Chamber and committees

Both the Scottish Government Parole Unit and Scottish local authorities are responsible for the allocation of funds for secure units.

Information on the allocation of funds by local authorities to secure units is collected by central government on a financial year basis as part of the Local Financial Return. The amounts spent by local authorities in Scotland on Secure Care accommodation are £22,946,000 in 2006-07, £22,074,000 in 2007-08, £20,630,000 in 2008-09 and £24,703,000 in 2009-2010.

Information on local authority spend on secure units in the financial year 2010-11 will be published early in 2012.

The amount spent by the Scottish Government Parole Unit on Secure Accommodation was £3,566,555 in 2006-07, £5,374,286 in 2007-08, £5,163,945 in 2008-09, £6,497,126 in 2009-10 and £6,924,330 in 2010-11.

The Scottish Government does not collect information from local authorities on the funds allocated to residential schools by type of provider – i.e. charitable trust or private provider.

The Scottish Government supports local authorities to meet their duties in a number of ways including through the work of the Looked After Children Strategic Implementation Group which exists to improve outcomes for looked after children in part by helping local authorities to modernise care planning practice to meet the challenges they face.

The responsibility for the assessment of whether a child or young person requires placement away from home lies with the local authority.

The Care Inspectorate is responsible for the regulation of these services and ensuring local authorities comply with legislation.

Information on the allocation of local authority funds toward the care of Looked After Children is collected each financial year in the Local Financial Return. The total amount spent on caring for Looked After Children by local authorities since 2006-07 is presented in the following table. The total excludes spend on children with a disability and on respite care.

Funds spent by Local Authorities on caring for Looked After Children (£000)

In addition, Scottish Government Parole Unit spend on Secure Care accommodation was £3,566,555 in 2006-07, £5,374,286 in 2007-08, £5,163,945 in 2008-09, £6,497,126 in 2009-10 and £6,924,330 in 2010-11.

Residential schools and secure units are registered and regulated by the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate has a number of powers under the Public Sector Reform Act 2010 and can impose recommendations, requirements, conditions and improvement notices as well as applying to the courts for the de-registration of a service.

Following that, all independent residential schools and secure units are registered and regulated as independent schools in accordance with sections 98 to 103B of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. If a registered school or secure unit is found to be failing, the Scottish Ministers have the power to impose conditions or in more serious cases serve a notice of complaint on a school or secure unit to seek improvements. In extreme cases they also have the option of ordering the removal of the school from the register which would result in the closure of the school or secure unit.

The Strategic Transport Projects Review, published in 2008, estimated the cost of the second phase of electrification of the strategic rail network to be between £250 million and £500 million. The Edinburgh to Glasgow via Shotts railway line is part of this phase.

The Initial Industry Plan, published in September 2011, proposes that this phase of electrification programme can start to be delivered between 2014 and 2019.

The timescale for electrification of the Shotts line will not finally be agreed until Network Rail have published their strategic business plan in January 2013 and the Office of Rail Regulation has published its determination in October 2013.

To ensure competitively priced tenders Network Rail do not publish estimated costs for individual elements of each phase.

This is an operational matter for individual forces.

This is an operational matter for individual forces.

This is an operational matter for individual forces.

This is an operational matter for individual forces.

Information is as follows. The 2012-13 and 2013-14 proposed budgets are subject to parliamentary consideration of the Budget Bill 2012-13 which will be laid before parliament in January 2012.