Chamber and committees

In the Consultation Paper Better Homes for Scotland's Communities, we explained that it was intended that local authorities would be able to designate pressured areas where there are particular difficulties in meeting the demand for socially rented housing and where these difficulties have been exacerbated by the operation of the right to buy. Our intention is to identify criteria for the designation of pressured areas taking account of the responses to the Consultation Paper and the views of the Right to Buy Working Group which is chaired by my department and includes representatives of a number of relevant organisations.

The Scottish Executive is currently looking at the various quality awards in Scotland as part of our planned 21st Century Government programme.

We do not make such an assessment. Based on local authorities' own actuarial estimates, provision of £27 million for 1999-2000, £38.5 million for 2000-01 and £38.5 million for 2001-02 was made in the Comprehensive Spending Review for the abolition of ACT credits.

Staff employed by The Scottish Office and the Scottish Executive are eligible to be members of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme (PCSPS), which is an unfunded scheme managed by the Cabinet Office. All participating employers are required to make payments to the Cabinet Office in respect of the accruing pension costs of their staff. Although pensions for members of the PCSPS are not funded in advance, the accruing pension costs borne by employers are assessed to be consistent with those which would apply in the private sector, and are therefore influenced by the total effect of the range of factors affecting funded pension schemes, including any effect which the advanced corporation tax changes might have had. However, the managers do not disaggregate the accruing pension charges, and the average contribution charged to employers has remained broadly unchanged since 1996.

We value highly the contribution that the voluntary sector makes to policy development and service delivery. The budget for the voluntary sector's infrastructure, including the networks of Councils for Voluntary Service and Local Volunteer Development Agencies, will increase from £6 million in the current year to £9 million in 2001-02. Ministers have yet to consider the detailed allocation of the increased resources but will make announcements in due course.

There are two main Parliamentary Pension Schemes and they are affected differently by the abolition of advance corporation tax credit for pension funds.

The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body has made arrangements to allow the staff of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body to be members of the Principle Civil Service Pension Scheme. This is a notional pension scheme and is not affected by the abolition of advance corporation tax credits.

The Scottish Parliamentary Pension Scheme was established to make pension provision for Members of the Scottish Parliament. This scheme is affected by the abolition of advance corporation tax credits, and the effect is estimated to be an overall reduction of 0.1% of the total value of the fund. The fund was valued at £1.4 million at 31 March 2000. No forecast of the value of the fund at 31 March 2001 is available.

According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's National Lottery Awards database, the proportion of National Lottery grants in Scotland given to organisations in Fife, broken down by parliamentary constituency, is shown in the table below:

Central Fife	0.3%
Dunfermline East	0.46%
Dunfermline West	0.28%
Kirkcaldy	0.45%
North East Fife	1.21%
Total	2.7%

Cancer is one of three clinical priorities for the NHS in Scotland. The Scottish Executive, in conjunction with the Scottish Cancer Group, has worked in close collaboration with the NHS to develop a coherent programme of linear accelerator refurbishment and replacement. We have already committed £13.2 million from the NHS Capital Modernisation Fund to provide state of the art linear accelerators and treatment planning computers for the delivery of radiotherapy in Scotland's five Cancer Centres. Details of how this is being invested to improve cancer services are set out in my earlier answer to question S1W-8501.

The next and subsequent phases of the ongoing rolling programme are currently being addressed by the Executive's Strategic Review Group which has a remit to determine equipment needs across the NHS in Scotland.

So far as staffing is concerned the annual joint exercise between the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education, has agreed that an additional seven clinical oncology (radiotherapy) Specialist Registrar posts should be created. Full details are set out in my response to question S1W-8965.

I refer you to the answer to question S1W-3771 which confirmed that the Scottish Executive is taking steps to encourage the public sector to use the Constructionline database when sourcing contractors and suppliers of professional services.

The Scottish Executive recently held a series of seminars at which they explained the benefits to public sector organisations, National Health Service Trusts and Further Education Colleges of taking direct line access to the database.

The Ministerial Working Group will meet shortly to begin its consideration of the recommendations of the Kerley Report. At this stage it is not possible to give a firm date by which the working group will have reached its conclusions.