Chamber and committees

In allocating the accelerated spend, we will prioritise bringing forward new construction but will also spend on off the shelf units and land acquisitions where this is strategically sensible and offers good value for money. Allocations will be made to projects rather than to specific local authority areas and will be prioritised to:

housing market areas with shortfalls

homelessness pressures

local pressured areas or specific regeneration projects.

We announced the first tranche of £9 million of projects, including site starts and land acquisitions on 7 October. Further announcements will be made when projects are agreed.

Local authorities'' and COSLA''s commitment to making school facilities more accessible for community use is already well documented. The Audit Scotland report Improving the School Estate indicated that many schools are providing community access to facilities and new build schools are often designed with community use in mind. The report highlights good practice but also identifies areas for improvement. The Scottish Government and COSLA have jointly accepted all of the recommendations in the report, and have established a Working Group to consider how they should be taken forward in the development of the new School Estate Strategy.

We have not had any discussions with Aberdeen City Council regarding additional funding for free school breakfasts for all P1 to P7 pupils.

Aberdeen City Council will be expected to roll out free school meals to all P1 to P3 pupils from August 2010, as set out in the concordat. In addition to providing free school lunches Aberdeen City Council may, if it so decides, also provide free breakfasts for all primary schools.

The additional funding to enable Aberdeen City Council to provide free nutritious school meals to all P1 to P3 pupils from August 2010 has already been included in the local government settlement provided to the council for the period from 2008 to 2011.

The Scottish Government''s expertise in supporting infrastructure projects now rests with Scottish Futures Trust (SFT). Discussions have been held between SFT and the council and its professional advisers about the schools project and how to respond to any developments.

We have now completed a pre-scoping study on the potential for grid links from Scotland across the North Sea and will be using it as the basis for discussions with potential partners, including Norway, to carry out further feasibility work.

We are progressing studies on the potential for electricity grid connections with Northern Ireland and Ireland, and across the North Sea. Discussions have taken place with officials from the now Department of Energy and Climate Change, and from Ofgem, on the scope of such work.

The First Minister wrote to Gordon Brown on 8 October to urge that subsea interconnection is included in the European Council''s forthcoming Strategic Energy Review, and we await with interest to see whether this recommendation has been accepted.

The Scottish Government is involved in two feasibility studies which aim to help to make the business case for future commercial investment in offshore electricity grid connections.

The Irish-Scottish Links on Energy Study (ISLES) explores potential grid links to exploit the offshore renewables resource in the Atlantic coasts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. A pre-scoping study has been completed, and funding for a full feasibility study has been agreed by the European Commission. We currently await a formal grant offer from the Commission in order for the feasibility study to be carried out with our Irish and Northern Irish partners.

Another pre-scoping study has been completed, examining the potential for grid connections across the North Sea, off the coasts of the north and east coasts of Scotland and the west coasts of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and the north coast of Germany. The Scottish Government is now seeking potential partners for a full feasibility study to take place.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-16854 on 4 November 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.