Chamber and committees

There is no financial assistance available to homeowners but landlords have powers to take eviction action, where appropriate, against tenants who are drug dealers and/or drug users. Under the Housing (Scotland) Acts 1987 and 1988, public sector landlords and private landlords can apply to the courts for possession of their property where the tenant, or anyone living with the tenant, has caused a nuisance or annoyance to neighbours or has been convicted by a court of immoral or illegal use of the premises. This legislation was strengthened under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 which brought in extended grounds for eviction which allows landlords to repossess a house where criminal conduct has been committed; anti-social behaviour has been committed or is likely to be committed, either in the locality of the tenanted property by the tenant, or someone residing or lodging with him, or by visitors to the property. This enables tougher action to be taken against drug-dealers and other criminals, and facilitates the use of professional witnesses.The forthcoming Housing Bill will seek to introduce Probationary Tenancies on a discretionary basis and to suspend the Right To Buy for anti-social tenants while eviction proceedings are taking place. A £250,000 package of measures has recently been announced which is designed to tackle the problem of nuisance neighbours, including the creation of a Sociable Neighbourhood National Co-ordinator, who will promote good practice across Scotland and work with councils and others to develop successful strategies.

The Minister for Finance and Local Government announced on 7 December that councils are to benefit from record levels of grant support over the next three years, including a 40% increase in capital allocations. These allocations include the extra £70 million to tackle the backlog of repairs and maintenance on local roads and bridges announced by me on 28 September following the Spending Review.

This information is not available. Ministers have set a maximum revenue increase limit for 2001-02, and the actual rate of charge rises for individual customer groups shall be set in the Charges Schemes that the authorities shall send to the Water Industry Commissioner for approval. The appropriate rate of revenue increase from charges for 2002-03 will be part of the Commissioner's advice to Ministers for the next strategic charges review.

Staff of the Scottish Prison Service are civil servants and pensions are not paid from a funded scheme. I regret that information for the Scottish Tourist Board, Area Tourist Boards and Scottish Homes is not held centrally and could not be obtained in the time available. I have asked the Chief Executives to write to you with such information as they may have.

Financial information relating to Non-Departmental Public Bodies is contained in the annual Cabinet Office publication Public Bodies. Copies are available from the Cabinet Office website at www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/quango/index/pubs.htm. The year 2000 edition of the document will be published in December.

The final costs of publication, distribution and launch of the Equality Strategy are likely to be around £22,000.

I am presently considering a programme of school visits and will take Bell Baxter High School into account in that process.

Details of the sums billed by local authorities for non-domestic rates are not held centrally.

NHS Management Executive Letter (2000) 24 issued on 28 April 2000, advised the NHS in Scotland of an increase in the Specialist Registrar (SpR) establishment in oncology. Five additional posts are to be allocated to medical oncology and seven extra posts to clinical oncology.

The Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education (SCPMDE) began recruitment to higher specialist training in medical and clinical oncology, immediately after my announcement of additional funding for 100 extra junior doctors and 10 new consultant posts, in June this year. Three SpR appointments have been made in medical oncology and four in clinical oncology up to 30 September 2000. Further posts will be advertised in November to meet the target of 12 new posts by February 2001.The time taken in filling the new posts is related to the preparatory work needed to increase training capacity and is not dependent on reductions in the number of SpRs in other specialties.

The Executive has no plans directly to introduce performance indicators for local authorities on the collection of non-domestic rates.