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Local authority Grant Aided Expenditure, including for community care for older people, is published on the Scottish Executive website at www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/gaestats.

Grant Aided Expenditure is funded by a combination of centrally provided government funding through Aggregate External Finance and funding raised by local authorities through locally raised council tax revenue. Local authorities are free to spend above or below the Grant Aided Expenditure level, according to their own priorities. The money that local authorities receive through Aggregate External Finance is, in the main, provided by way of a block grant and is not allocated to specific services.

Grant Aided Expenditure is allocated to individual local authorities on the basis of a needs-based distribution formula agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

General funding allocations to NHS boards of £6.01 billion for 2005-06 were detailed in written answer S2W-14069 on 4 February 2005. 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/webapp/wa.search. It is for boards to decide how best to utilise these funds to meet the health care needs of their resident populations, including services for older people, taking account of national and local priorities.

£29.5 million was allocated to NHS boards in 2004-05 for local authority/NHS Partnerships specifically to tackle the problems of delayed discharges in Scotland. These funds were distributed as follows:

NHS Board	£000
Argyll and Clyde	2,553
Ayrshire and Arran	2,292
Borders	665
Dumfries and Galloway	957
Fife	1,982
Forth Valley	1,559
Grampian	2,679
Greater Glasgow	5,455
Highland	1,367
Lanarkshire	3,152
Lothian	3,986
Orkney	124
Shetland	134
Tayside	2,361
Western Isles	234
Total	29,500

 

Similar delayed discharge allocations for 2005-06 have yet to be announced.

The final report of the Tolled Bridges Review will be published following its consideration by ministers in late summer 2005.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-14090, on 28 February 2005. 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/webapp/wa.search.

We note the UK Government’s report with interest. It has no specific recommendations for action by the Scottish Executive. We are continuing to pursue a range of activities to support disabled people and, where appropriate, to work with the UK Government.

Although the Scottish Executive has published guidance on School Estate Management Plans as part of the series of School Estate Strategy publications, it remains the statutory responsibility of education authorities to assess the needs and prioritise competing demands for investment in their school estates.

The Executive is promoting uptake of direct payments in a range of ways, including extending to include older people with effect from April 2005. While there are no performance indicators in place to monitor the promotion of direct payments by local authorities at present, consideration is being given to using performance indicators to monitor future uptake.

The information sought is contained in the following table:

Direct Payments Recipients and Value of Payments, Year to 31 March 2004

	Aged 0-15 Years			All
	No. of Clients	Value of Payments (£000)	Average Value (£000)	No. of Clients	Value of Payments (£000)	Average Value (£000)
Scotland	19	73	3.8	912	8,338	9.1

Source: SEHD annual survey ofdirect payments.

Training on the range of issues which arise in the prosecution of cases involving domestic abuse forms part of the core induction which is undertaken by all new prosecutors. This training, which includes input from Scottish Women’s Aid, is designed to equip prosecutors with a sound knowledge of the particular legal issues which arise frequently in these prosecutions as well as an awareness and understanding of the wider issues about victims experiencing domestic abuse in Scotland.

We are also currently working with Scottish Women’s Aid to develop advanced training for all staff within the prosecution service who work with victims and witnesses experiencing domestic abuse. This will build on the core training course to ensure that staff develop a high degree of proficiency in the preparation and prosecution of such cases

Offence aggravator codes for domestic abuse were incorporated into the Integration of Scottish Criminal Justice Information Systems (ISCJIS) data standards in 2002. In future it will therefore be possible separately to identify convictions where such an aggravator has been recorded against the offences involved, though the availability of complete data will depend upon the rollout of ISCJIS to cover all courts and on consistent recording practices being followed by the police, procurator fiscals and the courts.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-12408, answered on 6 December 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.