Chamber and committees

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. Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire also offer a variety of training opportunities as part of the Training for Work (TfW) programme. TfW is available on a voluntary basis to those aged 25 and over who have been unemployed for six months or more. It offers short sharp courses relevant to the demands of local employers with the aim of progressing people into sustainable employment, as well as longer courses that can take up to a year. Four hundred and fifty people in Renfrewshire are currently participating in TfW and over 180 former participants have moved into work since April this year. In addition, there are some New Futures Fund projects available in the Renfrewshire Council area.

A number of initiatives are under way, including:Careers Scotland Inclusiveness projectsPre-vocational programmesWork EnablersGet Ready for WorkNew Deal for Young PeopleNew Futures Fund projectsThe Renfrewshire Inclusiveness project, Positive Futures, aims to develop a strategic approach to improving outcomes for a range of young people 16 to 24 with additional support needs. Central to the project is the development of dedicated key-worker support with a strong commitment to the assessment of needs, tracking and sustainability.

This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise.

There is one Careers Scotland Inclusiveness Project covering the Renfrewshire area. It has been allocated £1.2 million over the period April 2001 to March 2004

(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.

Up to the end of June 2002, 2,800 of the 44,300 young people who had gone into jobs from the New Deal for Young People in Scotland, were from Renfrewshire. This represents 6.3% of the Scottish total.

The Executive has no initiatives directed specifically at the Renfrewshire Council area. Over the whole of Scotland, we have taken the following action:(a) On smoking:Following publication of the White Paper Smoking Kills in 1998 in which young people were identified as a priority group for action, Health Education Board for Scotland (HEBS) has been allocated an additional £3.4 million over three years (2001-04) from the Health Improvement Fund to target young people and smoking. This is in addition to their current anti-smoking budget.Since 1997 the HEBS has promoted non-smoking messages to young people, including 12- to 15-year-olds through their highly successful Think About It mass media campaign.In addition, within the schools sector, the 5-14 Health Education Guidelines developed in conjunction with HEBS address the issue of tobacco education, while the Health Promoting Schools approach focuses on the development of smoking policies in local authorities which includes schools.The Argyle and Clyde NHS Board appointed a Tobacco Co-ordinator in February 2000, overseeing a range of cessation services.(b) On teenage pregnancy:A Headline Target was set in the White Paper Towards a Healthier Scotland published in February 1999 of a 20% reduction in the rate of pregnancy among 13- to 15-year-olds for the period 1995-2010.In November 2000, the £3 million Healthy Respect project, one of four National Health Demonstration Projects which were proposed in the White Paper, was launched in Lothian and is still running. It aims to radically transform teenage attitudes to sexual health and sexual relationships, reduce the level of teenage pregnancies and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. The lessons learned will be applied across Scotland.In April 2000 a grant of £150,000 was made to Brook in Scotland (subsequently renamed Caledonia Youth) for start-up costs for four new drop-in centres in Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow and Falkirk. The Executive is also committed to a substantial contribution to running costs. The centre, in Glasgow, was opened by in May 2002 and will be accessible by young people from Renfrewshire.The Scottish Executive has announced its plans to develop a national sexual health strategy for Scotland. One of the strategy's main aims is to tackle the high level of unwanted teenage pregnancies in Scotland. An expert group has been established to assist in the development of the strategy, by harnessing the expertise of respected practitioners at both local and national level.(c) On suicides:On 2 December 2002, the Scottish Executive published a National Strategy and Action Plan to Prevent Suicide in Scotland, which highlights risk factors related to suicide, identifies priority groups (including young people) and sets out appropriate actions at both national and local levels.

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.