Chamber and committees

Victim Information andAdvice (VIA) work in partnership with the police and other criminal justiceagencies. VIA also work closely with support organisations such as the witness service, Victim Support Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid, who provide services tosurvivors of domestic abuse, rape and sexual assault at a local levelthroughout Scotland.

I will provide £1.76 millionfor rape crisis groups over the two years 2004-05 and 2005-06. This fundingwill enable services to develop and ensure that victims of rape and sexualabuse receive the support they need.

Officials have been meetinginformally with a wide range of key stakeholders to discuss the aims,objectives and structure of a Scottish Co-operative Development Agency. Aconsultation document is currently being prepared and will be issued early in2004.

Our policy has been to userecovered criminal assets to support the treatment of homeless drug misusers,and to help families affected by the hardship that drugs bring. However, the First Ministerannounced on 21 November that future awards would be used to supportcommunities which bear the brunt of the crime and deprivation associated withthe drugs trade.

We operate a “rolling”programme which allows for resources recovered in one financial year to be usedfor good causes in the following financial year. Proposals for making use ofthese resources to assist disadvantaged communities, based on actual sumsrecovered in 2002-03, will be set out early next year. We estimate that around£440,000 will be available.

Executive Officials have hada number of informal discussions with local government officials, the trade andthe police to assist consideration of the best way to tackle problemsassociated with taxi and private hire car booking offices. It is anticipatedthat we will be in a position to consult on the merits and detail of anylicensing scheme over the next few months.

The Crown Office andProcurator Fiscal Service monitors performance on a financial year basis. Thirtytwo confiscation orders were made in the Financial Year 2002-03, totalling£1,682,587.

In the current year sinceApril 2003, £1,548,461 has been confiscated or forfeited under proceeds of crimelegislation. Thirty seven confiscation orders have been made totalling£1,203,482. The total amount of assets forfeited under the new civil recovery procedureis £344,979.

I have today arranged forthe release of a spreadsheet detailing direct and indirect grants to voluntaryorganisations in 2003-04. In 2003-04, the Executive will be providing £262 milliondirectly and £112 million indirectly, £374 million in total, to the voluntarysector in Scotland. This is an increase of £15 million from last year,reflecting the Scottish Executive’s continued commitment to the sector.

Copies of the spreadsheetsare available from the Parliament’s Reference Centre and the Scottish Executive website (Bib. numbers 29866 – Direct, and 29867 – Indirect).

As part of our Partnership Agreement commitment to support the development of credit unions, I am announcing today the Scottish Credit Union Capacity Fund. This will make support available of up to £1.1 million over the next three years, of which £650,000 is new funding. This is to back the development of strong sustainable credit unions so they can then meet the needs of those 13% of Scots who don’t have access to mainstream financial products.

I will be publishing our consultation paper Putting Our Communities First: A Strategy for Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour later today. Copies of the consultation paper have been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 28038). It will also be available on the Scottish Executive website.

I am in contact with the Home Secretary to find a suitable legislative vehicle in the UK Parliament to allow this legislation to be brought forward.