Chamber and committees

Implementation of the new volunteering strategy is being supported from within the level of resources available for distribution by the Scottish Executive Voluntary Issues Unit (VIU). In both 2004-05 and 2005-06 the VIU has £19.683 million available for distribution to the voluntary sector.

There is no ring-fenced financial provision for the cost of implementing the volunteering strategy. We expect the creation of a robust culture of volunteering and the dismantling of barriers to volunteering throughout Scotland to be part of the everyday activities or organisations in the voluntary sector, not a separate and discrete activity.

To be eligible for financial assistance from the Scottish Executive Voluntary Issues Unit (VIU), voluntary organisations must demonstrate that the activities for which funding is sought meet one or more of the following:

Are consistent with the aims and objectives of the Scottish Executive;

help develop the voluntary sector’s organisational, physical, financial and intellectual capacity;

support the strategic needs of the voluntary sector, as identified in the volunteering strategy;

help the voluntary sector deliver the outcomes of the volunteering strategy, and

impact at the national level.

There is no financial provision specifically designated for implementing the volunteering strategy. Implementation of the strategy is being supported from within the £19.7 million available for distribution to the voluntary sector by the VIU.

Eleven voluntary organisations have submitted formal bids since 11 May for grant funding from the resources available for distribution by the VIU. Of these, one organisation has been awarded grant funding of £95,000 per annum. in 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07. A second organisation has been awarded a grant of £145,651 in 2005-06. A further five bids from voluntary organisations are under consideration and four organisations have been informed that their requests for financial assistance have been turned down because they did not meet the criteria set out above.

The Scottish Parliament’sinternal television network is a bespoke package which includes the BBCParliament Channel. Even if it were possible to modify this package there iscurrently no other access for television viewers to Westminsterdebates. However access to live broadcasts from Westminster is available on theinternet at www.parliamentlive.tv. As many as 18 live streams are availablesimultaneously. Coverage of all the proceedings in the two Chambers andSittings of the House of Commons in Westminster Hall are televised andcommittees are televised at the request of broadcasters. If committees are nottelevised an audio feed is available. The service also includes an on demandarchive where material is stored for 14 days.

The Business InformationTechnology Office is currently undertaking a project to deliver web streamingto Parliament network users. The first stage of this project is aninvestigation in to the technical options available to facilitate an effectiveand secure delivery of web streaming across the Parliament network whilstmanaging the associated risks. This investigation is due to report back by endof January 2005 and will include access to the streaming video produced by Westminsteras part of the scope of the study.

The Executive has allocated budgets totalling £2.3 million to support over one hundred rural and urban community transport schemes in 2004-05. Community transport schemes normally provide access to health services as part of their wider remit. In a few cases, schemes provide only health-related transport.

I refer the member to the answer to S2W-12230 answered on 25 November 2004. 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.

The British Fluoridation Society is receiving grant of £10,000 in 2004-05 under section 16B of the National Health Services (Scotland) Act 1978. The society is a source of information on fluoridation issues, from which the Executive and other bodies or individuals can draw as appropriate. The Executive does not provide grant assistance to any other organisations with a specific focus on fluoridation.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-12230 answered 25 November 2004. 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.

The Executive is committed to ensuring that all the people of Scotland can access the services they need when and where they need them. GPs, pharmacists, dentists, nurses and other therapists are now providing more services as close to home as possible. For many services where previously patients were required to visit hospital treatment is now available in local communities. Where people need to attend hospital for treatment, we have guaranteed maximum waiting times for in-patients and a new guarantee for outpatients comes into force at the end of next year.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

Ministers have given a commitment to approve 18,000 new and improved homes for social rent and low cost home ownership in the three years up to 2006. The principal mechanism for funding this new affordable housing is the Scottish Executive Housing Investment Programme. The number of new and improved homes for social rent and low-cost home ownership approved with funding from CommunitiesScotland which were completed in the financial years 2001-02 and 2003-04 are asfollows.

	Social Rent	Low Cost Home Ownership
2001-02	4,629	1,550
2002-03	4,008	1,060
2003-04	3,654	500

 

The number of completions in an individual year is largely determined by the nature of the projects approved for construction in previous years. Large or complex housing projects, especially when linked to wider regeneration initiatives, will take over a year to be completed and in some instances, there is a time-lag in the recording of this data and these figures can therefore be subject to revision.