Renfrewshire Council is taking forward a schools Public Private Partnership (PPP) project. In terms of funding support for this project, the council was awarded £245,000 in February 2001 to assist them with the cost of early investigation and feasibility study of a possible future schools PPP development. In December 2001, the council submitted a Outline Business Case in line with Scottish Executive Enterprise Department Circular 8/2001, and in July 2002 they were made an indicative offer of revenue support, capped at £7.45 million per annum over 25 years. This represents some 80% of the capital cost elements in the project. This offer is conditional upon approval of a final business case when the procurement reaches financial close.In terms of other support, the Scottish Executive has taken steps to assist councils undertaking schools PPP projects to become "informed clients". This has taken the form of a series of three seminars on relevant issues, with more planned. Also, face to face training aimed at members of project teams will be rolled out in the New Year.In addition, the Executive has commissioned Partnerships UK to undertake a Key Stage Review of each of the schools PPP projects. This will occur at two stages within the project and is intended to assure both the education authority and the Scottish Executive that the project is sufficiently well prepared at each stage to proceed through the procurement. The "pre Invitation to Negotiate" review for Renfrewshire has already been completed and proved useful in support of the project.

Statistics on the number of children in workless households in Scotland come from the Office for National Statistics' Labour Force Survey (LFS). Disaggregation by local authority is not available at present.Estimates of persons in low income households come from the Department for Work and Pensions' Households Below Average Income (HBAI) analysis. The sample size in HBAI is not large enough to allow analysis below Scotland level.

While it is for NHS boards and trusts to effectively manage local services, the Scottish Executive remains committed to putting the policy frameworks in place and providing the resources to ensure that waiting times are kept to a minimum at each stage of the patient's journey. The National Waiting Times Unit is working with NHSScotland to reduce delays for patients. Since April this year, the unit has funded approximately 50 initiatives across in-patient, out-patient and day case activity to support the drive towards achieving local out-patient and national in-patient/day case targets. To date, the unit has allocated £459,000 to NHS Argyll and Clyde with further funding to be agreed. This initial allocation has facilitated the transfer of 154 patients to the National Waiting Times Centre for cardiology and orthopaedics treatment; the transfer of 72 patients to the private sector for general surgery and ENT treatment, and the recruitment of an orthopaedics consultant who will perform an additional 100 elective operations a year. There are also currently 29 One-Stop Clinics operated by NHS Argyll and Clyde providing services for patients for a wide range of conditions including diabetes, breast cancer and chest pain.

Information on households with children in temporary accommodation has been collected centrally since June 2000. Information is available on the position (numbers and proportions) within each local authority area at the end of June, September, December and March each year since 2000. This information has been published in various Scottish Executive Statistical Bulletins/Statistics Releases, as shown in the following list and are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre:

Period	Table No.	Bulletin Ref. No.	Publication Date	Bib. Number
June 2000-March 2001	22	HSG/2001/4	27-September-2001	16396
June-2001	28	HSG/2001/6	18-December-2001	18220
September-2001	23	HSG/2002/1	26-March-2002	20348
December 01 and March 2002	13	Stats Release	24-September-2002	24382

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-31572 on 27 November 2002. 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.

Mortality rates per 100,000 population from coronary heart disease in the Renfrewshire Council Area 1996-2001:

	Crude Rate Per 100,000 Population
1996	282.8
1997	272.1
1998	257.0
1999	286.1
2000	254.6
2001	242.4

Source: General Register Office for Scotland.Notes:1. Rates are calculated using the Registrar General's annual mid-year estimates of population which are being revised following the 2001 census results. The figures for 2000 and 2001 use provisional revisions that have already been made on this basis. Revisions covering 1982-2000 will be made by end-February 2003, so the rates given here will be subject to revision after this time. 2. The rates given are not age-sex standardised.Representative information on trends in smoking, alcohol misuse and diet for Renfrewshire Council area are not available centrally.

