- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 4 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many families in the Renfrewshire Council area have benefited from Sure Start Scotland, and in what ways, and how much of that organisation's #42 million funding was allocated to projects in the area.
Answer
To date £61 million has been allocated to local authorities in Scotland to implement the Sure Start Scotland programme. Of that total, Renfrewshire Council has received £2.476 million. It has used the money to extend existing provision, such as expansion of all day care resources and the extension of the childminding service. It has also created new services previously not available within the council's area such as outreach support and support to ethnic minority families.A recent national mapping exercise found that Sure Start Scotland has offered support to over 15,000 additional children and 6,000 parents in 2000-01. However, it is not possible to break this down to local authority level as raw data would not be of sufficient quality and completeness to support analysis or to allow conclusions to be drawn or comparisons with other data to be made. The figures cover a wide range of provision which vary in intensity from one-off interventions to sustained support over a long period.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 3 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how the (a) #175 million for 79 projects from the Scottish Public Transport Fund, (b) #20 million to local authorities for road and bridge repairs and (c) #680 million for improvements to motorways and trunk road network to 2004 will be allocated and how much of these has been, or will be, allocated to the Renfrewshire Council area.
Answer
The funding of projects from the Public Transport Fund is set out in the regional leaflets associated with the Scottish Executive transport delivery report, Scotland's Transport: Delivering Improvements published in March 2002. Awards to a further 23 projects from the final round of the Public Transport Fund totalling £59 million were announced on 14 November 2002. A total of £1.835 million has been allocated to Renfrewshire.Funding for local roads and bridges is a matter for local authorities. Of the £20 million allocation made by the Scottish Executive, Renfrewshire Council was awarded £476,000.Spending plans for the motorways and trunk road programme are published in Building a Better Scotland and Scotland's Draft Budget. However, it is a national programme where breakdown by local authority area would not normally be appropriate.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 15 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Margaret Curran on 3 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much of the #238/248/248 million to be invested through the Communities Scotland development programme, as referred to in Building a Better Scotland: Spending Proposals 2003-06: What the money buys, will be spent in each year in Paisley North.
Answer
I expect to consider Communities Scotland's proposed development funding programme for 200-04 in February 2003, following which details will be published. The forward programme in 2004-05 and 2005-06 remains subject to ministerial approval.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Mary Mulligan on 3 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much of the #100 million over four years in the Health Improvement Fund will be allocated to Argyll and Clyde NHS Board and on what projects any such funds will be used.
Answer
Argyll and Clyde NHS Board will receive £5.324 million from the Health Improvement Fund for the period 2000-01 to 2003-04. Full details about how the board is utilising its share of the fund are given in the 2001 Investment Report
Putting the Pieces in Place, published earlier this year and
available from the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 19606) or from the Scottish Executive website at:
www.scotland.gov.uk.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Frank McAveety on 3 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much of the #250 million for free personal and nursing care was allocated to Renfrewshire Council.
Answer
In the current financial year, from 1 July 2002 to 31 March 2003, Renfrewshire Council received £3.082 million from the overall allocation of £107 million. The allocation to each local authority for 2003-04 will be announced in due course.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Iain Gray on 3 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much the Scottish Further Education Funding Council allocated to the (a) Reid Kerr Further Education College and (b) University of Paisley in each year since 1996.
Answer
(a) The Scottish Further Education Funding Council has been responsible for allocating funds to further education colleges since 1 July 1999, when it took over that responsibility from the Scottish Office Education and Industry Department. The initial annual allocations to Reid Kerr College were as follows:
| Year | £ million |
| 1996-97 | 8.2 |
| 1997-98 | 8.2 |
| 1998-99 | 7.7 |
| 1999-2000 | 8.3 |
| 2000-01 | 9.3 |
| 2001-02 | 10.4 |
| 2002-03 | 11.0 |
Note:These figures do not include bursary payments.(b) The Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) is responsible for funding higher education institutions. Since 1996, the council has allocated the following amounts to the University of Paisley:
| Year | £ million |
| 1996-97 | 22.1 |
| 1997-98 | 23.1 |
| 1998-99 | 22.0 |
| 1999-2000 | 26.3 |
| 2000-01 | 25.0 |
| 2001-02 | 26.8 |
| 2002-03* | 26.7 |
Note:*This figure is estimated.In recent years the core funding for teaching and research at the University of Paisley has increased steadily. This full allocation figures includes additional funding announcements which are offered throughout the year for various initiatives.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 3 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much of the #17.1 million allocated for mental health services will be given to Argyll and Clyde NHS Board and what instructions the Executive has issued about the use of such funds.
