Chamber and committees

Park and ride interchanges are local transport matters and as such are for the Local Authorities in conjunction with Railtrack to develop. The Scottish Executive has committed £90 million under the Public Transport Fund to assist with projects such as these. £350,000 was awarded to Falkirk Council from the Fund for the Council's Railway Station Access Project, which includes the provision of car parking at Falkirk High and Polmont railway stations. This is an issue included in the guidance provided by the Scottish Executive to guide the production of Local Transport Strategies.

The cost of transport for children with special needs is not identified separately in the expenditure returns submitted by local authorities to the Scottish Executive. Total expenditure by each education authority on home to school transport in financial year 1997-98 was given in my answer to your question S1W-4716.

School buses are, for the most part, run by independent operators under contract to local authorities. Information on the cost of running school buses is not identified separately, but total home to school transport expenditure in financial year 1997-98 is shown in the following table. Such expenditure information for the two following years is not yet available. Information on the cost of running mobile libraries is not collected centrally.Current expenditure by education authorities on home to school transport(£000 at outturn prices)

1997-98
Councils
Aberdeen City	2,054
Aberdeenshire	7,681
Angus	1,195
Argyll & Bute	3,353
Clackmannanshire	569
Dumfries & Galloway	2,067
Dundee City	576
East Ayrshire	2,407
East Dunbartonshire	1,416
East Lothian	1,222
East Renfrewshire	1,445
Edinburgh, City of	3,338
Eilean Siar	1,548
Falkirk	1,657
Fife	5,187
Glasgow City	4,423
Highland	6,606
Inverclyde	729
Midlothian	1,041
Moray	1,771
North Ayrshire	2,321
North Lanarkshire	4,188
Orkney Islands	894
Perth & Kinross	3,073
Renfrewshire	2,050
Scottish Borders	2,353
Shetland Islands	1,060
South Ayrshire	1,655
South Lanarkshire	4,989
Stirling	1,419
West Dunbartonshire	1,126
West Lothian	2,241
SCOTLAND

Notes:1. Figures represent net revenue expenditure on home to school transport, covering direct provision (including salaries and wages); fares paid by authorities; contract hire; and other forms of transport.2. As reported by authorities on their Local Financial Returns (LFR 1) for 1997-98.

The reason for detrunking the A98 was given in the consultation document Local Government Reform - Shaping the Trunk Road Network which was published in October 1994. Given the generally local nature of trips on the A98 between Fraserburgh and the A96 at Fochabers, the coastal route was removed from the national trunk road network.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is required to seek open market value for property disposals, including to public sector bodies. Officials from the Scottish Executive and Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd (HIAL) have met their counterparts in MOD's Defence Estates Organisation to secure the continued provision of airport infrastructure for essential air links. The purchase of Stornoway Airport by HIAL represents the best deal achievable and secures the public interest. The transfer cost was met from HIAL's resources in 1999-2000.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Executive.

The Scottish Executive has no plans to seek an independent review of the Larkhall to Milngavie rail route project, which is the responsibility of the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Authority as the public transport body for the area.

The Scottish Executive expect that the implementation of joint ticketing and pricing initiatives will be driven by the commercial acumen of operators and transport strategies of local authorities. Such arrangements should have regard to competition legislation and where necessary guidance should be sought from the competition authorities. Beyond this the Executive will consider the nature and extent of any guidance which may be required to encourage the take up of our proposals for buses in the forthcoming Transport Bill.

In both 1998-1999 and 1999-2000, grants totalling £3.5 million were made available to local authorities for Rural Public Passenger Transport Services and, although these were mainly for rural bus service, local authorities have the flexibility to use the funding to support ferry, air and rail services. On 1 March 2000, I announced that, subject to approval of a Special Grant Report by the Scottish Parliament, the total funding available to local authorities in 2000-01 will be increased by 6% to £3.710 million. The rural transport funding is additional to what local authorities spend on rural bus services as part of their support for bus transport. A research project to evaluate the Rural Transport Funding Package is currently under way and this is due to report in October 2000. This will help the Executive consider the issue and level of funding for rural transport for 2001-02 and beyond.

The Scottish Executive has no information on this matter.