Chamber and committees

The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) has established a newly constituted Race and Community Relations Standing Committee to reflect the importance ACPOS gives to diversity issues. The new committee has several portfolios, one of which is disability/mental health. ACPOS is currently consulting with major stakeholders to ascertain which issues on disability/mental health the committee should consider addressing.

The Scottish Police College has developed a National Equal Opportunities Training Strategy (NEOTS) which covers all aspects of equal opportunities. NEOTS training has been incorporated into the new Probationer Training Programme. In addition to this centrally delivered training, all police forces in Scotland are now running NEOTS courses. The college also delivers a two-day Diversity Awareness course.The Scottish Police College has recently appointed a Diversity Co-ordinator and is in the process of setting up a diversity panel, made up of officers from all police forces, whose remit will be to advise the college on diversity issues.

The Executive collates and publishes crime statistics from information recorded by the police. The police do not record either the level or type of hate crime against people with learning difficulties or any other disabilities. Only the nature of the offence is recorded.

Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire Councils received around £175,000 and £422,000 respectively for investment in youth justice this year. Of this, £111,092 for Argyll and Bute and £236,444 for West Dunbartonshire is new money made available by the Executive following the publication of the action plan. The Executive published a report in September 2002 of a local authority youth justice mapping exercise which contains information about initiatives in Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire using these funds. The report is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 24541).West Dunbartonshire will also benefit between now and 2005 from two projects to be run by Includem, funded by the Youth Crime Prevention Fund: £165,400 to the West Home Team to provide advice and support to parents and families of those at risk of offending; and £139,700 for the Relapse Project which offers support and supervision to persistent young offenders to ease their transition back into the community. These projects and the national initiatives we are taking forward under the action plan will support local implementation.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-33877 today. 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/search_wa.

The Pan Highlands and Islands inclusiveness project includes the Argyll and Bute area. Of the overall allocation to this project, Argyll and Bute was awarded £357,670 by the Scottish Executive for the period April 2001 to March 2004.The West Dunbartonshire local authority area is included within the Dumbarton and Lomond inclusiveness project. Scottish Executive funding of £594,500 was awarded to this project for the period April 2001 to March 2004.

The Executive provides funding to the Scottish Road Safety Campaign for the development of key road safety education initiatives and publicity messages. The campaign's strategy for drink drive publicity is informed by research, published by the Executive in 2001, on Drinking and Driving: Prevalence, Decision-Making and Attitudes. The research is enabling the campaign to target specific messages at key groups. Copies of the research report are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 18061). The campaign provides publicity to complement enforcement campaigns, focussing on drink driving, organised by the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland.

Employment policy is reserved to the UK Government which takes the lead on funding and delivery of Welfare to Work programmes. In Scotland it does this in partnership with the Scottish Executive and contributing organisations.The New Deal for Lone Parents is available on a voluntary basis in the Dumbarton parliamentary constituency. Following a qualifying period of unemployment Jobcentre Plus clients are eligible to join the New Deal for Young People and the New Deal for the Long Term Unemployed. Both these programmes have targets to achieve parity of outcomes for those clients from Minority Ethnic Groups.Action Teams for Jobs, available in three Dumbarton wards - Dumbarton North, Dumbarton West and Dumbarton Central, is a programme which aims to increase employment rates amongst disadvantaged groups in employment deprived areas. This programme is available to lone parents and ethnic minorities. The action team has co-funded two One Plus Child Care training courses to help address child minding problems of lone parents returning to work. The action team is also able to provide additional funding to lone parents not available through mainstream provision.A number of disadvantaged groups have early access to the Training for Work programme (TfW). TfW offers a selection of work focused training opportunities and, in the Dunbartonshire area, is enhanced by the JOBlink project and by the Adult Recruitment and Training Credit that is available to employers recruiting unemployed TfW eligible clients.

The Scottish Further Education Funding Council has been responsible for allocating funds to further education colleges since 1 July 1999, when it took over that responsibility from the Scottish Office Education and Industry Department. The annual allocations to Clydebank College were as follows:

Year	£
1997-98	7,432,900
1998-99	8,346,450
1999-2000	8,386,494
2000-01	9,058,602
2001-02	13,078,008

(a) Dumbarton parliamentary constituency has one project: the East Dunbartonshire Multi-Agency Drug and Alcohol Forum, which works with drug misusers.(b) There are currently no New Futures Fund Projects in Argyle and Bute Council area.(c) The West Dunbartonshire Council area has one project; the West Dunbartonshire Partnership, which works with drug misusers.