Chamber and committees

As explained in the answer to S1W-5152, there are two main reasons for the variance between capital provision and recorded capital expenditure in any one year. These are: slippage of particular schemes where expenditure planned to be met in one year falls to be made in the following year; and the transfer of capital resources to revenue budgets to pay for minor works of a capital nature that do not add capital value to the NHS estate.

Any underspending against profile on a specific capital project in one year is carried forward to the next year. The Scottish Executive can adjust each Health Board's and NHS Trust's capital allocation during any financial year, which could have the effect of transferring an underspent capital allocation from one NHS body to another. However, where underspending arises from slippage on a specific project, it will normally be more prudent to enable the underspend to be carried forward to the following financial year.

I would refer the member to the joint CoSLA/Scottish Executive report It Pays to Pay and to my answer to question S1W-4296 to Des McNulty of 23 February.

We have made regulations that will allow councils to commence billing and collecting council taxes from 1 April 2001, rather than 1 May as at present. Furthermore, from 1 April 2001, councils will be able to issue a combined reminder and final notice rather than two separate notices.

The Scottish Executive is determined to address the challenges presented by cancer in all forms. We have pledged to tackle the root causes of ill health and will work over the next 10 years to promote healthier living and reduce mortality from cancer by 20% in the under 75's.

Targeted health promotion programmes and a pilot colorectal cancer screening programme are already underway.

The Health Education Board for Scotland "Big 3" campaign has been successful in raising adults' awareness of the small changes to lifestyle (including diet) that can be easily achieved to help prevent cancer occurring.

The place of aspirin in prevention of bowel cancer is still being evaluated.

Telemedicine remains a rapidly developing field with great potential to improve access to high quality care irrespective of distance. The Scottish Executive is investing £5 million to promote telemedicine schemes across Scotland and has established a Scottish Telemedicine Action Forum to co-ordinate this work. Evaluation of these projects will provide evidence about which telemedicine applications are sufficiently effective, efficient and robust to deserve wider implementation.

Under the present arrangements both capital allocations and the total grant paid to councils are included in the Assigned Budget. The method by which grant is distributed to councils takes account of councils' debt servicing costs through an amount for loan and leasing charges.

Within national accounting, to avoid double counting, the repayment of debt by local authorities is excluded from public expenditure totals. This is consistent with the accounting treatment of local authority borrowing and debt repayment across the United Kingdom. Any change in the capital arrangements, or in their accounting treatment might well lead to a corresponding adjustment to the Assigned Budget.

We are having detailed discussions with CoSLA on what can be done to improve council tax delivery. These involve groups where we have drawn expertise from organisations such as CIPFA, IRRV, SMASO, Audit Scotland, Citizens Advice Scotland, Scottish Consumer Council, Poverty Alliance, Money Advice Scotland, Scottish Association of Law Centres and the Scottish Consumer Credit Association.

The Scottish Executive and its agencies will continue to encourage population retention based on employment opportunities through assistance to business and the efforts of Locate in Scotland to attract inward investment to the area. The Dundee Partnership, which comprises public, private, academic, voluntary and community bodies, is implementing the "Vision for Dundee" strategy, a central objective of which is the stabilisation of the city's population. Scottish Enterprise Tayside, Dundee City Council and Scottish Homes are also working within the Partnership to address population decline through housing policy.

The Executive is also committed to building the Dundee economy. As an example of this on 18 September the mobile phone company, One 2 One announced that it is to establish a call centre at Dundee Technology Park, which will invest over £13 million into Dundee and create 1,000 jobs by December 2002.

The Scottish Executive and its agencies will continue to encourage population retention based on employment opportunities through assistance to business and the efforts of Locate in Scotland to attract inward investment to the area. A study was commissioned by Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire, Scottish Homes and Inverclyde Council in November 1999 to assess the links between the housing market, the local economy, and depopulation in Inverclyde. The findings are being considered.

The Chamber Office has prepared the information requested and indicated that it would be happy to make this available to Mr Gibson.