- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 18 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 13 April 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive what actions it has taken to advertise the measures available to people at risk of repossession of their home, following the passing of the Home Owner and Debtor Protection (Scotland) Bill.
Answer
We are working with the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Repossessions Advice Group to develop training for the advice sector and plan to hold dissemination events during the summer. We are also considering what other measures are needed to publicise information about the act more widely to those at risk of repossession.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 18 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 13 April 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how many debt advisers have received training to use the provisions in the Home Owner and Debtor Protection (Scotland) Bill to assist clients in mortgage arrears.
Answer
We are working with the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Repossessions Advice Group to develop training for the advice sector and plan to hold dissemination events during the summer. The training will focus on the new requirements and the skills and competencies required for the new lay representative role.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 18 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 13 April 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive when the provisions in the Home Owner and Debtor Protection (Scotland) Bill will come fully into force.
Answer
We are consulting with stakeholders, including lenders, the courts, the advice sector, insolvency practitioners and others to ensure that all involved have sufficient time to prepare. We anticipate that we will commence the act in its entirety in September 2010.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 26 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 12 April 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding has been allocated to housing associations under the Affordable Housing Investment Programme for 2010-11.
Answer
Planned funding for 2010-11 for the Affordable Housing Investment Programme was announced on 25 March 2010. Details of this can be found here:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/investment/ahip/ahip2010-2011.
This includes planned funding for the main Housing Association Programmes (Housing Association Rent and Housing Association Low Cost Home Ownership). We plan to issue grant planning targets to housing associations at the end of April 2010 once the actual out-turn figures for 2009-10 are known. This information will be published on the Scottish Government Website.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 26 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 12 April 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding was allocated for council house building under the Affordable Housing Investment Programme for 2009-10.
Answer
When the 2009-10 Affordable Housing Investment Programme was announced there was no allocation made for Council House Building.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/investment/ahip/ahip-2009-10/.
However, once Round One of the Council House Building Programme was progressed, there was the requirement to fund one project which was due to complete in 2009-10. This amounted to £1.025 million and funding was made available for this as part of the £31 million consequentials funding as detailed in the following link.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/investment/ahip/consequentials200910.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 26 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 12 April 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding was allocated to housing associations under the Affordable Housing Investment Programme for 2009-10.
Answer
The overall planned Affordable Housing Investment Programme for 2009-10 was £644 million, and this was augmented by £31 million consequentials funding in year. Details of the planned allocation to Housing Associations can be found here:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/investment/ahip/ahip200910plannedapproval.
This includes planned funding for the main Housing Association Programmes (Housing Association Rent and Housing Association Low Cost Home Ownership). The grant planning targets for 2009-10 to individual housing associations under the Affordable Housing Investment Programme can be found at the following web page:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/investment/ahip/grantplanningtargets0910.
Details of actual spend will be available when we publish our outturn report in the summer.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 15 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 12 April 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how many disabled people have used the right to buy in each year since 1990.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not collect this information for local authority tenants and the Scottish Housing Regulator does not collect this information for Registered Social Landlord tenants.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 24 March 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how much of the £60 million allocated to the Energy Assistance Package was spent by the end of February 2010.
Answer
The following table shows the spend to the end of February for the various elements of the £60 million package of support, as set out in my answer to question S3W-21692 on 1 April 2009. As Minister for Housing and Communities I have responsibility for the Fuel Poverty Budget and anticipate that the budget for 2009-10 will be spent. I will of course, report the out turn figures in due course.
| | Budget 2009-10 | Spend to 28 February 2010 |
| Fuel Poverty budget (including additional £3.6 million for running the ESSac network, and £2.5 million for local authorities and registered social landlords to fund social sector Stage 3 measures) | £50.6 million | £24.8 million |
| Current £3.9 million for running the Energy Savings Scotland Advice Centre (ESSac) network. | £3.9 million | £3.2 million |
| Achieving our Potential budget, formerly Tackling poverty | £2.5 million | £1.2 million |
| Energy Savings Scotland Home Renewables Grant (formerly known as the Scottish Communities and Households Renewables Initiative) | £3.5 million | £1.9 million |
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.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 24 March 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to consult prior to the publication of the white paper on housing policy referred to in the news release of 16 March 2010, Housing reform essential.
Answer
In May, the Scottish Government will publish a discussion document to launch a wide-ranging debate on how we meet the challenges facing housing over the next five years and beyond.
- Asked by: Mary Mulligan, MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 12 March 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Alex Neil on 22 March 2010
To ask the Scottish Executive how many sheltered housing units have been built in each year since 2000.
Answer
The number of new sheltered housing units built each year in Scotland is not held centrally.
However sheltered housing stock numbers in the social sector are published each year by council area. These figures can be found on the Scottish Government''s website using the following link http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/SpecialNeedsHousing.
