Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities through Private Sector Housing Grant to help meet the cost of priority house condition works. In 2008-09, Glasgow City Council received £10.66 million out of a national budget of £67 million. Glasgow City Council also received £83 milllion Housing Association Grant in 2008-09 to help meet the city''s housing needs. The council''s allocation has been maintained against tight funding pressures in 2008-09. It is for the council to decide how these resources are best allocated to address the housing needs of the city.

The Scottish Government is aware of the issues in Govanhill and is engaged in discussions with Glasgow City Council and Govanhill Housing Association to try to help find solutions.

Local authorities have powers to deal with the three issues of overcrowding, houses in multiple occupation and landlord registration.

The statutory definition of overcrowding is contained in Part VII of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987. Local authorities have various powers and duties in relation to overcrowded houses and their occupants, including carrying out inspections to identify overcrowded houses and taking levels of overcrowding into account in the preparation of local housing strategies.

Where a house is the only or principal residence of three or more people, who are members of more than two families, and it is not specifically exempted by legislation, it is a house in multiple occupation (HMO). The owner of an HMO is required to obtain a licence from the local authority. The licence will specify conditions for the operation of the premises, including the maximum number of occupants. Local authorities have a responsibility to identify unlicensed HMOs and powers to take enforcement action where HMOs are operating without a licence or there is a breach of licensing conditions.

All private landlords are required to register with the local authorities within whose areas they let houses. A local authority will only register a landlord if they consider that person to be fit and proper to act as such. It is a criminal offence to let houses without being registered. Local authorities undertake a range of activities to identify unregistered landlords and have a range of enforcement powers to use against them.

The Scottish Government continues to work with all local authorities to ensure that they make full use of their existing powers.

Local authorities will have new powers under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 to issue maintenance orders in certain circumstances. These will require owners to prepare a maintenance plan to secure the maintenance of the property to a reasonable standard. Where an owner fails to implement the plan the local authority will be able to take any action necessary to secure the implementation of that plan. This would include enforcing a plan where an owner is unwilling to pay for his or her responsibilities under that plan.

Local authorities will also have new powers to pay a missing share into a maintenance account on behalf of an owner who is unable to pay, it is unreasonable to expect them to pay, or they cannot be found. This provision does not extend to paying shares on behalf of owners who are unwilling to pay. But owners already have recourse through the courts to pursue other non-paying owners.

The National Residential Child Care Initiative aims to report to ministers and to COSLA in autumn 2009.

This information is not held centrally.

The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) are currently looking at this issue. This in turn has led the Scottish Command and Control User Group to set up a small working group, under the Deputy Project Manager of the National Command and Control Project, to prepare a National Standard for Incident Recording. This will incorporate the definition of an incident and set out a common minimum recording standard.

In relation to the recording of crimes and offences, action has already been taken to improve consistency in the way crimes are recorded in Scotland. The Scottish Crime Recording Standard (SCRS) was introduced throughout all Scottish Police Forces on 1 April 2004. The main aim of this was to provide a more victim orientated approach that ensured uniformity in crime recording standards throughout Scotland. The list of crime codes used to record crimes is consistent across all police forces in Scotland, and allows Scotland-level statistics to be created. This ultimately ensures a greater degree of comparability between forces than there was previously.

The Scottish Crime Registrars Group (SCRG), created to oversee change in all forces, has helped achieve a more standardised approach to recording. The group consists of the eight police force crime registrars, as well as representatives from British Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence Police and the Justice Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government. The group meets every three months to review, maintain and improve the SCRS and its use and implementation.

The Scottish Government continually strives to improve the way in which crimes and offences are recorded in Scotland, and will work with all police forces across Scotland, the SCRG and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to ensure that the rules in place ensure as much consistency and uniformity as possible.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-18137 on 2 December 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Between 2004 until 2007 the Scottish Government provided Guide Dogs for the Blind £225,000 to develop a rehabilitation course in Scotland. I understand that Guide Dogs for the Blind have reached an agreement with Glasgow Caledonian University to run a two year training course for a class size of up to 15 students.

The Scottish Funding Council will provide a block grant to Glasgow Caledonian University and funding for this course will be met from the block grant.

It is not for the Scottish Government to instruct either the Scottish Funding Council or Glasgow Caledonian University on which courses the block grant should fund.

SIGN Guideline 108, on the management of patients with stroke or TIA: assessment, investigation, immediate management and secondary prevention, published on 16 December 2008 deals with the early management of stroke or TIA, and focuses on aspects of immediate management, such as early assessment and imaging, thrombolysis and access to a stroke unit. It includes guidance on vision assessment immediately after stroke. NHS Quality Improvement Scotland is currently consulting on bringing its clinical standards for stroke services into line with SIGN guideline 108.

We are also in the process of revising our CHD and stroke strategy, and received a number of consultation comments dealing with sensory impairments. There has been a particular emphasis on all aspects of rehabilitation following stroke, and the services people need to support them through the process of recovery once they are back in the community. We are considering how best to reflect these concerns in the revised strategy, which is due for publication in early this year.

SIGN Guideline 64, on stroke rehabilitation, prevention and management of complications, and discharge planning, is being updated and is due to be published in November 2009. Guidance on vision rehabilitation is expected to be included and the evidence is currently being considered by the guideline development group.

The revision of SIGN Guideline 46, on the early management of head injury, which is expected to be published in May 2009, does not include guidance on vision rehabilitation. A proposal for a SIGN guideline on rehabilitation after head injury has been accepted, but SIGN has not allocated a start date yet.

Every journey has at least either a day return or period return as well as a single fare depending on the nature of the journey and typical journey pattern. There are no plans to change this general arrangement.