The cost of collecting council tax (and water charges) is an Accounts Commission Performance Indicator. Data by local authority for 2010-11 is published by Audit Scotland under “Corporate management” (indicator 5) and can be accessed at:

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/performance/service/.

The cost of training and education required for a support worker in a care at home service to qualify to SVQ level 2 will vary depending on the individual’s existing knowledge and the chosen training provider.

Skills Development Scotland offer a contribution towards the cost of training an individual undertaking a Modern Apprenticeship in Health and Social Care at Level 2, one of the mandatory outcomes of which is the SVQ at level 2 to which you refer. Contribution rates for apprenticeships vary by level of learning and age of the individuals. Skills Development Scotland has published the contribution rates for 2012-13 which can be accessed using the following link:

http://www.providercentral.org.uk/OurServices/NationalTrainingProgrammes/Modern_Apprenticeships.aspx.

The Scottish Government has received no funding for such projects from the European Union.

The government has taken a number of steps to reduce bureaucracy and enable more small and medium enterprises to bid for contracts, for example:

providing full visibility of contract opportunities on the Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) website. During calendar year 2011, 77% of all suppliers awarded contracts through PCS were registered on the site as small and medium enterprises (SMEs);

issuing policy guidance that public bodies public bodies should take steps to ensure that financial requirements (in particular requirements relating to turnover and insurance levels) do not act as a barrier to participation by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs);

producing the Supplier Journey, a comprehensive online guide that:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/Selling/SupplierJourney

explains the process of awarding a public sector contract in straightforward terms;

sets out what buyers expect suppliers to do at each stage in that process;

gives practical information on how to find out about business opportunities, how to bid for business, and what to expect when delivering the contract;

tells suppliers what support is available to help them win business, and what you can do if they are unsuccessful;

reforming and simplifying the pre-qualification process by producing standard pre-qualification templates for use by public bodies;

taking SME impact into account in collaborative procurement strategies e.g. splitting national requirements into specialist or geographical lots and supporting SME consortia wherever possible;

improving the search facility on PCS to include more supplier details, including the SME status of suppliers;

launching new functionality on PCS to allow the advertising of sub-contract opportunities, thereby allowing smaller suppliers to bid for contracts further down the supply chain, and

promoting the involvement of SMEs in public procurement by issuing Six Simple Steps guidance to public bodies.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/1265/0080942.pdf.

The Scottish Government provides funding for the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives. The Centre, as a Directorate of NHS Health Scotland, provides a range of services to promote health, safety and wellbeing in and through the workplace. This includes a network of advisers who can visit premises to offer advice on basic health and safety and on promoting health and wellbeing in the workplace.

The centre operates a free and confidential telephone advisory service which can offer a wider range of advice to employers, employees and healthcare professionals on health, safety, health promotion and occupational health. The advice line has received additional funding from DWP over 2010-13 primarily to improve the reach to small and micro-enterprises. This has been delivered in collaboration with the Scottish Chamber of Commerce.

Following a comprehensive review in 2011, the centre launched a strategy to improve its reach to small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Scottish Government provides the bulk of the funding for the Working Health Services Scotland pilot, which is one of a number of DWP-funded Fit for Work Service pilot programmes. Working Health Services provides a service for people working for small and medium-sized enterprises (fewer than 250 employees), without access to in-house occupational health support and are on sickness absence or at risk of going off sick. A central telephone service provides rapid diagnosis and onward referral to local healthcare services.

Employers are also able to contract with commercial providers of occupational health services.

At the Business in Parliament Conference on 8 June, the First Minister announced that Scottish Enterprise, through the Scottish Investment Bank, had allocated £1 million of funding in 2012-13 to the Revolving Loan Fund. Administered by Prince’s Trust Youth Business Scotland (PTYBS), the Revolving Loan Fund offers access to loan funding of up to £5,000 to young people interested in starting up or growing their own business. For disadvantaged individuals an additional £1,000 grant is available. As well as making the Fund more sustainable in the long-term, it is estimated that the extra money will generate an additional 465 businesses, creating 630 jobs.

The Revolving Loan Fund complements existing start-up support available through Training for Work (self-employment option) and the DWP’s New Enterprise Allowance (NEA). Both programmes are for unemployed people aged over 18 who are interested in starting up their own business.

The Scottish Government welcomes the recently published report from Consumer Focus Scotland, Reaping the Benefits of Renewables - The role of community benefit funds in tackling fuel poverty and energy efficiency, and is committed to working in partnership with them and other stakeholders to deliver best practice in the use of community benefit funds, as recommended in the report.

In addition, through both the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) and the Community Benefit Register, the Scottish Government is promoting the best use of community benefit funds, including the implementation of energy efficiency measures.

As the member will be aware European public procurement rules do not allow public bodies to discriminate in favour of local suppliers. The government is lobbying the European Commission for the rules to be simplified and making the case for public bodies to be allowed to take local economic impact into account when making contract award decisions.

Working within the existing legislative framework the government has taken a number of steps to assist Scottish-based companies compete effectively for its contracts, including:

providing full visibility of contract opportunities on the Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) website. During calendar year 2011, 77% of all suppliers awarded contracts through PCS were registered with a Scottish address;

taking economic impact into account in collaborative procurement strategies e.g. splitting national requirements into specialist or geographical lots wherever possible;

improving the request for quotation facility on PCS to include more supplier details, for example the geographic locations in which a supplier is based and is seeking work;

launching new functionality on PCS to allow the advertising of sub-contract opportunities by primary contractors on major projects;

working with suppliers (through the Supplier Engagement Working Group and the Public Procurement Advisory Group) to improve access to contracts by identifying their concerns and working with them to resolve issues (in particular through the Single Point of Enquiry), and to develop practical measures to make doing business easier, and

publishing an infrastructure investment plan so that our expected capital expenditure is clear to see.

Information on the percentage of single rooms available for use in each hospital is for NHS boards to manage and is not held centrally.

The Single Room Provision Steering Group Report published in December 2008 included information on the number of single rooms in NHSScotland and is available at this website: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/12/04160144/0.