This data is unavailable at regional level. At Scotland level, the percentage of 16- to 19-year-olds not in education, training or employment is 14%. However, this data should be available at local authority level from the boosted annual 2003 Labour Force Survey from which data will be analysed in autumn 2004.

(a) Information on the percentage of young people who have been smokers between the ages of 12 and 15 years in Renfrewshire Council area is not held centrally. Information for Scotland for 1998 and 2000 on the percentage of pupils aged 12-15 years who are or have been smokers is shown in the following table. Information for 1999 and 2001 is not available.Percentage of Pupils Aged 12-15 Years Who Are or Have Been Smokers

	1998	2000
Scotland	32	26

(b) All teenage pregnancy statistics, broken down by both NHS board and council area, are available on the website at:http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/isd/publications/publications.htm.The percentage of young people who have become pregnant between the ages of 13 and 15 years old for Scotland and Renfrewshire council area is shown in the following table:Percentage of Females Aged 13 to 15 Becoming Pregnant

Year ending 31 December
	Scotland	Renfrewshire
1997	0.9	0.9
1998	0.9	0.8
1999	0.8	1.1
2000P	0.8	0.8
2001P	0.7	0.7

^PInformation for 2000 and 2001 is provisional because North Glasgow University Hospitals Trust data are not yet available.(c) There are so few suicides in this age group that the figures expressed as a percentage are very small. The figures in the following tables, obtained from the Registrar General for Scotland, are given as rates per 1,000 of young people in the age group:Suicide and Undetermined Death Rates in Young People Between 12 and 15Renfrewshire

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Suicide	-	-	0.11	-	-
Undetermined	-	-	-	-	-
Total	-	-	-	-	-

Suicide and Undetermined Death Rates in Young People Between 12 and 15Scotland

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Suicide	-	0.02	0.01	-	-
Undetermined	0.02	0.01	0.01	0.02	-
Total	0.02	0.03	0.02	0.02	-

(a) Following publication of the White Paper Smoking Kills in 1998 the Scottish Executive allocated £1 million pounds per year to health boards to provide smoking cessation support to priority groups, pregnant women who smoke, young people and people on low incomes. Additional Health Improvement Funding has also been available for smoking cessation services since 2001. The Argyll and Clyde NHS Board appointed a Tobacco Co-ordinator in February 2000, overseeing a range of cessation services. The total number of clients given support in Paisley over the past two years is 866. Total clients given support in West Renfrewshire and Renfrew is 396. It should be noted that these figures represent the number of people seen for support and not the number of referrals (which is higher).In addition Zyban has been available on prescription since June 2000 and nicotine replacement therapy since in April 2001. (b) The Executive's Plan for Action on alcohol problems, published in January, sets out a range of national and local measures to reduce alcohol-related harm in Scotland. The plan requires Alcohol Action Teams, including the team covering Renfrewshire, to assess needs in their areas and produce local prevention, education and support and treatment strategies to address these by April 2003.(c) There are several food initiatives operating in Renfrewshire which aim to provide access to good quality, low cost fruit and vegetables to the community. These include the Foxbar Healthy Eating Initiative, Fresh Loaf Project, Johnston West Food Co-op and the Renfrewshire Food Federation. (d) The Executive is investing £6 million in Have a Heart Paisley, one of the four national demonstration projects, to reduce the impact of coronary heart disease in the population of Paisley and so suggest action than can be implemented widely to deliver similar benefits throughout Scotland as a whole. The project is taking forward wide ranging activities in many different settings across Paisley, with a particular focus on reducing health inequalities.

Since 1997, older people on low incomes in Renfrewshire have benefited from the combined effect of UK Government increases to the Basic State Retirement Pension, the introduction of the Minimum Income Guarantee, and the Winter Fuel Payment. In addition, a range of initiatives will help with levels of disposable income, including free off-peak bus travel, the Warm Deal, and the central heating programme, which is saving an average of £550 on bills.