Chamber and committees

The decision was takento introduce special commissioning arrangements for the south of Scotland in recognition of the sizable development challenges of the area, its trackrecord in making value-added and effective use of Structural Funds in the past andits ambitions in its Competitiveness Strategy. To take forward this arrangement,we will commission one of the two local authorities in the South of Scotland tooperate a global grants scheme under the terms of European regulations. The contractwill last for three years in the first instance.

Scotland will receive some £540.2 million of EuropeanStructural Funds over the new 7 year programme period (assuming an exchange rateof €1.45 to £1). Approximately £35.26 million has been allocatedto Priority 4 (Rural Development) of the 2007-13 Lowlands and Uplands Scotland ERDF programme.

Funding beyond 2013cannot be estimated at this stage.

Data about injuryroad accidents are collected by the police and reported to the ScottishGovernment using the Stats 19 statistical report form. These returns cover onlyaccidents, in which one or more people are injured, which become known to thepolice: they do not cover accidents of which the police are unaware becausethey were not reported by the public.

Most of theinformation which has been requested can be obtained from Road Accidents Scotland2005, which was published by the Scottish Government in November 2006, copiesof which are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib.number 41118). In that publication, table 23 provides the numbers ofpedestrians who were killed and injured in each year from 1995 to 2005,inclusive, and Table 26 gives the numbers of motorists (drivers or riders ofmotor vehicles) who were killed and injured in each year from 2001 to 2005,inclusive. It should be noted that, for technical reasons, the table’s category whichcovers certain other modes of motor transport actually includes a fewcasualties who were using some non-motorised forms of transport such ashorse-drawn vehicles (as is explained in one of the footnotes to table 26). Asa result, the total number of drivers or riders using all forms of motortransport also includes a small number of such people.

Figures for thenumbers of motorists killed and injured in each year from 1996 to 2000inclusive are available from table 30 of Road Accidents Scotland 2000 (Bib.number 17733), which gives figures for 1998, 1999 and 2000 and table 30 of RoadAccidents Scotland 1998 (Bib. number 11551), which gives figures for 1996, 1997and 1998.

The table belowgives figures for 2006 which are on the same basis as those for 2005 andearlier years which appear in Road Accidents Scotland 2005 (those forpedestrians supersede the provisional figures which were published in June in table6 of Key 2006 Road Accident Statistics).

Reported Casualtiesin Road Accidents in Scotland in 2006

Type of Road User	Severity of Injury
	Killed	Killed and Seriously Injured	All Severities
Motorists (i.e. drivers and riders of motor vehicles - as in Table 26 of Road Accidents Scotland 2005)	184	1,404	8,696
Pedestrians (as in Table 23 of Road Accidents Scotland 2005)	61	743	2,836

 

The ScottishGovernment aims to publish its 10 year road safety strategy in Spring 2008.

Details ofEuropean Structural Funds received by Fife Council in each year between 2000-06can be found in the following table.

Figures for1997-99 are only available for the period as a whole, not individual years, thegrant awarded was £10,715,153 and the grant allocated was £8,812,288.

The figures from1997 to 1999 do not include LEADERII Programme information. This programme was delivered through enterprisenetworks and no figures are available at local authority level.

Year	Grant Awarded	Grant Allocated
2006	£2,905,362	£2,582,017
2005	£6,825,879	£4,677,867
2004	£6,573,102	£5,525,043
2003	£3,729,457	£3,522,742
2002	£4,443,026	£3,770,755
2001	£4,996,381	£3,955,262
2000	£5,074,705	£4,277,917

 

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-3680 on 13 September 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The estimated annualcost of extending support for Pass Plus across Scotland, on a similar basis to the recent pilot scheme, would be a maximum of £3.3million per annum.

Details ofEuropean Structural Funds received by Perth and KinrossCouncil in each year between 2000 and 2006 can be found in the following table.Figures for 1997-99 are only available for the period as a whole, notindividual years. The grant awarded was £223,252 and the grant allocated was£204,289.

Year	Grant Awarded	Grant Allocated
2006	£182,112	£752
2005	£201,261	£87,683
2004	£259,039	£214,582
2003	£225,279	£166,341
2002	£329,888	£244,860
2001	£136,361	£137,245
2000	£291,400	£221,299

 

Details of EuropeanStructural Funds received by Clackmannanshire Council in each year between 2000-06can be found in the attached table. Figures for 1997-99 are only available for theperiod as a whole, the grant awarded was £1,677,256 and the grant allocated was£1,444,588.

Year	Grant Awarded	Grant Allocated
2006	£462,164	£464,872
2005	£464,434	£414,536
2004	£736,992	£712,679
2003	£915,883	£887,129
2002	£2,299,910	£1,812,003
2001	£855,124	£695,299
2000	£1,215,871	£822,865

 

In 2000 the Scottish Government set targets for reductions in road casualties by 2010. Thetargets are, compared with the average for the years 1994 to 1998:

a 40% reductionin the number of people killed or seriously injured;

a 50% reductionin the number of children killed or seriously injured, and

a 10% reductionin the slight casualty rate, expressed as the number of people slightly injuredper 100 million vehicle kilometres.

There are noplans to set annual targets for road casualty reductions, because assessmentover a 10 year period provides a more meaningful picture of trends, whileannual fluctuations can be misleading.

The Scottish Governmentintends to engage with the insurance industry on these matters as part of the developmentof the 10 year road safety strategy for Scotland.