Chamber and committees

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.

We believe volunteering has a major contribution to make in the delivery of our ambitions for a more successful Scotland and the 15 national outcomes. We are supporting the development of new, stronger connections between the third sector, including volunteering, and the community planning partnership in each area to enhance the development and delivery of each single outcome agreement.

We commend the involvement of volunteering to the public, private and third sectors as a key way to build stronger communities and bring highly flexible and inspiring solutions for people whose lives have been damaged.

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.

All organisations which involve volunteers to some extent promote and support volunteering. The following table shows only directly-funded national organisations and projects which have the support and promotion of volunteering as a primary aim.

	2006-07 (£)	2007-08 (£)	2008-09 (£)
Volunteer Development Scotland	900,000	900,000	940,000
Network of Volunteer Centres.	2,415,000	2,533,000	3,234,000
MV Awards	796,500	796,500	Subsumed into Volunteer Centre Network grant.
Voluntary Action Fund	965,361	993,979	1,220,000
Community Service Volunteers (CSV)	75,684	81,100	81,100
CSV Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme (RSVP)	330,000	341,000	355,000
CSV Give and Take	155,000	160,000	40,000 (extension to June 2008)
CSV Give and Gain	21,194	21,500	0
CSV Dare to Care small grant scheme		35,150
British Trust for Conservation Volunteers	507,698	300,511	364,333

 

Preliminary work is progressing in taking forward improvement schemes from the A82 Route Action Plan to improve safety and speed up journey times.

Future investment in Scotland''s nationally strategic transport network is being considered as part of Transport Scotland''s Strategic Transport Projects Review, which will lead to a transport programme targeted at facilitating better movement of people and goods across Scotland to increase wealth and enable more people to share fairly in that wealth.

The Erskine Bridge is undergoing a phased major maintenance programme which is expected to continue for a number of years. This includes some minor upgrading of elements of the structure.

The measures to enable closure of the Erskine Bridge to high-sided vehicles only have been very successful since first implementation on 11 October 2007. There have been 10 occasions when the bridge was closed to high-sided vehicles, and only two occasions when a full closure was deemed necessary.

Traffic flows for the Erskine Bridge since 1999, expressed as both annual average daily flow (AADF) and annual total are as follows:

Year	AADF	Annual Total
1999	22,667	8,273,455
2000	23,689	8,646,485
2001	24,778	9,043,970
2002	26,210	9,566,650
2003	26,585	9,703,525
2004	27,490	10,033,850
2005	27,217	9,934,205
2006	32,385	11,820,525
2007	34,878	12,730,470
2008	36,402	13,286,730

 

From January 2007 to August 2008 inclusive, 33,442 met the qualifying criteria and proceeded to the survey stage. Entitlement is then confirmed during the survey stage in the applicant''s home.