Chamber and committees

Information on the destination of special school leavers is only available for leavers from local authority schools who have been dealt with by Careers Services. In 1998-99, for those school leavers with known main destinations, 290 entered further education, 88 entered training, 51 entered employment and 4 entered higher education. Employment is defined as paid employment of at least 21 hours per week.

Gingerbread's application for core funding in 1997-98 was rejected on the basis that the application provided insufficient information about the organisation's proposed activities and proposals for evaluating their performance. Gingerbread submitted a further application for core funding in 1999-2000 but this was unsuccessful due to the large volume of applications, the need to prioritise and to avoid duplication of funding for similar organisations.

The Executive is committed to a strategic approach to its funding of the voluntary sector. The Executive published The Scottish Compact Good Practice Guides to its Departments, Agencies, and NDPBs on 13 June. The Good Practice Guide on funding sets out general criteria for Scottish Executive funding of voluntary organisations. Copies have been placed with the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

The Executive published The Scottish Compact Good Practice Guides, including one on funding, to its Departments, Agencies, and NDPBs on 13 June. We are now conducting a strategic review of Executive funding for the voluntary sector and we will be looking at ways of harmonising scheme procedures and minimising bureaucracy.

The organisation are currently in the first year of a new 3 year Section 10 grant of £50,000 per annum.

One Plus are not in receipt of grant funding from the Scottish Executive.

It is not possible to identify separately all funding which benefits families but specifically we have introduced targeted initiatives such as Sure Start Scotland which provides support for families with very young children. We have allocated funding of £42 million over three years to this initiative, including £9 million in 1999-2000 and £14 million in 2000-01. We have allocated £7 million in 1999-2000 and £21 million in 2000-01 to developing a Childcare Strategy for Scotland and are committed to providing a free part-time nursery place for every three-year-old whose parents want it by 2002. We also provide funding to a number of voluntary organisations who support families.

Families benefit from a range of Executive policies including those which address the needs of individual members of the family and the communities they live in. This Executive funding, and broader funding for relevant areas such as health, education, children's services and lifelong learning, complements the support for families provided under policies of the Government.