Chamber and committees

I am providing £22.5 million over three years to raise levels of adult literacy and numeracy in Scotland, and expect 80,000 people to benefit during this period. The initiative will be supported by the new agency, Communities Scotland.

This change requires the amendment of primary legislation, and when that is in place I will consider whether this change to concessionary fare arrangements can be implemented in October 2002, in line with the introduction of free off-peak local bus travel for pensioners and people with special needs.

Ministers are acting to improve children's safety through a number of initiatives. In March I announced a multidisciplinary review of child protection, which will focus on improving systems right across Scotland. Most recently, on Monday 4 June 2001 we issued the policy position paper Protecting Children: the Next Steps towards Securing their Safety, setting out our plans to introduce an index of adults unsuitable to work with children.

My reply of 26 February to question S1W-12857 referred to funding of £7,000 for myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) projects in 1999-2000. I regret to say that this was an error and I have written to Linda Fabiani accordingly. There were no projects on ME that were funded by the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) in the period 1997-98 to 2000-01 nor has CSO received any recent funding proposals. However, the CSO would be pleased to consider funding innovative ME studies of a sufficiently high standard.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-15454 on 14 May 2001. No disaggregation by health board area is available. The report of the sub-group of the Health Department's Advisory Group on Infection has been received and is being considered urgently.

The Executive has no such plans. Health boards are expected to meet the costs of treatment for almost all conditions from the revenue allocations made available to them by the Executive, which were increased by an average of 6.5% for 2001-02.

The Central Heating Programme is targeted at 40,000 pensioners in the private sector and 101,000 tenants in the public sector.

In the private sector priority will be given to those over 75 years of age, the elderly living alone and the disabled and the long-term ill.Local authorities and housing associations will also be expected to build priority groups into the programme for their tenants. However, as their part of the programme affects other vulnerable groups, such as families with young children, priority should not just be restricted to those same groups for the private sector. Priority will be for each public sector landlord to determine and should be structured in accordance with the varying needs of their tenants.

Health boards received an average increase in Unified Budget for 2001-02 of 6.5%. The average increase in the Unified Budget for 2002-03 is 6.9%, with a minimum increase of 6.5%. The average increase for 2003-04 is 7.8%, with a minimum increase of 7.4%. The indicative Family Health Service allocations are as follows:

	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Health Board	£m	£m	£m
Argyll & Clyde	45.288	47.455	49.469
Ayrshire & Arran	37.763	39.572	41.247
Borders	11.073	11.605	12.102
Dumfries & Galloway	14.928	15.634	16.305
Fife	31.987	33.524	34.947
Forth Valley	26.002	27.256	28.409
Grampian	50.432	52.863	55.122
Greater Glasgow	102.959	107.865	112.390
Highland	24.969	26.148	27.282
Lanarkshire	53.298	55.845	58.209
Lothian	77.233	80.970	84.405
Orkney	2.526	2.650	2.767
Shetland	2.437	2.554	2.667
Tayside	40.880	42.856	44.677
Western Isles	3.760	3.938	4.114
TOTAL	525.535	550.735	574.112

Note:These indicative allocations are the Scottish Executive's assumption of the amount needed for the demand led Family Health Services and covers the costs of general medical services, general dental services and general ophthalmic services. The allocations for Special Health Boards are as follows:

	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
	£m	£m	£m
Common Services Agency	124.482	127.077	129.067
Scottish Ambulance Service	100.792	107.636	111.251
Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education	149.437	161.778	171.441
Clinical Standards Board	3.000	3.105	3.213
State Hospital	19.847	20.279	20.722
Health Technology Board for Scotland	2.000	2.070	2.142

Note: Allocations for 2002-03 and 2003-04 are indicative.

Yes.Annually the Executive has repeated its commitment to continue a moratorium on Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) in local government until we are ready to introduce legislation to provide a statutory Best Value regime. We are still considering the detail of such legislation, and to date have published two consultation papers on its various aspects: Best Value: next steps, laid before Parliament in June last year, and A Power of Community Initiative etc, laid before Parliament last November.I have now been advised that one of the provisions which support the moratorium - section 2(10) of the Local Government Act 1988 - needs amendment to enable the full moratorium to continue until we are ready to introduce legislative proposals on Best Value.Unless the amendment is made CCT will be imposed on 1 January 2002 on the following activities: the collection of refuse, the cleaning of buildings and other cleaning, catering for purposes of schools and welfare and other catering, the management of sports and leisure facilities, maintenance of ground and the repair and maintenance of vehicles.Such a development would involve substantial costs for local authorities and disrupt the development of Best Value.I would therefore like to announce the Executive's intention shortly to introduce a small Bill which will amend the Local Government Act 1988 and remove this deadline. We propose to introduce this Bill as early as possible during this parliamentary year. The Executive's longer term plans remain to repeal CCT as part of the new statutory regime for local authorities based on a duty of Best Value.

The Scottish Executive has not met the Health and Safety Executive and the European Union to discuss the extension of the ban on lead solder and, although there has been written representation to both, no progress has been made. We are continuing to peruse this matter.