Chamber and committees

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

Communities Scotland published its most recent inspection report on Wishawand District Housing Association in March 2005.

At that time, CommunitiesScotland’s inspectors awarded the Association the following grades for its performanceas a landlord:

Overall Performance	B	Wishaw and District is a good performer with many strengths and some areas where improvement is needed. The prospects for improvement overall are promising.
Governance and Financial Management	C	Wishaw and District is a fair performer in governance and financial management with some strengths and significant areas where improvement is needed. The prospects for improvement in governance and financial management are uncertain.
Housing Management	B	Wishaw and District delivers a good housing management service with many strengths and some areas where improvement is needed. The prospects for improvement in housing management are promising.
Property Management	B	Wishaw and District delivers a good property management service with many strengths and some areas where improvement is needed. The prospects for improvement in property management are promising.
Property Development	B	Wishaw and District delivers a good property development service with many strengths and some areas where improvement is needed. The prospects for improvement in property development are promising

 

Wishaw and Districtwas required to submit an improvement plan in relation to its governance and financialmanagement, following the inspection. Progress against its improvement plan wasconfirmed as satisfactory in June 2007.

Referrals to one ofScotland’s five regional wheelchair centres are, in most cases, made by a GP,consultant or occupational therapist. Details of referrals will include thenature and level of the patient’s disability and/or medical condition,lifestyle and needs. Where they will use the wheelchair and their ability tooperate particular types of wheelchairs will also be taken into consideration.

Wheelchair assessments are carried out by a qualifiedmedical professional. The process may involve a rehabilitation engineerresponsible for how the wheelchair works, its dimensions, functionality and anyadjustments, features or fixtures it needs. This includes special posturalseating. Where necessary, a specialist team can provide assessments forequipment for people with severe physical disabilities, including musculardisease, who cannot use standard wheelchairs or controls.

The assessment may include other professionals acrosshealth, education and social services. This is especially important if thewheelchair is for a child who will have development needs. All the situationsin which a wheelchair may be used, including school, using transport and socialactivities, will be part of the assessment. Parents and carers should also bepart of the process and their opinions and views considered.

As aperson's needs change, the wheelchair service will review their requirements.This can include, for example, changing from a manual to a powered wheelchairor carrying out adaptations to an existing chair.

Willie HaugheyOBE is a member of the board of Scottish Enterprise Glasgow. Any remuneration,including expenses, he receives is an operational matter for ScottishEnterprise. I shall ask the Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise to write toyou to detail this.

No. The role of theHousing Supply Task Force is to increase housing supply by tackling the obstacles,such as land supply and planning issues, that have been hampering the delivery ofmore housing of all types. A discussion paper will be published later in the autumnto look at the future role and functioning of the social rented sector. This willbe the place to consider and take stakeholders’ views on issues around the leveland cost of private finance for registered social landlords.

The Standards Commissionworks within an agreed framework and has a set of key objectives and performancetargets relating to those objectives (which are set out in their corporate and businessplans and are approved by ministers).

Performance againstthese targets is reported quarterly and reviewed by the Scottish Government.

Plans are currentlybeing developed for evaluation of the strands of summary justice reform for whichqualitative data will be necessary. This includes the provision of signing servicesto the public. The reforms to summary justice will require time to bed in and forthis reason results from the evaluation are expected to become available in 2009.

Willie Haughey OBEdoes not sit on any Executive agency or non-departmental public body boards. Heis, however, the chair of the Scottish Enterprise Careers Scotland Advisory Board. This is a board internal to ScottishEnterprise to give advice on the operation of Careers Scotland within the ScottishEnterprise area. He is also a member of the Smith Group, which works withministers on giving direction for Scottish Government policies on young people.Neither of these two appointments is remunerated.

I refer the memberto the question S3W-2952 on 14 August 2007. All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website the search facilityfor which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Threeapplications were called-in by Scottish ministers in 2005 and none in 2006.

The type of recyclingservice provided in any given area is the responsibility of the local authority.This allows variation in housing types and other demographic factors to be takeninto account.

There is a standardapproach to waste awareness campaigns in Scotland developed by the Scottish Waste Awareness Group (SWAG) and used by all 32local authorities. SWAG has also developed standard terminology and signage forRecycling Centres and Recycling Points.

I plan to hold a WasteSummit later this year to discuss the way forward on waste management and recycling.