Chamber and committees

In October 2007, the Scottish Government published a baseline list of 199 national devolved public bodies as part of its simplification programme. We have reduced this to 152. On present plans, this will reduce further to 147 on 1 April 2011 and we have put the necessary arrangements in place to reduce the number of bodies to 115 by the end of 2011.

On abolition in 2007, the toll on the Tay Road Bridge for cars and light goods vehicles was £0.80 per crossing, southbound tolling only.

This would have meant an annual cost of tolls of £184 per annum (based on a
five-day working week over a 46-week working year, assuming six weeks holiday per annum).

The Scottish Government remains absolutely committed to free personal care. It delivers real benefits and better outcomes to over 50,000 older vulnerable people right across Scotland.

We are currently in negotiation with COSLA to a further inflationary increase of free personal and nursing care payments. This will be fourth inflationary increase since 2008.

The following table shows the potential number of business properties eligible for relief under the Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS) in 2010-11 by local authority area.

In order to encourage take-up of SBBS, the First Minister wrote to over 19,300 premises in December 2010 that are potentially eligible for SBBS, but have not yet claimed.

Local Authority	Potential Number of Business Properties Eligible for SBBS Relief
Aberdeen City	2,979
Aberdeenshire	6,027
Angus	2,889
Argyll and Bute	5,335
Clackmannanshire	858
Dumfries and Galloway	5,662
Dundee City	2,630
East Ayrshire	2,198
East Dunbartonshire	1,256
East Lothian	1,945
East Renfrewshire	876
Edinburgh, City of	8,719
Eilean Siar	1,373
Falkirk	2,485
Fife	6,435
Glasgow City	11,331
Highland	10,610
Inverclyde	1,200
Midlothian	1,476
Moray	2,659
North Ayrshire	2,775
North Lanarkshire	4,477
Orkney Islands	1,277
Perth and Kinross	4,751
Renfrewshire	3,084
Scottish Borders	4,491
Shetland Islands	1,127
South Ayrshire	2,573
South Lanarkshire	4,756
Stirling	2,529
West Dunbartonshire	1,452
West Lothian	2,385

Notes:

The table is based on a pre-December 2010 data set.

Some of the above properties may already be in receipt of other reliefs up to the level of their SBBS relief eligibility.

 

The United Kingdom Government is directly cutting Scotland''s resources by £1.3 billion next year. The decision to increase the interest rates on loans offered to councils by the Public Works Loan Board is an additional handicap. This will increase the overall cost of tax incremental financing projects and also increase the time period over which non domestic rate receipts will repay the associated borrowing. While this will impact on the value for money of each project, the impact will vary from project to project.

The decision to increase the interest rates on loans offered to councils by the Public Works Loan Board will increase the cost of council house building where this is funded from borrowing. Decisions on the investment in new housing are for individual councils to make, but the increase in interest rates will reduce their capacity to build new homes without increasing rent levels or cutting other costs to compensate.

The United Kingdom Government is directly cutting Scotland''s resources by £1.3 billion next year. The decision to increase the interest rates on loans offered to councils by the Public Works Loan Board is an additional handicap. By putting even more pressure on local authority budgets, it reduces their capacity to invest in a wide range of infrastructure projects, including on schools, roads, housing and flood prevention schemes.

This administration has consistently maximised the use of resources and minimised underspends to ensure that further end year flexibility (EYF) balances, to which there is no guaranteed access, have been kept to a minimum. There will be no EYF at the end of 2010-11 following the recent decision by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Chief Secretary to the Treasury to abolish the current EYF system and all accumulated stocks.

No. Spending review guidance issued by HM Treasury in June 2010 made clear that Spending Review 2010 submissions from Whitehall departments should be based on the assumption that access to end year flexibility (EYF) balances was not guaranteed. HM Treasury''s budget guidance has consistently said that departments'' spending plans should not assume drawdown of EYF unless specifically agreed beforehand by HM Treasury.

The Scottish end year flexibility (EYF) balance published by HM Treasury in July 2007 was £1,529 million. Agreement had already been reached to draw down £655 million of this total in the course of 2007-08. This left a balance of £874 million which the present administration agreed with HM Treasury could be drawn down in full over the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 period, that is between 2008-09 and 2010-11. These agreements have been honoured in full by HM Treasury.