Chamber and committees

Local authorities will publish their annual reports on single outcome agreements (SOAs) in the autumn of each year, with reports relating to 2008-09 SOAs to be published in autumn 2009. A supplementary interim progress report will be produced for 2008-09 SOAs only, at the end of the current financial year. We shall ensure that these reports are made available for scrutiny by the Parliament.

The government accepted the need for scrutiny to be independent in the response to the Crerar Review that we published in January 2008. The Accountability and Governance Action Group has recently provided recommendations from key stakeholders outwith government on issues such as guaranteeing operational independence from government for scrutiny bodies. The Scottish Government will publish a response to the action groups around the turn of the year.

The Scottish Government will monitor the progress that councils and their community planning partners make in delivery of outcomes set out in single outcome agreements.

As the bodies which plan, manage and deliver local services, it is for local authorities and their community planning partners to monitor the effectiveness of these services and how well placed they are to support outcomes highlighted in the single outcome agreement on an ongoing basis.

The preferred status of the new scrutiny bodies will be announced following discussions with relevant organisations, stakeholders and trades unions, and after we have considered the recommendations from the action groups I established earlier this year.

The number of further, accessible households required can only be answered indirectly by the data in the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS). The SHCS is a sample survey and therefore all figures are estimates rather than precise counts.

We estimate that there are 436,000 dwellings which have hardstanding of suitable width and step-free access for wheelchair users in Scotland. For all dwellings to be accessible in this way there are a further 1,879,000 dwellings which need to be adapted.

The SHCS found, in 2005-06, that there were 421,000 households with at least one person who has a mobility or physical impairment.

Ninety thousand of these households have access with hardstanding of suitable width and step-free access for wheelchair users; in 70,000 of these households their dwellings do not need further adaptation for them to get around their dwellings; the remaining 20,000 households do need some further adaptation to their dwelling in order to get around it.

Of the remaining 331,000 households, none of which have suitable access for wheelchair users, 229,000 households need no further adaptation to their dwelling to get around the dwelling, but 102,000 households do need further adaptation to get around their dwelling.

It is a standard condition of grant for all new build by registered social landlords that Housing for Varying Needs essential features will be provided. This will apply to new build by registered social landlords supported by the advance of £100 million in the same way as it applies to the rest of the Affordable Housing Investment Programme.

It is a standard condition of grant for all new build by registered social landlords that Housing for Varying Needs essential features will be provided. This will apply to new build by registered social landlords supported by the advance of £100 million in the same way as it applies to the rest of the Affordable Housing Investment Programme.

Compliance with grant conditions is monitored as part of Post Completion Reviews.

A formal equalities impact assessment was not carried out on the decision to advance up to £100 million under the Affordable Housing Investment Programme (AHIP). It was necessary for the Scottish Government to act swiftly in response to the changing economic climate, and acceleration of AHIP was part of this package of actions. The bulk of the funding will be used to accelerate projects or acquire land for future projects which will meet needs defined in local housing strategies and which will comply with our usual grant conditions on accessibility. Where funding is sought to support purchase by registered social landlords of completed houses built by private developers these will either meet the improved accessibility measures in the 2007 building regulations or else a special case will have to be made.

In the current year we are continuing to support the Retired and Senior Volunteering Programme run by CSV to the extent of £352,000 in the final year of a three year grant totalling £1,023,000.

I wrote to Claire Stevens, The Director Scotland of CSV, on 3 November 2008 to confirm that our funding is now to be directed to national infrastructure organisations and the remainder, the bulk of the £93 million we have provided in this spending period, will be destined to improve the enterprising performance of the third sector. The Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism confirmed this to the Parliament in the debate on RSVP on Thursday 6 November 2008.