Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive is inregular contact with HM Treasury and is aware of this issue. In our dialogue withHM Treasury, we are stressing that the devolved implications of using unclaimedassets should be considered at an early stage in the process. The Scottish Executiveis also liaising with the industry in Scotland as detail on this issue emerges.

Whilst the gathering of unclaimedassets is likely to be a reserved matter, the distribution of the resources is expectedto fall into devolved areas such as support for young people, financial educationand financial inclusion. Departments are well briefed and stand ready to ensurethat Scotland gets its fair share of any funds which become available.

Taxation is a reserved matter.The consultation paper issued by the UK Government at the end of last year raiseda great number of questions. We are aware of the very many concerns raised by localauthorities, developers, professionals and others about the outline proposals andreflected these in the Scottish Executive response to the Treasury. We have continuedto discuss these concerns with HM Treasury as they develop these proposals further.Our aim is to secure a sensible and workable solution for Scotland.

The following table containscounts of new build completions in the social rented sector for 1996-2005, brokendown by local authority area.

New Dwellings Completed in theSocial Sector by Local Authority Area; 1996 to 2005

Local Authority Area	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Scotland	2,858	4,684	2,050	4,992	4,989	5,574	5,171	3,992	3,483	5,231
Aberdeen City	157	327	21	115	98	203	79	169	98	141
Aberdeenshire	152	291	43	226	116	176	199	211	169	279
Angus	110	179	159	119	110	67	167	43	100	67
Argyll and Bute	3	91	199	112	121	105	4	59	72	99
Clackmannanshire	32	0	18	39	59	0	72	28	50	27
Dumfries and Galloway	34	202	14	179	69	197	77	96	109	92
Dundee	185	306	70	242	231	106	302	72	353	179
East Ayrshire	32	28	60	32	20	147	4	98	6	10
East Dunbartonshire	0	0	22	15	24	55	10	4	7	0
East Lothian	16	22	19	61	79	9	18	14	16	145
East Renfrewshire	27	17	0	84	126	41	0	30	15	4
Edinburgh	104	351	132	576	521	545	511	156	228	480
Eilean Siar	7	4	8	2	13	14	22	13	19	43
Falkirk	34	62	28	78	103	97	86	34	1	29
Fife	203	407	124	421	174	186	336	194	124	226
Glasgow	434	785	377	834	1,159	1,841	1,244	1,496	886	1,179
Highland	196	203	101	143	225	149	157	147	159	183
Inverclyde	112	0	117	93	248	119	141	101	103	70
Midlothian	42	74	12	47	0	28	17	31	14	6
Moray	84	101	17	30	30	56	33	2	8	146
North Ayrshire	53	25	26	149	67	76	64	83	25	126
North Lanarkshire	160	261	80	334	277	266	360	131	114	524
Orkney	53	12	0	14	29	52	44	24	34	67
Perth and Kinross	98	267	119	182	193	100	215	176	122	118
Renfrewshire	273	94	0	92	167	152	155	48	182	112
Scottish Borders	8	20	123	83	101	88	85	44	76	56
Shetland	0	0	0	56	14	22	14	1	6	3
South Ayrshire	95	28	93	68	61	64	131	74	70	22
South Lanarkshire	65	206	24	61	274	126	316	103	196	287
Stirling	28	56	0	85	83	62	106	84	27	81
West Dunbartonshire	45	0	0	213	92	263	182	136	19	325
West Lothian	16	265	44	207	105	162	20	90	75	105

Source: Scottish Executive DevelopmentDepartment: Housing Statistics NB1 return and Communities Scotland.

A copy of the information requestedhas been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 41067).The valuation principles were agreed with Glasgow Housing Association as part of the Joint Project Team Interim Report in 2005. Some of these principles may needto be reviewed in future in light of experience.

The Scottish Executive has soughtindependent, external advice on a broad range of financial issues associated withSecond Stage Transfers (SST), including VAT, funding and risk.

The majority of the seed cornbudget has been supporting local housing organisations (LHOs) initiallyon Glasgow Housing Association’s (GHA’s) prototype Second Stage Transfer (SST) programmeand then, subsequently, after GHA ended the prototype programme, on the pilot SSTprogramme. Guidance on seed corn funding for the prototype/pilot programme is availableon the Communities Scotland website (at http://www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk)and provides an indication of what costs for pilot LHOs are considered as eligiblefor seed corn funding.

In addition, some limited seedcorn funding will be available to LHOs within GHA’s Community Ownership Intentions(COI) process to help LHOs to decide whether or not they have a reasonable prospectof preparing a fundable Business Case for SST and, as a result, whether or not theyshould move forward to the next stage. Communities Scotland wouldexpect to be able to provide further seed corn funding to those LHOs who are ableto move forward.

Finally, some funding is expectedto be used to provide general support to help take SST forward, for example by providingsupport for LHOs on risk assessment and for the Joint Team on financial issues.

I will chair the MinisterialProgress Group on Second Stage Transfers (SST). Otherwise the membership of thegroup will remain unchanged.

The additional allocation justannounced by the Higher Education Funding Council for England is £25million per year over the next three years. This has been made to sustain capacityin some science departments which are vulnerable because of low student demand.

The allocation of funding toScotland’s colleges and universities is a matter for the Scottish Funding Council(SFC). Their assessment is that the number of students studying science in Scottishuniversities is currently rising with provisional figures showing an increase in2005-06 of 4% on the previous year. Average funding per science student, at £7,580,is already significantly higher than the £6,326 in England. Followingthe record additional allocations to the SFC in the last Spending Review, the SFChas also made very significant investments in strategic areas of science research,such as £59 million for pooling in Physics, Chemistry, Engineering and Geosciences.These are already helping to strengthen teaching as well as research capacity, andhelping to attract potential students. The SFC therefore have no plans to provideadditional funding to support particular departments. However, the SFC is currentlyundertaking a review of its teaching funding methodologies, which will include examininghow closely funding relates to the costs of delivery.

Ensuring we have enough peoplestudying science to enable the needs of the country to be met is a key aspect ofour science and innovation strategy. We are planning to publish a study of the availabledata in this area in the next few months. We are also currently consulting on thescience and innovation strategy and plan to update it next year.

The Executive has not hithertohad a stand-alone strategy for the creative industries; instead we have sought tohelp the sector through policy initiatives and funding provided by the enterpriseagencies and the Scottish Arts Council (SAC). In the period 2001-02 to 2005-06, the budget allocated to the Digital Mediaand Creative Industries cluster by the Scottish Enterprise Board has been £26 million,which included a large element of capital for infrastructure projects. SAC’s budgetfor its Creative Industries Action Plan between 2003-04 and 2006-07 was £877,500.In addition, SAC also recently awarded The Lighthouse £74,470 towards the cost ofdevelopments to enhance access, circulation and the visitor experience on the groundfloor.

Our policies towards the sectorare encompassed in Scotland’s Culture, our response to the Cultural Review.In that document, I signalled our intention to develop a new strategy to guide thesupport which will be given to the creative industries sector in future by CreativeScotland once it is set up. As part of that work, we will assess the extent to whichthere are gaps in support and whether the services could be provided more effectively.

This information is not heldcentrally.