Chamber and committees

The total local government settlement allocations for the current financial year have been allocated in full as part of the overall three-year settlements for 2001-02 to 2003-04. The Minister for Environment and Rural Development announced on 10 May additional financial support of up to £2 million to assist Dumfries and Galloway Council in responding to foot-and-mouth disease. Additional financial support for any new burdens that arise during the settlement period is being discussed on a collective basis with local authorities through CoSLA.

The Scottish Executive has no current plans for the sale and lease back of properties which it owns.

Invitees to these events were not preselected.

An open invitation was sent to various public, private and voluntary bodies in those areas. These organisations were asked to nominate representatives and recommend other local bodies which the Executive could extend an invite to. In this way a range of local interests, including political parties, were represented at each event.

Asking for nominations also allowed the Executive to issue a written invitation and a copy of The Scottish Budget to each nominee prior to the event.

The funding of individual higher education institutions and colleges of further education in Scotland is a matter for their respective funding councils. For 2001-02, grant-in-aid by the Scottish Executive to the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) will amount to almost £660 million. Grant-in-aid to the the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC) for 2001-02 will amount to £410 million.

This will support modest further growth in the higher education sector, increasing places to 120,700 (full-time equivalent), not including newly designated institutions and Open University places in Scotland, and will allow SHEFC to increase on the units of resource for teaching and research by 4%, the first real terms increase in almost 20 years. The Executive's increase in grant-in-aid allocation to SFEFC will support growth in college enrolments to over 460,000.

Details of grant-in-aid allocated to individual institutions are available from the Scottish funding councils for further and higher education.

Ministers are re-imbursed for expenditure incurred in the course of their official duties. Reimbursement is made in accordance with standard Civil Service procedures. These costs are set out in the following table. Other costs such as travel, both within the UK and abroad, are paid direct to suppliers by the Scottish Executive - these costs are excluded from the figures given. The figures also exclude costs reimbursed to ministers when public transport has been used instead of the Government Car Service for home to office travel.

	July 1999 - March 2000*	April 2000 - March 2001*
First Minister
Henry McLeish	£3,429	£3,177
Scottish Ministers
Wendy Alexander	£1,315	£4,336
Jackie Baillie	£1,234	£965
Sarah Boyack	£1,094	£1,131
Susan Deacon	£504	£746
Ross Finnie	£6,527	£4,465
Angus MacKay	£306	£1,322
Tom McCabe	£239	£354
Jack McConnell	£941	£1,005
Jim Wallace	£363	£679
Deputy Scottish Ministers
Rhona Brankin	£1,665	£1,874
Malcolm Chisholm	NIL	NIL
Margaret Curran	NIL	£210
Iain Gray	£311	£158
Lewis Macdonald	NIL	NIL
Alasdair Morrison	£3,941	£2,060
Peter Peacock	£1,101	£2,601
Euan Robson	NIL	NIL
Nicol Stephen	£3,134	£201
Allan Wilson	NIL	£90

Former Holders of Scottish Ministerial Appointments
Donald Dewar	£951	£2,340
Sam Galbraith	£207	£658
John Home-Robertson	£2,306	£2,504
Frank McAveety	£1,313	£900
Tavish Scott	NIL	NIL
Iain Smith	£216	£76

*All amounts have been rounded up or down to the nearest £1.

Notes:

The costs shown include hotel accommodation charges.

Levels of reimbursement are the same as for Scottish Executive staff and are approved annually by the Inland Revenue.

Information on costs reimbursed to the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General can only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The following tables set out the most recent figures available for estimated payments on Public/Private Partnerships and Private Finance Initiative projects for signed deals broken down sector by sector including local authorities. The annual public expenditure required to service these projects and their lifetime costs are matters of commercial confidentiality between the public sector bodies concerned and their contractors, therefore the figures are aggregated.

FE/HE
	£ million
2001-02	4.2
2002-03	4.8
2003-04	4.9
2004-05	4.7
2005-06	4.7

Health
	£ million
2001-02	38
2002-03	64
2003-04	85
2004-05	87
2005-06	87

Justice
	£ million
2001-02	15
2002-03	15
2003-04	16
2004-05	16
2005-06	16

Total Local Authorities
	£ million
2001-02	48.3
2002-03	68.7
2003-04	72.4
2004-05	73.4
2005-06	72.2

National Roads & Transport
	£ million
2001-02	20.4
2002-03	21.3
2003-04	23
2004-05	21.3
2005-06	20.4

Nationalised Industries
	£ million
2001-02	1.3
2002-03	1.3
2003-04	1.4
2004-05	1.4
2005-06	1.5

Social Work
	£ million
2001-02	1.4
2002-03	1.4
2003-04	1.4
2004-05	1.5
2005-06	1.5

Water & Sewerage
	£ million
2001-02	54
2002-03	67.4
2003-04	92.1
2004-05	94.6
2005-06	95.9

The accounts for 2000-01 are currently being audited and, as set out in statute, will be laid before Parliament no later than 31 December 2001. End-year flexibility entitlement is agreed with the Treasury on the basis of estimated outturn.

The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the UK government on a wide range of issues including the Barnett formula.

The development of the proposed Aberdeen western peripheral is being taken forward by Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils in the context of their planned Modern Transport System. As part of its support for that system, the Scottish Executive is extending the Central Scotland Transport Model (now the Transport Model for Scotland) to the north east. This will provide reliable and up to date transport data vital to the assessment of major transport projects. In light of this investment, it would be premature to make a decision on the Aberdeen western peripheral before the Transport Model for Scotland is functional.

The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with Railtrack on a wide range of issues.