Chamber and committees

No funding provided to the Scottish Islamic Foundation by the Scottish Government in the last year has been spent on overseas visits by members of that organisation.

I have not yet met the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions but arrangements are in place to organise an opportunity to meet while Mr Duncan Smith is in Edinburgh to attend the Welfare to Work Scotland 2010 conference on 22 September 2010.

Community Benefit clauses are one of a range of social clauses that can be included in contracts. They have been used to achieve targeted recruitment and training, small and medium-sized social enterprise development and community engagement.

The setting of a level of wage in excess of that of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 as a pre-requisite of a public contract may amount to a restriction of freedom to provide services and could therefore be in breach of EU law. Consequently, we do not envisage that Community Benefit clauses will be used to set a living wage as part of Scottish Government contracts.

The issue of procurement contracts and article 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union was the subject of a judgement from the European Court of Justice in the case of Ruffert v Land Niedersachsen [C-346/06]. A copy of the judgement can be found on the Curia website (http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/j_6/).

Decisions have yet to be taken on how to report on the review of the annual reports on single outcome agreements and the extent to which they show progress in tackling multiple disadvantage.

In preparing the Scottish child poverty strategy, Scottish Government intend to consult with a wide range of stakeholders, these include, but are not limited to: local authorities and associations of local authorities, children and organisations working with or representing children; parents and organisations working with or representing parents. Early development of the strategy has already been informed by regular contact with stakeholders, in particular with COSLA and the End Child Poverty coalition in Scotland.

Scottish Government will be consulting more widely from autumn 2010. A consultation event to feed into the formation of the strategy will take place on 29 September, as part of the Holyrood Tackling Poverty in Scotland conference. A formal public consultation will be launched later in the autumn, and will be accompanied with further consultation activities which are still in the process of being developed.

The Energy Saving Scotland boiler scrappage scheme issued vouchers on a first come, first served basis. Information on applicants was not captured in the format requested but can be broken down by postcode area in the Glasgow City council area. This is supplied in the following table.

Please note these figures will change, for example, if duplicate vouchers are found or if applicants do not redeem their vouchers.

Outcode	Vouchers	Outcode	Vouchers
G11	14	G4	3
G12	14	G40	1
G13	31	G41	28
G14	14	G42	16
G15	7	G43	15
G2	1	G44	17
G20	9	G45	1
G21	5	G46	1
G22	2	G5	1
G23	1	G51	2
G3	6	G52	14
G31	5	G53	12
G32	22	G61	1
G33	14	G69	26
G4	3	G76	2
G40	1
Total	285

 

The Scottish Government does not currently hold any contracts awarded following the use of Article 19 of the EU Procurement Directives. The Scottish Government is actively exploring how Article 19 may be used at the fit-out stage in the construction of the Scottish Crime Campus.

The Public Contracts Scotland contract advertising portal is being developed to send issue alerts to purchasers when they select a category of goods or services that could be supplied by a support business. A brochure will also be issued to public authorities, which profiles all supported businesses in Scotland and highlights the range of goods and services available.

The Scottish Government is also working at a number of levels to increase access to public contracts for supported business, such as by providing access to guidance, training and skills through the Enterprising Third Sector Action Plan.

The Scottish Government has recently started to collate a central lists of its contracts. This work is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

Question S3W-34472 refers to contracts that make specific reference to compliance with the national minimum wage. The central list of contracts will not capture information on this level of detail.

Compliance with the national minimum wage is a legal obligation on employers. In the majority of cases there is no need to include a contract clause which refers to this aspect of UK employment law. We do not, therefore, monitor this issue.