Chamber and committees

I have asked Angiolina Foster,the Acting Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her reply is as follows:

The financial impact onhousing associations will depend on their individual circumstances. However, weexpect that the majority of housing associations will be able to absorb the removalof the Section 54 Tax Relief Grant from within their current and future reserves.Where that is not the case, we are working with the sector to identify measuresto ensure that no housing association experiences viability problems as a resultof withdrawal of the grant.

As noted in the Partnership Agreementdocument, as part of our commitment to encourage the active participation of youngpeople we will be developing a national strategy for youth work. We will be workingwith the statutory and voluntary sectors to develop proposals for such a strategyand have commenced preliminary discussion prior to starting main preparatory workat the turn of the year.

Support for local authority youthwork provision is provided through community education Grant Aided Expenditure (GAE).In the current year, Glasgow’s allocation of GAE for community education amounts to£13.103 million, approximately half of which is estimated to be for youth work.As announced in Finance Circular No. 10-2002 (Local Government Financial settlement:2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06) an extra allowance of £5 million has been made availablefor youth work across Scotland from year 2004-05 until 2005-06. Glasgow’s shareof this extra money amounts to £1.04 million.

The Scottish Executive has given local authorities guidance on their duty under the Standards inScotland’s School etc Act 2000 to ensure that annual development plans are preparedfor their schools and that pupils attending the school are given an opportunityto make their views known first. In order to encourage good practice, examples ofhow schools have successfully developed pupil participation are included on theNational Priorities website:

http://www.nationalpriorities.org.uk.

As part of the inspection ofcommunity learning and development, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIE)report on aspects of youth work provision. HMIE reports comment on the quality of the youth work provision and, where necessary, make recommendations on action requiredto be undertaken for improvement.

To assist this process, HMIEpublished How good is our community learning and development? in May 2002.The document is designed to help practitioners and managers in their self-evaluationof community learning and development activities and in exercising their responsibilitiesfor quality assurance. It includes a set of quality indicators, a subset of whichrelate specifically to youth work, suitable for use by providers of community learningand development as well as in external evaluation by HMIE. This set of indicatorsprovides an opportunity to develop and continue a productive partnership to improvethe quality of this important field of education. The document is available at http://www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/publication/cldfull.pdf.

We reflect the articles containedwithin the Convention on the Rights of the Child when taking forward policy andintroducing legislation that has an effect on the lives of children and young people.

The Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Act 2000, which came into force in April 2002, placed a duty on authoritiesto secure a pre-school education place for all eligible children. The duty allowslocal authorities to secure pre‑school education from voluntary or privatepartner providers within the sector and every local authority in Scotland commission’spre-school education places from partners. In July of this year I launched freshguidance to local authorities on Commissioning Pre-school Education Partners. Thiswas in recognition of the importance of partnership arrangements in delivering pre-schooleducation.

The Childcare Strategyaims to provide accessible, affordable, quality child care to support families.The strategy is part of the integrated agendafor the delivery of children's services to which play and play provision make animportant contribution. Under guidance issued in October 1998, all local authorities were requiredto establish a Childcare Partnership, ensuring that they represented a range ofinterests including the voluntary sector. Every local authority in Scotland now hasa Childcare Partnership, and the partnership’s view is taken into account in theprovision of services to meet the aims of the Childcare Strategy.

I have today launched aconsultation on Assessment, Testing and Reporting 3-14 which aims toensure that the quality of information that pupils, parents, teachers andpolicy makers receive will increase through establishing an integratedassessment system which fully supports learning and will:

provide better feedback andguidance on the quality of work, leading to improved achievement, for pupils;

result in clearerinformation and more involvement in their child’s education for parents;

ensure an end toinappropriate assessment by simplifying the assessment system, with supportfrom the National Assessment Bank, and free up time to teach for teachers, and

provide a sharper focus onprogress at local authority and Scottish levels, providing more robust,rigorous and reliable information on national performance for local authoritymanagers and ministers.

Copies of the consultationdocument are available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 29375).

The Tenements (Scotland)Bill will be introduced early in 2004.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Acting Chief Executive, Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

There are some circumstanceswhere lenders require assignation of right to buy (RTB) proceeds to accountsheld with the lenders (often referred to as blocked RTB accounts) andthereafter proceeds are released subject to completion of monitoring processes.

The proceeds of these salesfrom RTB receipts, on release from blocked RTB accounts, are always allocatedaccording to the agreed sharing arrangement. They are used to firstly redeemthe private loan attached to the property sold and thereafter repaid to the localauthority or Scottish Homes or Scottish Executive.

There is no circumstancewhere money held in blocked right to buy accounts is exclusively available toRegistered Social Landlords (RSL) until all their obligations, which are setout in various procedures have been fully complied with by the RSL.