Chamber and committees

The Executive’s monitoringof local authority expenditure under the Carers Strategy sought to establishthrough Community Care Plans, and annual updates, how much was being spent onrespite and on other services to support carers. Despite Executive guidance onthe data required, in the first two years of the strategy, authorities providedinformation in differing formats. This made meaningful comparisons difficult. Toimprove matters, information on local authorities’ expenditure on respite, andother services to support carers, is now being collected through centralisedfinancial returns. Figures for 2002-03 will be available shortly. These returnswill indicate expenditure on respite and on other services to support carers. Theywill not identify how much of the spending on respite comes from CarersStrategy resources, as these are only part of the total resources from whichauthorities may finance such expenditure.

The lawalready allows for offenders to be given time to pay, for payment byinstalments, for deductions from benefits and for civil diligence, as ways ofencouraging payment and enforcing payment of fines.

Inaddition, the Executive has made supervised attendance orders (SAOs) availableto courts across Scotland to deal with fine defaulters. Thesedisposals offer a credible alternative to custody for fine defaulters.

Two pilotsare under development to explore an extension to the use of SAOs. The firstwill prescribe pilot courts to order an SAO as the appropriate disposal incases of fine default, effectively removing from the court the option ofimposing a custodial sentence. The second will empower certain courts to imposeSAOs as a disposal of first instance (i.e. instead of a fine) where the courtconsiders that the offender is unlikely to be able to pay a fine.

The Reviewof Summary Justice has considered fines and their enforcement as part of itswider consideration of the operation of the summary criminal justice system.

We havealso asked the Sentencing Commission to examine the basis on which fines aredetermined.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-4604 on 12 December 2003. 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/search_wa.

A 2002-03 breakdown of grantoffers for the voluntary sector can be found on the Scottish Executive website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/?pageID=379.This database includes grant offers for section 10 of the Social Work (Scotland)Act 1968.

There is no generic guidanceavailable to organisations seeking grants under section 10 of the Social Work (Scotland)Act 1968, as this is the legislative power used to provide funding from anumber of Scottish Executive programmes. Instead, individual departments provideguidance tailored to the specific scheme or schemes they manage.

Similarly, the criteria usedto assess individual grant applications varies across the Scottish Executiveand will depend on the conditions of grant set in respect of the many grantprogrammes from the Scottish Executive.

Under the Carers Strategy £10million a year has been provided to local authorities from April 2000 todevelop local services that support carers. The following table sets out theresources available to each local authority. Councils should be determining, inpartnership with carers, service users and other key planning partners, howbest to use their share of these resources to meet the needs of local carers. Theseresources will be used in a variety of ways, including the provision of respitecare.

Strategy for Carers in Scotland:Resources to Local Authorities

Local Authority	Resources available each year from April 2000 (£000)
Aberdeen City	411
Aberdeenshire	378
Angus	233
Argyll and Bute	204
Clackmannanshire	97
Dumfries and Galloway	301
Dundee City	326
East Ayrshire	244
East Dunbartonshire	166
East Lothian	177
East Renfrewshire	146
Edinburgh, City of	887
Eilean Siar	70
Falkirk	270
Fife	699
Glasgow City	1,355
Highland	387
Inverclyde	181
Midlothian	134
Moray	155
North Ayrshire	283
North Lanarkshire	611
Orkney Islands	38
Perth and Kinross	274
Renfrewshire	322
Scottish Borders	237
Shetland Islands	40
South Ayrshire	244
South Lanarkshire	546
Stirling	161
West Dunbartonshire	183
West Lothian	242
Scotland	10,000

Source: Grant AidedExpenditure 2000‑01, Carers Service and Respite Care GAE.

Although the questionerrefers to section 19(2)(b) of the Race Relations Act 1976, the relevantScottish provision was section 19(3). The whole of section 19 of the 1976 actwas repealed by Schedule 3 of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 witheffect from 2 April 2001 by virtue of Statutory Instrument 2001/566. In anyevent, the general duty under section 19(1) only applied to educationalauthorities in Scotland by virtue of section 19(6) and companies operatingpublic private partnerships were never subject to this duty.

In July this year theCommission for Racial Equality published guidance for public authorities andpotential contractors on procurement and race relations legislation.

I understand that Grampian, Highland andIslands, and Strathclyde have yet to complete issuing the jubilee medal totheir operational staff. Some staff declined to receive a medal. The percentagestill awaiting medals is as follows: Grampian 11%; Highland andIslands less than 1%, and Strathclyde 50%-60%. The brigades expect to completethe issue of the medals by the end of 2003.

This is essentially a matterfor brigades. However, I understand that Central Scotland, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Lothianand Borders and Tayside have all issued operational staff with the jubileemedal.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

No. The contractual limit is considered by Scottish Prison Service to be at an appropriate level and provides best value for money.