Chamber and committees

There are two measures of unemployment used in the UK. Unemployment (previously know as International Labour Organisation (ILO) unemployment) and the claimant count. There are significant differences between the unemployment level derivedfrom the ILO unemployment measure and the claimant count. The ILO measure of unemployment is a wider definition and includes individuals who are actively seeking work as well as those claiming job seekers benefits, whereas claimant count only includes those claiming job seekers benefits.

Unemployment levels obtained from the Labour Force Survey using the ILO definition is the Executive’s preferred measure of unemployment. However, it is currently less reliable for geographical areas lower than Scotland level. The claimant count is based on administrative records and is more reliable at local authority level.

Table 1: Unemployment Levels by Local Authority Area, Scotland

Area	Unemployment (ILO), Total 16+	Claimant Count August 2004
Scotland	151,000	94,494
Aberdeen City	*	2,683
Aberdeenshire	*	1,915
Angus	*	1,933
Argyll and Bute	*	1,414
Clackmannanshire	*	1,055
Dumfries and Galloway	*	2,208
Dundee City	*	3,889
East Ayrshire	*	3,198
East Dunbartonshire	*	1,199
East Lothian	*	936
East Renfrewshire	*	916
City of Edinburgh	11,000	7,194
Eilean Siar (Western Isles)	*	594
Falkirk	*	2,758
Fife	11,000	7,900
Glasgow City	24,000	16,616
Highland	*	2,927
Inverclyde	*	2,829
Midlothian	*	1,026
Moray	*	1,008
North Ayrshire	*	3,854
North Lanarkshire	13,000	6,562
Orkney Islands	*	177
Perth and Kinross	*	1,566
Renfrewshire	*	3,510
Scottish Borders	*	1,092
Shetland Islands	*	228
South Ayrshire	*	2,208
South Lanarkshire	*	5,039
Stirling	*	1,209
West Dunbartonshire	*	2,454
West Lothian	*	2,397

Source: Labour Force Survey, 2004 Spring Quarter, Seasonally Adjusted.

First Release: Labour Market Statistics, Scotland September 2004.

Note: *Sample size too small for reliable estimate.

Centrally held details of direct Scottish Executive financial support to the voluntary sector are only available from 2000-01 and these are as follows:

2000-01	£34,530,578
2001-02	£38,860,792
2002-03	£228,403,745
2003-04	£262,864,116

 

In addition to direct Scottish Executive grants the voluntary sector has received considerable financial support through indirect funding from public bodies such as local authorities, NHS boards, NHS TRUSTS and the enterprise networks. Resources allocated through these organisations are as follows:

2000-01	£265,202,768
2001-02	£304,489,736
2002-03	£131,300,945
2003-04	£112,001,623

 

Information on financial support earmarked for the voluntary sector in 2004-05 will be published in November 2004.

Tables containing a breakdown of the organisations provided with Scottish Executive grant funding have been placed in the Parliament’s reference centre (Bib. numbers 33880 - direct and 33881 - indirect).

2003-04 reports have been collated by Keep Scotland Beautiful and have been issued to local authorities following completion of the first year operation of LEAMS. However, it has been decided by Audit Scotland that as the first year was run essentially as a pilot, the final overall marking for each local authority taken from their first year reports will not be formally published as Performance Indicators. It will be up to each individual authority to decide if they make their own report public.

The first performance indicators to be published by Audit Scotland will be the  2004-05 figures and these should be available in autumn 2005.

The Commission proposal to amend the welfare conditions of animals during transport did not receive sufficient EU-wide support and was not adopted, therefore the proposal to ban the commercial transportation of puppies and kittens under eight weeks of age unless accompanied by their mother has not been implemented. The current legislation remains The Welfare of Animals Transport Order 1997 which prohibits the commercial transportation of new-born animalswhose navel has not completely healed.

The £3 million for local anti-litter initiatives as answered in question S1W-33327 relates to indicative figures received from local authorities as part of the £95 million End Year Flexibility funding for Quality of Life activities for 2002. Councils made the decisions at a local level on the most appropriate levels of additional spending on improving the local environment and/or services for children and young people.

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/webapp/search_wa.

