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

Over the lastthree years, 170 purchasers of new or existing properties not requiring improvementhave been given financial assistance through rural home ownership grant. The annualbreakdown is: in 2004-05 there were 63, in 2005-06 there were 55 and in 2006-07there were 52.

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

Over the pastthree years a total of 292 home owners have received rural home ownership grants(RHOG). The following table breaks this down by local authority area.

RHOG Approvals byLocal Authority

Local Authority	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Aberdeenshire	1	1	1
Argyll and Bute	9	6	8
Highland	42	32	29
Orkney	37	36	40
Perth and Kinross	18	1	1
Shetland	4	4	3
The Scottish Borders	5	5	2
Western Islands	2	2	3
Scotland Total	118	87	87

 

Local authoritiesare responsible for co-ordinating the assessment of the care needs of people livingin their own homes and ensuring, with their local partners, that appropriate provisionis made to meet those needs.

The Care Commissionregulates agencies which provide care to people in their own homes, taking accountof the National Care Standards for Care at Home.

In addition, the SocialWork Inspection Agency (SWIA) has a programme for inspecting social work servicesdelivered by local authorities across Scotland by early 2009.These inspections will include consideration of the quality and provision of careat home services.

The National CareStandards aim to ensure that all residents in care homes receive personalised careappropriate to their individual needs. As part of this, it is vital that care homeresidents have appropriate access to NHS diagnosis and treatment.

I have met AlzheimerScotland to discuss its report and confirmed that wewill make the needs of people with dementia a national priority. We are discussingwith relevant stakeholders arrangements for taking this forward.

NHS Quality ImprovementScotland have in development a set of standards forintegrated care pathways for dementia. These will be published in December and accreditedthereafter. These standards will help identify what training needs there are forstaff in implementing the standards and in delivering planned care.

The Scottish Governmentis currently funding a dementia improvement programme with NHS Forth Valley andthe Dementia Services Development Centre to explore ways of better managing thecare of people with dementia. The programme will be evaluated in 2008.

We also provide directgrant support to the Dementia Services Development Centre for its work, includingdisseminating good practice and training material to NHS and social care staff workingwith people with dementia.

The Local Governmentin Scotland Act 2003 (section 35) places a duty on each local authority to determinethe maximum level it can allocate to capital expenditure (and hence borrow). Indoing so, they must have regard to the CIPFA Prudential Code for Capital Financein Local Authorities. This requires local authorities to take into considerationindicators in relation to affordability, prudence and sustainability. Each localauthority, therefore, sets their own maximum borrowing level, and keeps this underreview on an on-going basis.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-5272 on 26 October 2007, and S3W-5343 on 26 October2007. The following table shows the latest available information on the costs toeach local authority of servicing their outstanding loans pool debt. Local authoritiesare required by legislation to operate a loans pool, and all monies borrowed bythe local authority are paid into the loans pool. All interest paid on externaldebt is paid from the loans pool and then charged to services. For completeness,the table includes the statutory charge for repayment of loans, and any financeleasing charges.

Cost to Each LocalAuthority of Servicing its Loans Pool Debt in 2005-06 (£000)

Authority	Statutory Charge for Repayment of Loans*	Interest Charged to Services	Loans Fund Expenses	Total Loan Charges
Aberdeen City	10,209	24,962	120	35,291
Aberdeenshire	14,105	22,163	146	36,414
Angus	3,938	7,849	103	11,890
Argyll and Bute	15,706	15,220	398	31,324
Clackmannanshire	2,756	6,211	71	9,038
Dumfries and Galloway	8,330	10,021	85	18,436
Dundee City	15,321	18,992	276	34,589
East Ayrshire	6,574	12,095	191	18,860
East Dunbartonshire	8,476	8,387	112	16,975
East Lothian	4,829	6,205	127	11,161
East Renfrewshire	6,362	7,077	137	13,576
Edinburgh, City of	42,474	56,052	630	99,156
Eilean Siar	11,644	13,867	98	25,609
Falkirk	13,428	12,262	124	25,814
Fife	19,225	30,803	523	50,551
Glasgow City	46,948	81,714	0	128,662
Highland	22,620	31,694	280	54,594
Inverclyde	10,973	13,663	156	24,792
Midlothian	6,147	4,849	74	11,070
Moray	4,199	9,727	106	14,032
North Ayrshire	10,837	13,824	312	24,973
North Lanarkshire	23,554	29,843	493	53,890
Orkney Islands	2,265	1,596	25	3,886
Perth and Kinross	8,776	8,492	146	17,414
Renfrewshire	25,229	16,791	396	42,416
Scottish Borders	6,883	9,397	131	16,411
Shetland Islands	3,205	2,438	65	5,708
South Ayrshire	4,601	10,792	161	15,554
South Lanarkshire	21,222	32,005	480	53,707
Stirling	8,487	9,809	132	18,428
West Dunbartonshire	12,317	12,331	222	24,870
West Lothian	7,779	11,153	327	19,259
Total	409,419	552,284	6,647	968,350

Note: *The statutorycharge excludes repayments out of the Capital Fund.

All answers towritten parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the searchfacility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-5272 on 26 October 2007 and S3W-5344 on 26 October 2007. The Scottish Government did not historically collectinformation on the external debt of local authorities, and we do not have validateddata to provide such figures. However, the following table shows the total levelof outstanding loans pool debt. The level of debt recorded by the loans pool isthe value that must be charged to services over a number of years. We would notexpect the level of external debt to be significantly different to the loans poolvalue.

Authority	Loans Pool Debt Outstanding as at 31 March 2007 (£000)
Aberdeen City	421,585
Aberdeenshire	375,710
Angus	159,835
Argyll and Bute	199,630
Clackmannanshire	97,453
Dumfries and Galloway	194,656
Dundee City	331,916
East Ayrshire	187,541
East Dunbartonshire	115,167
East Lothian	154,766
East Renfrewshire	108,427
Edinburgh, City of	900,577
Eilean Siar	149,726
Falkirk	204,652
Fife	535,912
Glasgow City	1,305,244
Highland	562,104
Inverclyde	220,366
Midlothian	91,687
Moray	157,495
North Ayrshire	207,230
North Lanarkshire	412,431
Orkney Islands	37,007
Perth and Kinross	162,237
Renfrewshire	285,389
Scottish Borders	165,811
Shetland Islands	49,142
South Ayrshire	176,118
South Lanarkshire	500,121
Stirling	162,204
West Dunbartonshire	198,584
West Lothian	246,571
Total	9,077,294

 

All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facilityfor which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I am aware that anumber of equal pay claims have been lodged against health boards in Scotland as well as other health organisations across the UK.

These claims raisea number of legal issues which are currently under consideration at employment tribunalsacross the UK. Resolution of these issues will determinewhether or not health boards have any equal pay liabilities. If this proves to bethe case meeting any such liabilities will be considered as part of the normal financialplanning processes for health board expenditure.

Patients wantswift, high quality treatment as close to home as possible. That is what theNHS in Scotland aims to provide. In the event of an NHS boardbeing unable to meet national maximum waiting times for hospital inpatient andday case treatment (currently 18 weeks) locally, the board is expected toarrange for the patient to be treated quickly in the NHS in Scotland, includingat the Golden Jubilee National Hospital or the Regional Treatment Centre atStracathro, the NHS elsewhere in the UK, or by a private sector provider.

We have madeclear on a number of occasions that the NHS in Scotland is free to use the services of the independent health care sector toensure timely care and treatment of NHS patients, where necessary to meet peaksin demand. But we will not invest in building up the independent health caresector. That will continue to be the position.