Chamber and committees

Information on staff in postin NHS Scotland is published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under WorkforceStatistics, at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.

Section E gives details of nursingand midwifery staff employed in NHS Scotland. In particular, table E18 shows thewhole-time equivalent (WTE) number and headcount of clinical nurse specialists,broken down by NHS board area. WTE adjusts headcount staff figures to take accountof part-time staff. Latest available figures are at 30 September 2004.

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

Glasgow Housing Association(GHA) is the only existing whole-stock transfer organisation with plans fornew-build housing.

A total of 6,000 newproperties are planned to be completed by 2012-13 for GHA tenants whose homeswill be demolished as part of GHA’s regeneration plans.  2,800 units will bedelivered directly by GHA with a further 3,000 properties built by other registeredsocial landlords and 200 units from programmes already agreed by Glasgow CityCouncil.

Last year the first phase of the new build programme totalling 600 homes to be delivered by other RegisteredSocial Landlords began. So far, 119 new homes have been approved with fundingof £2.23 million. Further funding of £2 million has been earmarked for thecurrent year with another 376 homes expected to be approved by the end of March2006.

GHA’s own contribution tothe programme was deferred during 2004-05 pending consideration of its widerassessment of future stock requirements.

In its statement of intent2005-06, GHA has set three targets:

by June 2005, to agree thefirst three year programme of its new build strategy within the context of a10-year outline programme;

by March 2006, to reachagreement with GCC on 100 GHA new build units within GCC Regeneration Projects,and

by March 2006, to achievesite start for 100 units.

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

In total, 6,400 new build startswill be approved for funding by Communities Scotland in 2005-06 and these will receivescheduled start and completion dates during the course of this financial year aseach individual project is legally approved. However, until projects are legallyapproved, no confirmed detail on scheduled start and completions dates is available.

The specific information requestedis not available centrally.

No audit and inspectionbodies have a statutory responsibility to assess compliance with the duty topromote race equality under race relations legislation; the statutoryresponsibility falls to the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE). However,audit and inspection bodies do have a key role to play and therefore we arelooking at ways of ensuring that compliance with the statutory duty to promote raceequality is built into audit and inspection processes. A meeting between officialsin the Executive, the CRE, and the following bodies is due to take place inearly July to discuss this further:

HM Inspectorate of FireServices

Audit Scotland

Communities Scotland

HMI Education

HMI Constabulary

NHS Education

NHS Quality Improvement

HMI Prisons

Care Commission

Scottish Social ServicesCouncil

Scottish Public ServicesOmbudsman

Social Work ScotlandInspectorate

Crown Office and ProcuratorFiscal Service.

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

Ministers have given a commitmentto approve 21,500 new and improved homes for social rent and low-cost home ownershipin the three years up to 2008. The principal mechanism for funding this new affordablehousing is the Scottish Executive Housing Investment Programme. The number of new and improvedhomes for affordable rent and low-cost home ownership approved with funding fromCommunities Scotland which were completed in the financial years 2002-03, 2003-04and 2004-05 and projected for 2005-06 areas follows:

	Affordable Rent	Low-Cost Home Ownership
2002-03	4,345	1,075
2003-04	3,753	489
2004-05	4,397	990
2005-06 Planned	4,562	948

 

The number of completions inan individual year is determined by the number of units approved for constructionin previous years. Large or complex housing projects, especially when linked toa wider regeneration initiative, can often take some time to be formally completed.In addition, in some instances, there is a time-lag in the recording of this dataand these figures are therefore be subject to revision.

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

Two hundred and twentynew-build starts for affordable rent and 22 new-build starts for low-cost homeownership for 2005-06 have received firm funding approval from CommunitiesScotland, which is in line with what would be expected at this early stage inthe new financial year.

The Fresh Talent: Working inScotland scheme is due to be launched by the end of June. Information relating toapplications will not be available until after the scheme is operational.

The provision of community benefit by a developer is not a matter for the Executive. It is not, therefore, for the Executive to define communities.

On 13 May 2005 the Scottish Executive published Councillor Eric Milligan’s report on First Impressions of Scotland that had been commissioned by Scottish ministers in 2004. The Executive also published ministers’ response to the report which forms an action plan to improve the first impression that international visitors receive of Scotland.