Chamber and committees

Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) has made representations tothe Scottish Executive about the financial implications of second stage transfers(SST). Following these representations, ministers set up the Ministerial ProgressGroup on SST to bring together key partners – GHA, local housing organisations,the Scottish Executive, Communities Scotland and Glasgow City Council – in orderto consider how best to move SST forward. In addition, a joint team of officialsfrom these organisations is currently looking at the complex financial issues raisedby SST. Its report will be made available in due course and will include informationabout the points raised by GHA.

The Scottish Executive has noplans to publish any of the material provided to Audit Scotland as partof its investigation into council housing transfers. This is because the ScottishExecutive made available a broad range of information to Audit Scotland, includingaccess to relevant files, to aid its understanding of all aspects of the communityownership policy and process, including the Glasgow transfer and the secondstage transfers. This material, together with information from other sources, wouldhave informed the conclusions and recommendations contained in the Councilhousing transfers report of March 2006.

Scottish Executive funding toGlasgow Housing Association (GHA) has been used to support the delivery of GHA’sbusiness plan. A copy of the business plan is available at:http://www.gha.org.uk.

In particular, some of this ScottishExecutive funding has been directly targeted at funding the installation of centralheating systems for tenants and the costs associated with the demolition of redundantstock.

The Scottish Executive does nothave a specific target deadline for second stage transfers (SST) to take place,but would like to see early progress over the coming months. The joint team on financial issues is currently consideringthe implications of different options with regard to timing.

Twenty-three thousand, sixhundred and fifty students received Education Maintenance Allowance payments inScotland in 2004-05. Statistics for 2005-06 will be published in November. Qualitativeresearch on the pilot programmes showed increased participation in learning.

Domestic services managers foreach NHS hospital are required to monitor performance to ensure compliance withthe NHSScotland National Cleaning Services Specification. The monitoring processis supported by audits carried out by peer review teams representing infection controlprofessionals, the public and colleagues with responsibility for estates managementand managers with domestic services expertise. In addition, Health Facilities Scotlandcarry out random sample testing of results across NHSScotland. On 28 August 2006, HealthFacilities Scotland published the first quarterly report on compliance against nationalstandards. This information is available from their website www.hfs.scot.nhs.uk/guest/HaiInitiatives.

Class size data forsecondary is not routinely collected as part of the annual school censusexercise, but in order to estimate thenumber of additional Maths and English teachers required to meet our S1/S2 classsize commitments a special collection was made in 2003.

Informationon the average class size of S1/S2 Maths and English classes is therefore onlyavailable for 2003. It is published onthe Scottish Executive website and can be accessed using the followinghyperlink http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/11/18511/28927.

As there are no interimtargets, we have no plans to collectthis information again until school census week in September 2007.

Information on redundancy isnot collected centrally. However with the advent of the Scottish Workforce InformationStatistical System (SWISS) this kind of information will be available for the future.

The NHS Scotland organisationalchange policy recognises the need to retain its highly qualified and trained workforceand to provide job security. The policy makes clear that NHS boards working togethershould ensure compulsory redundancy is only made as a last resort.

The costs of second stagetransfer (SST) will vary significantly according to a large number of factors,including in particular the number and shape of transfers and the timing ofthese transfers. A joint team of officials from Glasgow Housing Association(GHA), Communities Scotland, Glasgow City Council and the purchasers arecurrently considering the financial implications.

It is hoped that the reportof the joint team on financial issues will be finalised in the next few weeks. Itwill be made publicly available in due course.