Chamber and committees

The only information held on household car ownership comes from the Scottish Household Survey, which started last year.

The table below gives the latest information that is available. Because, for some purposes, vans are counted with cars, the table provides figures for vans as well as cars. The table shows separately all the types of ownership recorded by the survey. privately-owned van and a company car would be counted under "privately-owned van".

Type of any car or van that is normally available for private use by the members of a household	Percentage of households
Privately-owned car	59.4
Privately-owned van (and no privately-owned car)	0.3
Privately-leased car (and no privately-owned car or van)	1.3
Privately-leased van (and none of the above)	0.0
Company car (and none of the above)	2.0
Company van (and none of the above)	0.3
No car or van is normally available for private use by the members of the household	36.6

Source: Scottish Household Survey, 1999 Q1-Q3

The Scottish Executive does not have projections of household car ownership in Scotland.

For 2000-01 expenditure on landscaping and the realignment of roads in Holyrood Park associated with the new Scottish Parliament will be covered by the £2.5 million transfer to Historic Scotland announced on 28 June. For future years this will be considered in the Expenditure Review.

The information on life expectancy at birth is given in table 5.4 of the Registrar General for Scotland Annual Report 1998 published by the General Register Office for Scotland in 1999, a copy of which was sent to each Member of the Scottish Parliament in July 1999 and is also available in SPICe SE /1999/14.

Information on the percentage of households with the regular use of a car is given in table 1.11 of Scottish Transport Statistics no.18 / 1999 edition, published by the Scottish Executive in 1999, a copy of which is available in SPICe (Bib number 1771).

The most recent allocation of £850,000 capital consent via the Transport Challenge Funding was issued to Midlothian Council on 28 March 2000.

The financial details of the Public/Private Partnership are a matter for Midlothian Council. For our part, we have agreed to the council's request to switch the revenue support originally earmarked for the A701 to the Dalkeith schools PPP. As part of this arrangement, the council has agreed that the capital receipts released from the sale of the existing Dalkeith school sites would be used to part-fund the A701 works on a conventional basis.

There are no Scottish Executive departments or agencies which have any involvement in the ongoing development and implementation of Midlothian Council's proposals to upgrade the A701.

In February 1997 Mr Michael Forsyth, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, advised Midlothian Council that their application for Transport Challenging Funding involving a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) had been successful and that £2.5 million had been awarded towards the council's proposals. These were intended to construct a stretch of dual carriageway from New Milton to Straiton and included a package of measures which would allow the use of the existing A701 as a dedicated route for pedestrians, equestrians, cyclists and local traffic. The then Government's objective was to help support proportionally large capital projects which would not otherwise have been affordable in terms of local authorities' likely level of roads and transport resources. The council was required to submit to The Scottish Office by 29 August 1997 an Action Plan detailing its intentions and timetable for the project and subsequently to submit, periodically, short factual monitoring reports about the project. The Action Plan was received in August 1997 and a number of monitoring reports have been received since then. The council was required to satisfy itself that the proposed PFI project had the potential to deliver value for money and had to secure the agreement of The Scottish Office that it fell within the criteria for a PFI deal. Subsequently, Scottish Ministers agreed to the council's request that the A701 project should be pursued through conventional funding, including the monies advanced from the Transport Challenge Fund.

The Scottish Executive Development Department received from Midlothian Council an outline bid for Transport Challenge Funding (July 1996), an outline business case for upgrading of the A701 (May 1998), a report on the affordability of the A701 project (February 1999) and a report on the proposed A701 improvements (March 1999).

The Scottish Executive Development Department also received from the council in October 1999 a Notice of Intention to Develop in respect of proposed transport improvements to the A701, together with associated documents as follows:

The formal notice required by the regulations; location plans and drawings, copies of consultation letters; copies of letters of representation from 440 people and three petitions listing a total of 266 signatures; a statement from Midlothian Council; a leaflet on transport options for Penicuik and Loanhead to Edinburgh; and an Environmental Statement together with a Supporting Information Report and a Non-technical Summary.

The majority of Scottish Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies have an advisory role and therefore do not tender contracts. Those that do have mechanisms in place to ensure competitive tendering procedures are followed. Since 1997, these have accorded with HM Treasury's model financial memorandum which states that "Contracts shall be placed on a competitive basis, and the lowest cost tender accepted, unless there are good reasons to the contrary".The Scottish Executive has exempted NDPBs from competitive tendering in a few cases due to the specialist nature of the service required.