Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally.

Statistics were previously collected on the number of disabled people receiving a housing support service funded through the Supporting People programme. However, local authorities indicated that housing support services were also funded from other sources, so this did not necessarily represent the total number of disabled people supported to maintain independent living.

Following the end of ring fencing of the Supporting People budget in April 2008, the Scottish Government consulted with a wide range of stakeholders on whether to continue to gather information on numbers receiving housing support.

The outcome of the consultation will be published on the Scottish Government''s website at www.scotland.gov.uk. Planned changes to the data collection to bring this better into line with the annual home care census will be discussed by the Housing Support Forum at its meeting on 23 June.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-23598 on 14 May 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Local authorities, as facilitators, have a statutory duty under section 15(1) of the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 to consult and co-operate with such community bodies as is appropriate in the community planning process. This should reflect the circumstances of their particular communities.

The Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 - Community Planning: Statutory Guidance advises that local authorities should consult and co-operate with a wide range of interests including community and voluntary organisations, whether delivering services or representing a specific area of interest which may be locally based or, where appropriate, a regional or national organisation.

We are working with the Third Sector Task Group, a high level group supported by COSLA, SOLACE, the third sector and the Scottish Government, to improve cooperation between the third sector and councils. In particular, a wide-ranging effort is being made to create interfaces to provide community planning partnerships with a straightforward way to engage with the third sector.

Information on respite hours is a statutory performance indicator collected by Audit Scotland. Information for 2008-09 is currently being audited and will be published for each local authority on the Audit Scotland performance information website in December 2009 http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/performance/index.php.

The information requested is not held centrally. Scottish Women''s Aid can provide information on the number of refuge spaces provided by affiliated women''s aid groups over the period requested.

None. To date no credit unions have applied to the Scottish Investment Fund.

Three credit unions have had awards from the Third Sector Enterprise Fund which incorporates the Third Sector Credit Union Fund (TSCUF).

Capital Credit Union - £69,000.

Glasgow South Credit Union - £24,700 (TSCUF).

Renfrewshire-wide Credit Union - £6,000 (TSCUF).

The aim of the Social Entrepreneurs Fund is to encourage new start social entrepreneurs, not to fund credit unions.

Information is not available in the format requested. We estimate however that in the calendar year 2007, the electricity generated by wind and wave power in Scotland had the potential to displace around 1.1 million tonnes of CO₂ when compared with an equivalent amount of fossil fuel generated electricity.

This estimate is based on the electricity generated by wind and wave in Scotland in 2007, to which we have applied the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) recommended calculation for carbon dioxide savings “ 0.43kg of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity produced.

As there is considerably more wind capacity operating than wave, it can be assumed that the vast majority of these emissions savings are from wind farms.

The Defra guidelines which explain the reasoning for the calculation used can be found on the following website  http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/reporting/conversion-factors.htm.

Carbon dioxide emissions data for Scotland covering the period since May 2007 to the present day are not currently available. Emissions data for 2007 will be released later this year. The most recent emissions data available is contained in Greenhouse Gas Inventories for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: 1990-2006 published by AEA Energy & Environment on 18 September 2008. A copy of that report is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 46558).