Chamber and committees

National Performance Standards for social landlords, jointly agreed by the regulator, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations currently contain a guiding standard on sustainability for all social landlords as well as wider role activity standards that apply only to Registered Social Landlords. These were updated in November 2006 following consultation with the sector. We do not intend to carry out a further review or to amend the standard.

It is a matter for the Security Industry Authority to ensure that they have robust operating procedures in place to ensure they meet their statutory obligations to regulate the private security industry.

The Mortgage to Rent scheme is demand led. The number of households that the scheme assisted in each financial year since 2003 is as follows:

Financial Year	Number of Households
2003-04	46
2004-05	91
2005-06	147
2006-07	173
2007-08	161
Total	618

 

The Mortgage to Rent scheme is demand led. The average value of grant towards the purchase of houses under the scheme in each financial year since 2003 is as follows:

Financial Year	Average Value of Grant (£)
2003-04	26,042.60
2004-05	33,244.91
2005-06	43,257.64
2006-07	48,596.66
2007-08	57,804.53

 

The Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 - Guidance on the Power to Advance Well-Being was published in April 2004. The guidance is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 32429) or can be accessed at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/localgov/pawbg-00.asp.

Section 20(1) of the act gives a local authority the power to do anything that it considers is likely to promote or improve the well-being of its area and persons within that area, or either of those. It is for the local authority to decide whether any particular action would be likely to promote or improve the well-being of its area and/or persons in it.

The Enterprising Third Sector plan will ensure that training and advice is given to local authority purchasers, this will include specific advice on areas that could be supported under the power of wellbeing including public social partnerships and community benefit clauses which could benefit social enterprises.

This information is not held centrally as it is the operational responsibility of Skills Development Scotland, previously the enterprise networks, to decide the individual funding allocation for skills programmes. However, we do receive an end year update on the total funding allocated to the Get Ready for Work programme and have attached it below for your convenience:

Year	Annual Budget (£)
2007-08	24,605,479

 

Three hundred and ninety-four households applied to join the Mortgage to Rent scheme in 2006-07.

The savings in staffing costs from the abolition of Communities Scotland have been secured by introducing the new, simpler and more streamlined structures for delivery of the Scottish Government''s housing and regeneration objectives.

It is the operational responsibility of Skills Development Scotland to decide the funding allocation for individual skills programmes in 2008-09.

Skills Development Scotland will have a budget of £176 million for 2008-09. An initial breakdown of this budget was provided in section 7 of the Skills Development Scotland Operating Plan 2008-09 which was published on Monday 21 April. The Operating Plan can be accessed via the link below:

http://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/downloads/OperatingPlan2008-09.pdf.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-11344 on 23 April 2008. 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/webapp/wa.search.