Local Environmental Audit and Management System (LEAMS) will provide a performance indicator for street cleanliness to be published by Audit Scotland in 2005. The impact of any additional funding that Councils choose to spend from the Quality of Life funds should be captured within this new performance indicator.

The estimated £3 million spend by local authorities for local anti-litter initiatives in 2002 is set out in the table.

Local Authority	£
Aberdeen, City	112,000
Aberdeenshire	-
Angus	39,000
Argyll and Bute	-
Clackmannanshire	30,000
Dumfries and Galloway	60,000
Dundee	124,000
East Ayrshire	50,000
East Dunbartonshire	70,000
East Lothian	90,000
East Renfrewshire	117,000
Edinburgh, City	240,000
Eilean Siar	50,000
Falkirk	100,000
Fife	280,000
Glasgow	625,000
Highland	9,500
Inverclyde	-
Midlothian	-
Moray	-
North Ayrshire	64,500
North Lanarkshire	290,000
Orkney	-
Perth and Kinross	7,500
Renfrewshire	100,000
Scottish Borders	-
Shetland	80,000
South Ayrshire	143,000
South Lanarkshire	100,000
Stirling	167,000
West Dunbartonshire	165,000
West Lothian	-
Total	3,113,500

The SKIPPER package was originally developed by ISD Scotland, in the mid 1990s, as a means of supporting NHSScotland in planning and performance management. It is based on old pre-web technology and is expensive to maintain, distribute and support. Difficulties have increased with the introduction and use of more modern operating systems (e.g. Windows 2000) where the successful installation of SKIPPER requires much more effort.

Finally, the knowledge that the system needed substantial development to reflect changes in information requirements and organisational changes in NHSScotland led ISD Scotland to conclude that it was not viable to continue to support SKIPPER.

The final release of SKIPPER was at end of May 2004. Before reaching a final decision ISD Scotland reviewed to what extent there were alternative sources to the SKIPPER screens. In some cases SKIPPER duplicated information published on the ISD Scotland website. Indeed, ISD Scotland found that the majority of SKIPPER screens had an alternative source, although not necessarily with the same level of detail. ISD is committed to continual improvement of the contents of its website and is confident that, in time, much of the useful information, previously on SKIPPER, can be made available through the web.

As the length of time someone has to wait for such an assessment is directly related to the person’s condition, the average waiting time would not be meaningful.

It is not possible to give an average waiting time because of the small number of patients involved. The length of time a person has to wait for a transplant is dependent on a suitable donor organ becoming available.

A total of six patients with a Scottish postcode have been placed on the waiting list for a heart-lung transplant since 1999. Because of the small number of patients involved, it is not possible to give the figure for each year on grounds of patient confidentiality.

The percentage of each board’s spending spent on administration costs in each of the last five years was as follows:

Board	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03
Argyll and Clyde	7%	6%	6%	6%	6%
Ayrshire and Arran	6%	6%	6%	6%	6%
Borders	7%	8%	7%	8%	8%
Dumfries and Galloway	7%	7%	7%	6%	6%
Fife	6%	6%	6%	7%	6%
Forth Valley	6%	6%	5%	5%	6%
Grampian	6%	7%	7%	7%	7%
Greater Glasgow	8%	7%	8%	8%	8%
Highland	7%	7%	6%	6%	6%
Lanarkshire	7%	7%	7%	7%	6%
Lothian	8%	7%	7%	7%	7%
Orkney	6%	6%	7%	7%	4%*
Shetland	6%	5%	5%	6%	4%*
Tayside	8%	8%	9%	7%	7%
Western Isles	8%	7%	8%	8%	4%*

Notes:

The boards’ spending is taken to be the gross total revenue expenditure figures from their published Annual Accounts for each respective financial year. The amount spent on administration is taken to be management and administration costs reported in their published Annual Accounts plus management and administration expenditure incurred by trusts in their area. Trust management and administration expenses are taken from Scottish Financial Return (SFR) 5.2, which is completed by each hospital, as disclosed in answering parliamentary question (S2W-8040).

^*Due to a change in reporting requirements, the 2002-03 figures of the Island Health Boards (Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles) are not directly comparable with the preceding four years. Their 2002-03 figures shown thereforeonly include the hospital management and administration costs but not board management costs, which are not available for that year. This situation has been rectified in 2003-04.