Chamber and committees

Slippage of £0.500 million from elsewhere in the Affordable Housing Investment Programme has been identified and has been re-allocated to East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde and Renfrewshire councils to help meet demand for home adaptations.

We will continue to review opportunities for reallocation of funds on a regular basis and will report outturn spend following the year end.

NHSScotland bodies require to demonstrate that they have the necessary capital and revenue resources within their financial plans when making investment in their assets to cover not just the initial investment but the on-going operation and maintenance of such assets. Economic appraisals are undertaken for such decisions which incorporate lifecycle costs in accordance with the requirements of the Scottish Capital Investment Manual and HM Treasury Green Book guidance.

Under the terms of the revised asset management policy NHSScotland bodies will be required to set out their planned maintenance programmes to demonstrate that they are satisfactorily maintaining their estate or, where this is not appropriate, replacing or disinvesting inappropriate estate.

The currently known level of shortfall for home adaptations by housing associations, broken down by local authority, is as follows:

Local Authority	Estimated Shortfall
Highland	£0.127 million
Orkney	£0.025 million
Argyll and Bute	£0.170 million
Dumfries and Galloway	£0.081 million
East Ayrshire	£0.028 million
East Renfrewshire	£0.012 million
Glasgow	£0.235 million
Inverclyde	£0.181 million
North Ayrshire	£0.132 million
North Lanarkshire	£0.450 million
Renfrewshire	£0.003 million
South Ayrshire	£0.016 million
South Lanarkshire	£0.179 million
Total	£1.639 million

 

These figures differ from those stated in S3W-19801 as they have been updated to reflect the £0.500 million slippage from the Affordable Housing Investment Programme which has been reallocated to East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde and Renfrewshire.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Since 2005 NHS boards have been required to equality impact assess all new and revised policies or functions, which was communicated via a Health Department Letter (2005) 09.

The hub initiative supported by the Scottish Government and delivered through the Scottish Futures Trust is aimed a supporting the more effective development and delivery of joint projects. The hub initiative is based on bringing together public sector partners to plan and procure community based premises. The Scottish Futures Trust are currently engaged with the South East and North territories to prepare them for procurement in summer 2009.

Currently all business cases for community based premises submitted to the Scottish Government Health Directorates for approval are assessed to ensure that there has been appropriate engagement with other public sector partners prior to approval.

The national estate management system for NHSScotland currently in procurement has been specified to ensure that data can be extracted and linked to data held by local authorities.

The Scottish Government is supporting the development of the hub initiative which was developed following consideration of possible joint venture models by the Joint Premises Project Board (JPPB) and which is seeking to address many of the issues identified by the JPPB as creating barriers to developing joint premises. The hub initiative is being taken forward by the Scottish Futures Trust with two pathfinders in the South East and North of Scotland in development and preparing for procurement.

The Scottish Government are also supporting the procurement of a national estate management system, the dataset for which is consistent with the joint dataset for NHSScotland and local authorities developed through the Joint Premises Project Board.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-20499 on 23 February 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

A national computer system to support estate management across NHSScotland is currently in procurement and will support both the standardisation of data held on the NHSScotland estate. The dataset for the new system has already been established.

All NHS boards will require to have a strategy identified to address backlog maintenance (whether by maintenance or replacement) by the end of 2009. Following the implementation of the new Asset Management Policy all NHS boards will require to have annually updated asset strategies which include plans and approaches for tackling outstanding backlog maintenance.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-20510 on 25 February 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.