Chamber and committees

There is extensive engagement between national and local government on the impact of budget changes, in line with the principles in the concordat. Supporting that engagement, a range of information is published on the budgets set by local authorities over time and on the services they deliver. This includes, for example, the annual publication of local government financial statistics, annual reports on single outcome agreements as signed by community planning partnerships (which include both councils and the NHS in each area), and formal inspection and audit reports.

NHS boards submit local delivery plans (LDP) to the Scottish Government Health Directorate (SGHD) annually which are subsequently signed off by SGHD to ensure that appropriate service delivery and financial plans are in place each year. Monitoring of the plans takes place locally within each board at public board meetings and in addition SGHD carries out annual reviews, also in public, to assess against LDP progress. When boards have major service change proposals a robust process of consultation and independent scrutiny is undertaken.

The Scottish Investment Bank has no full-time equivalent employees as of 1 July 2010. The Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise have formed a joint project team to develop the Scottish Investment Bank which has until now been concentrating on the development of a new loan fund. The longer term staffing arrangements for the Scottish Investment Bank have yet to be determined

The Scottish Investment Bank Ltd has been incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Scottish Enterprise. As initially constituted, the Scottish Investment Bank would not need to be registered with any regulatory bodies. We are, however, keeping this under review as the work to develop it progresses.

There have never been any plans for the Scottish Investment Bank to deliver grants but we are working to have a new loan fund open for business by the end of this year. In the meantime, Scottish Enterprise continues to make investments in innovative, high growth potential Scottish companies through its existing equity-based funds which will also form part of the Scottish Investment Bank.

Ministers will continue to encourage institutions to look critically at the scope for efficiencies and other savings, whether through collaboration or merger or in other ways. Ministers engage closely with colleges and have a keen interest in all such initiatives. Their engagement with colleges sits alongside the statutory responsibility of the Scottish Funding Council for the delivery of a coherent system of higher and further education. Like all other non-departmental public bodies, the funding council is expected to secure the best value from the resources at its disposal.

The Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, both of which were sponsored by the Culture, External Affairs and Tourism Directorate, were wound up on 1 July 2010. A further six bodies will be wound up on 1 August 2010. These are the Advisory Committee on Sites of Special Scientific Interest and the Deer Commission (both sponsored by the Rural and Environment Directorate); the Building Standards Advisory Committee (Built Environment Directorate); the Historic Environment Advisory Council (Historic Scotland); the Scottish Industrial Development Board (Business Directorate) and the Scottish Records Advisory Council (Culture, External Affairs and Tourism Directorate).

Further information about public bodies which have been wound up or merged as part of the government''s on-going simplification programme is available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/simplification-programme/SimplificationTracker

The Borders railway line will be designed, built, financed and maintained by a newly created, Transport Scotland-backed company, using a design, build, finance and maintenance contract and will use the Scottish Government''s non-profit distributing procurement model as developed by the Scottish Futures Trust.

Compulsory purchase orders relating to the Borders railway project as authorised by the Waverley Railway (Scotland) Act 2006 have been issued. A final tranche of compulsory purchase orders relating to land/access rights required to maintain the railway will be issued once the design has been finalised though the procurement process.

The income received by the core Scottish Executive in 2009-10 was £8.9 million.

The scope for increased revenues is kept under review.

Concessionary travel remains a priority for the Scottish Government. We have taken steps in the current financial year to support the efficiency and sustainability of the Scotland-wide free bus travel scheme for older and disabled people, through a package of reforms agreed with the bus industry following the publication of the review of the scheme, and the scheme will also be extended to injured service veterans from April 2011.

Ministers will bring forward a draft Budget for 2011-12 in November, once the outcome of the UK Comprehensive Spending Review is known, in the normal way.