Answer
No instructions have yet been issued about the allocation of the resources estimated to be required for the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill currently before the Parliament, if that is the context of this question. The Financial Memorandum accompanying the bill estimated annual costs for the Scottish Executive and local authorities from 2004-05 as totalling £17.1 million, with a further £6 million per annum for NHS Scotland to be met from the substantial funding increases already announced.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Iain Gray on 3 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much of the #108 million over three years for higher education has been, or will be, given to the Renfrewshire Council area and how the University of Paisley will use any such funds.
Answer
The allocation of this funding is a matter for the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. Details of the full amounts offered to the University of Paisley have been provided to the member in the answer given to question S1W-31837 today. 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/webapp/search_wa.Higher education institutions are autonomous bodies and it is for them to decide how these funds are used.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Iain Gray on 2 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what action has been taken to reduce the gap in unemployment rates between the worst areas in the Renfrewshire Council area and the average rate of unemployment for Scotland as a whole and what the reduction in this gap has been in each year since 1996.
Answer
Employment policy is reserved to the UK Government which takes the lead on funding and delivery of the New Deal. In Scotland it does this in partnership with the Scottish Executive and contributing Scottish organisations.The whole range of New Deal programmes are available to all unemployed working age people in the Renfrewshire Council area who meet the qualification criteria. The Scottish Executive's Training for Work programme is also available on a voluntary basis to those aged 25 and over who have been unemployed for six months or more. In addition, there are some New Futures Fund projects available in the Renfrewshire Council area. The worst performing 10% of wards in Renfrewshire between 1996 and 2001 consist each year of four of the following six wards: Ferguslie, St James, Shortroods, Sandyford, Foxbar and Millarston. All of these wards form part of the Paisley Social Inclusion Partnership - Training for Work allows early entry for those clients resident in a social inclusion partnership. The following table compares Average Residence Based Claimant Count Unemployment Rates for Scotland and the worst 10% of wards in Renfrewshire (detailed above). It can be seen that overall the percentage point gap between the annual average residence-based claimant count rates for Scotland and the worst 10% of wards in Renfrewshire has been reduced from 10.7 in 1996 to 6.5 in 2001.
| Year | 1. Scotland | 2. Worst 10% of Renfrewshire Wards* | % Point Difference Between 1 and 2 |
| 1996 | 7.6 | 18.3 | 10.7 |
| 1997 | 6.3 | 16.1 | 9.8 |
| 1998 | 5.7 | 15.7 | 10.0 |
| 1999 | 5.3 | 14.4 | 9.1 |
| 2000 | 4.9 | 12.6 | 7.7 |
| 2001 | 4.3 | 10.8 | 6.5 |
Note:*All the rates in the table will be subject to revisions in 2003. This is because they are dependent on information from mid-year population estimates and the Labour Force Survey. Revised mid-year population estimates will become available from analysis of the 2001 census and the Labour Force Survey will then be regrossed. This will give new estimates of economic activity.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Iain Gray on 2 December 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding was allocated to the Renfrewshire Council area as a result of the creation of Careers Scotland in each year from its inception and what such funding was spent on.
Answer
On the establishment of Careers Scotland, the Executive made available to Scottish Enterprise (SEn) and Highlands and Islands Enterprise funding it had previously directed at a range of conjoining agencies. In the SEn area, this amounted to a total of some £30 million. The proportion of that total devoted to the Renfrewshire Council area and the manner in which it has been deployed are operational matters for Scottish Enterprise. That said, Careers Scotland's delivery is shaped by the targets the Executive has set. These address our economic development, social inclusion and education priorities and cover:increasing the number of disadvantaged young people continuing in post-compulsory education or training;increasing the proportion of school-leavers will a positive approach to the world of work;increasing the number of disengaged adults actively engaged in learning and training, andreducing the number of young people not in education, employment or training.
