Chamber and committees

These high-level objectives havebeen underpinned by specific annual targets set for the agency by ministers. Since2001, particular achievements of the agency include:

Funding the construction of around20,000 affordable homes across Scotland to support regeneration and tackling under-supply issues;

Delivering almost £1 billionof housing investment, which attracted more than £500 million of private sectorfunding;

Funding the installation of around40,000 central heating systems and funding the insulation of over 50,000 homes;

Developing the Scottish HousingQuality Standard as it applies to 650,000 houses in the social housing sector, andworking with social landlords to help them deliver the Standard by the 2015 targetdate;

Helping to deliver the transferof over 100,000 former local authority houses into community ownership, which willlead to over £2 billion of additional housing investment;

Funding local authorities totackle disrepair in the private sector housing stock;

Integrating the Social InclusionPartnerships Funding and Better Neighbourhood Services Fund into a single CommunityRegeneration Fund primarily focussed on Scotland’s 15% most deprived communities;

Assisting local authorities todevelop Regeneration Outcome Agreements which provide the strategy and frameworkfor community regeneration;

Developing and implementing newmechanisms to help with the long-term development of Scotland’s socialeconomy sector;

Supporting local adult literacyand numeracy partnerships to help over 100,000 individuals access adult literacylearning;

Developing and promoting newways to ensure full and meaningful community engagement;

Using its regulatory powers toimprove the quality of housing and homelessness services delivered by local authoritiesand registered social landlords to tenants and others, and ensuring that the RSLsector is well governed and financially viable, and

Improving the quality of thestrategic housing planning process through the on-going development of local housingstrategies.

I am delighted with the contributionthat Communities Scotland has made and continues to make. However, ministers fullyrecognise that addressing long-standing issues of housing quality and housing supply,as well as tackling the problems of communities suffering from multiple deprivation,will require a sustained effort from all of the agencies involved, Communities Scotlandincluded.

The corporate plan for CommunitiesScotland for 2005 to 2008 that was published in April this year sets out the targetsand policy objectives that I have set for the agency for the short, medium and longerterms.

Main national programmes targetedspecifically at young people not in education, employment or training or at riskof becoming NEET are as follows:

Outputs which contribute toprogress are detailed in Scottish Enterprise’s Annual Report.

Outputs which contribute toprogress are detailed in Highlands and Islands Enterprise’s annual report.