not have anequivalent figure for the number of children living in households with a parentwho has an alcohol problem. However the latest estimates indicate that thereare approximately 80,000-100,000 children affected by parental alcohol misusein Scotland.

The ScottishGovernment is committed to tackling the complex issue of children affected byparental substance misuse. The major programme of activity on this agenda iscurrently under review, with a view to strengthening the focus on preventionand early intervention to ensure children never face this problem, whilesharpening the focus on children already at risk to improve identification andresponse.

The Minister forChildren and Early Years has the lead responsibility for policy relating tochildren living with parental drug or alcohol misuse, working closely with ministerialcolleagues to address cross-cutting issues.

It is for localauthorities to gather and record data on the number of children in their areain need of child protection services, including those living with parental drugand alcohol misuse. The Scottish Government is currentlyassessing how to strengthen existing activities to ensure that the needs of allchildren adversely affected by substance misuse are identified and met.

In the lastsession, the Scottish Parliament voted to withdraw what was then Part 3 of theProtecting Vulnerable Groups Bill, which had outlined a statutory requirementto share information when there are concerns about a child, including youngpeople living with parental drug and alcohol misuse.

A draft Code ofPractice for Sharing Information on this topic was widely circulated forcomment earlier this year. The purpose was to gain early detailed feedback fromstakeholders on its principles and general fitness for improving informationsharing relating to the protection of children. Responses to that exercise arecurrently being analysed.

While the draft codeis at present on a non-statutory basis, this does not preclude informationsharing to protect children being underpinned by legal duties at some point inthe future.

We would like toextend entitlement for free school meals to families in receipt of maximumchild tax credit and maximum working tax credit, although this will depend onforthcoming discussions with COSLA about outcome agreements.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-4431 on 26 September 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Scottish Executivefunding to tackle antisocial behaviour is supporting community wardens in everylocal authority area in Scotland. It is for each local authority to decidehow best to allocate funding across all their antisocial behaviour services, includingcommunity wardens, based on local needs and priorities. Future funding for antisocialbehaviour services will be considered as part of the forthcoming spending review.