Chamber and committees

The Business InformationTechnology Office is currently undertaking a project to deliver web streamingto Parliament network users. The first stage of this project is aninvestigation in to the technical options available to facilitate an effectiveand secure delivery of web streaming across the Parliament network whilstmanaging the associated risks. This investigation is due to report back by endof January 2005 and will include access to the streaming video produced by Westminsteras part of the scope of the study.

The Executive has allocated budgets totalling £2.3 million to support over one hundred rural and urban community transport schemes in 2004-05. Community transport schemes normally provide access to health services as part of their wider remit. In a few cases, schemes provide only health-related transport.

The British Fluoridation Society is receiving grant of £10,000 in 2004-05 under section 16B of the National Health Services (Scotland) Act 1978. The society is a source of information on fluoridation issues, from which the Executive and other bodies or individuals can draw as appropriate. The Executive does not provide grant assistance to any other organisations with a specific focus on fluoridation.

I refer the member to the answer to S2W-12230 answered on 25 November 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-12230 answered 25 November 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The Executive is committed to ensuring that all the people of Scotland can access the services they need when and where they need them. GPs, pharmacists, dentists, nurses and other therapists are now providing more services as close to home as possible. For many services where previously patients were required to visit hospital treatment is now available in local communities. Where people need to attend hospital for treatment, we have guaranteed maximum waiting times for in-patients and a new guarantee for outpatients comes into force at the end of next year.

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

Ministers have given a commitment to approve 18,000 new and improved homes for social rent and low cost home ownership in the three years up to 2006. The principal mechanism for funding this new affordable housing is the Scottish Executive Housing Investment Programme. The number of new and improved homes for social rent and low-cost home ownership approved with funding from CommunitiesScotland which were completed in the financial years 2001-02 and 2003-04 are asfollows.

	Social Rent	Low Cost Home Ownership
2001-02	4,629	1,550
2002-03	4,008	1,060
2003-04	3,654	500

 

The number of completions in an individual year is largely determined by the nature of the projects approved for construction in previous years. Large or complex housing projects, especially when linked to wider regeneration initiatives, will take over a year to be completed and in some instances, there is a time-lag in the recording of this data and these figures can therefore be subject to revision.

The following table gives the available information.

Houses Built or Improved for Social Rent or Low Cost Home Ownership by Year of Completion

	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Built by local authorities	65	94	0
Funded by Scottish Executive – Housing Investment Programme
Housing Association – Rent	4,570	3,839	3,596
Other – Rent	59	169	58
Total for rent	4,629	4,008	3,654
Housing Association - Low Cost Home Ownership	245	213	152
GRO Grants for Owner Occupation to Private Developers	1,253	794	284
Grants to Individuals	52	53	64
Total for ownership	1,550	1,060	500
Total for local authorities and Scottish Executive – Housing Investment Programme
Total for rent and ownership	6,244	5,162	4,154
Of which:-
New building	5,640	4,682	3,749
Rehabilitation	604	480	405

We already encourage local authoritiesto promote environmentally-sensitive practices. For example, we provide assistancethrough the Strategic Waste Fund to promote recycling, waste minimisation and thediversion of waste from landfill. Charging schemes can have a role to play but eachproposal would need to be considered on its merits and subject to thorough appraisal.

There are no plans to specifically increase funds for library services. Funding for library services is met from NHS boards’ unified budgets. Decisions on final budgets for future years have yet to be taken.