Chamber and committees

As a result of the spending review, the funding available to support youth work and youthparticipation and engagement at national level totals £5.637 million for 2008-11(£1.868 million/£1.868 million/£1.901 million per annum). This will be used tobuild on progress made during the Youth Work Strategy year of action and tosupport young people’s participation and engagement.

Additionally, in2007-08, support for local youth work projects and partnerships was channelledthrough the youth work strategy’s Youth Opportunities Fund. For future years,this funding will be included within the overall local government financesettlement.

I refer themember to the answer to question S3W-5903 on 7 November 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can befound at:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

We have offered fundingto Project Scotland in 2008-09 of £1.4 million to ensure thatall current commitments to those seeking placements under its current programmecan be fulfilled.

We are appreciativeof the benefits that Project Scotland has generated in raising the profile of volunteeringamong young people and for the opportunities it has offered to individuals who participatedin the programme. However, we have decided that our approach should be to facilitatevolunteering opportunities for as many people as possible, of all ages and backgrounds,using a wide range of providers.

The Scottish Governmentwill be providing local government in Scotland with recordlevels of funding over the period covered by the spending review 2008-11. The vastmajority of the funding, including the additional support fund, will be providedby means of a block grant. It is the responsibility of each local authority to allocatethe total financial resources available to it on the basis of local needs and prioritieshaving first fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of nationaland local priorities including the Scottish Government’s key strategic objectivesand manifesto commitments. The Scottish Government is working with local governmenton a new performance reporting system which will provide regular reports on theprogress made in achieving the national outcomes, which are underpinned by specificindicators.

The ScottishGovernment has convened a group of stakeholders, including representatives fromRNIB, to consider the recommendations and implementation of the Books forAll report produced by the Centre for Communication Aids for Language andLearning in April 2007. The group has met twice and will do so again in January2008. Work to date includes discussions with Learning and Teaching Scotland toenable materials to be shared through GLOW and correspondence with theCopyright Licensing Agency to extend the schools copyright licence for allprint disabled pupils.

The resourcesmade available to local authorities to support the implementation of theEducation (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 in each year since implementation, broken down by localauthority, is provided in the following table.

Education Authority	Financial Year
	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Aberdeen City	£356,417	£468,969	£468,969
Aberdeenshire	£454,759	£598,367	£598,367
Angus	£198,057	£260,601	£260,601
Argyll and Bute	£163,033	£214,517	£214,517
Clackmannanshire	£96,499	£126,973	£126,973
Dumfries and Galloway	£266,571	£350,751	£350,751
Dundee City	£263,356	£346,521	£346,521
East Ayrshire	£230,483	£303,267	£303,267
East Dunbartonshire	£215,951	£284,146	£284,146
East Lothian	£176,802	£232,634	£232,634
East Renfrewshire	£185,625	£244,243	£244,243
Edinburgh, City of	£746,520	£982,263	£982,263
Eilean Siar	£46,848	£61,642	£61,642
Falkirk	£275,685	£362,743	£362,743
Fife	£670,221	£881,870	£881,870
Glasgow City	£1,060,890	£1,395,908	£1,395,908
Highland	£391,149	£514,670	£514,670
Inverclyde	£160,383	£211,030	£211,030
Midlothian	£162,578	£213,919	£213,919
Moray	£166,616	£219,232	£219,232
North Ayrshire	£262,378	£345,234	£345,234
North Lanarkshire	£640,101	£842,238	£842,238
Orkney Islands	£36,550	£48,093	£48,093
Perth and Kinross	£246,645	£324,533	£324,533
Renfrewshire	£326,048	£429,010	£429,010
Scottish Borders	£192,175	£252,862	£252,862
Shetland Islands	£45,004	£59,216	£59,216
South Ayrshire	£197,148	£259,405	£259,405
South Lanarkshire	£584,234	£768,728	£768,728
Stirling	£166,239	£218,736	£218,736
West Dunbartonshire	£183,696	£241,705	£241,705
West Lothian	£331,338	£435,971	£435,971
Total	£9,500,000	£12,500,000	£12,500,000

 

Yes. With effect from2008-09 the funding currently provided by the Bus Route Development Grant will besubsumed within the local government finance settlement and will be available tolocal authorities to support new bus services in their area.

There are variousfunding routes available to public sector organisations for major capital projects,including direct capital allocations from the Scottish Budget, the prudential borrowingregime for local authorities, and various forms of partnership delivery with theprivate sector. The Scottish Government is presently developing the Scottish FuturesTrust initiative, which will deliver better, more efficient infrastructure for taxpayers.

The Scottish Governmentis developing an Early Years Strategy that will set the long-term policy directionfor pre-birth to eight years. It is likely that, within that process, we will beexamining strategic issues concerning play.

We are not, however,limiting our approach to play to the early years and will consider whether furtherwork is required once the early years strategy is complete.

The passage of the Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006 was the first step in amodernisation process aimed at creating a more efficient, inclusive andsustainable planning system that is fully fit for purpose. Immediate prioritiesare now focussed on implementing the act and realising a change in cultureamong planning professionals and other stakeholders in the planning system.

While some elements have already been commenced, forexample on the National Planning Framework, Marine Fish Farming and BusinessImprovement Districts, the main elements on Development Planning andDevelopment Management are likely to be commenced around the end of 2008. Thisis because secondary legislation is required, on which we are due to consultshortly.

There is a table that can be accessed on the ScottishGovernment website which gives the list of what has commenced and theimplementation timetable:

Commencements:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/15130743/0

Implementation Timetable:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/06/19143600/0