Chamber and committees

Notes:

1. The figure for 2002-03 is for nine months. Free personal and nursing care was introduced on 1 July 2002.

2. Figures include concessionary travel for disabled people as it is not possible to disaggregate spend for older people. Includes free local off-peak bus travel which was introduced throughout Scotland on 30 September 2002.

The 2003-04 figure is a budget estimate.

3. The expenditure for the central heating programme is the total amount, and includes those aged over 60 in the private sector who benefit from free central heating, as well as those in dwellings owned by local authorities and housing associations. Information is not available as to how many of those in local authority nd housing association properties were over 60 although      some of those would have been in that category. The central heating programme commenced in 2001-02 and the breakdown for the respective periods is as follows:

4. The Warm Deal Programme is primarily aimed at all those (including those aged 60 or over) on certain qualifying benefits. In addition, those who are aged 60 or over and not on benefit can receive reduced rates of grant. It is not possible to disaggregate recipients by age.

5. Majority of clients are older people but not exclusively.

6. Includes the National Forum on older volunteering.

7. Mental Health and Well-being in Later Life is one of the six priority areas of the National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Well-being. The figures quoted relate to the later life priority area.

8. Includes core funding and a range of projects being taken forward by Age Concern Scotland.

9. Includes funding for the campaign and flu vaccination payments to general medical practitioners. Applies to people aged 65 and over as well as those under 65 in at-risk groups.

Employment agency staff are used by the Executive for a number of reasons including pressures arising from maternity leave, sick leave, project work, unanticipated crises (e.g. foot-and-mouth disease) and critical vacancies. The total amount paid by each department for the supply of temporary staff (as structured now) to employment agencies is as follows:

Departmental Spend on Recruitment Agencies 2000-04

Individual departments may have brought in temporary staff from employment agencies outwith these contracts, for example where specific professional skills have been required, or in outlying areas, but this information is not held centrally.

In 2002-03 a total of £1,851,599 was spent. £885,522 was paid to 38 community environmental renewal scheme (CERS) projects throughout Scotland, and £930,599 was paid to other environmental projects:

In 2003-04 a total of £3,071,004 was spent. £1,963,004 was paid to 80 CERS projects throughout Scotland, and £1,108,000 was paid to other projects:

For 2004-07 I announced in the Scottish Parliament on 29 April 2004 that I was extending the Community Environmental Renewal Grants scheme. The scheme will allocate more than £4 million up to March 2007 to support projects in communities that are affected by past or present aggregate extraction. Forward Scotland is administering the scheme on behalf of the Executive for 2004 to 2007. Together with the administration cost, £1.5 million per annum is allocated to this, though with the funding profile varied each year in the interest of assisting project planning.

We have also approved grants for a continuation of some of the larger projects and for some new work. The projects funded over 2004-07 are:

The Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development launched the biodiversity strategy and announced the biodiversity grants on 25 May 2004 and announced the grant for the Sustainability in Golf work on 22 June 2004. We announced on 29 March 2004 that the Executive was funding a new post in the Sustainable Development Commission's Secretariat to support the work of the Commission in Scotland. We expect opportunities to arise to make further information available about the progress of these projects.

There is information about the projects on the Executive’s website and this is continually updated.

The Executive does not currently collect information on household debt and liabilities. It is planned that the proposed Office of National Statistics survey on wealth and assets will collect information on household debt. The survey is in its early development stages. If it goes ahead, some data for Scotland should be available from this source.

The following table summarises the number of reported vehicular incidents resulting in personal injury in each Scottish Executive department over the last five years:

Note: 1. Please note that these figures relate to the number of personal injuries and not the number of accidents (in some of the cases quoted more than one injury occurred per accident).

Since the latter part of 2003, guidance from The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) on road safety for employees and planning safer journeys has been made available to staff at various health promotion and health and safety events throughout the executive. In January 2004 ROSPA carried out an audit of the Executive’s progress in implementing its Occupational Health and Safety Management System. They recommended that progress on a procedure for themanagement of occupational road risk should be given priority in the Executive’sHealth and Safety planning and it is now scheduled for development in 2004-05.