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63% (660 out of 1,055) of general practices in Scotland responded to the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health's (SCIEH) end-October request for influenza immunisation uptake data for the 65-year-old and over at risk group. From the responses received, 50.1% (284,353) of patients aged 65 and over, from those practices which responded, had received the vaccine as at 31 October 2000. This includes that considerable progress is being made towards meeting the Scotland-wide target of 60% uptake. Further data will be collated by SCIEH to reflect the position at 30 November and 31 December.

Influenza immunisation is also recommended for patients with chronic illnesses. There are no reliable statistics of the number of people in this group, and uptake data are not available.

Health boards, NHS Trusts and local authorities have been asked to put in place arrangements to evaluate uptake of the flu vaccination by staff.

The primary function of the National Diet Action Co-ordinator will be to co-ordinate and to help maximise the effectiveness of the wealth of activity underway, at both national and local level, to implement the recommendations of the Scottish Diet Action Plan, "Eating for Health". Priority tasks will include working with primary producers, manufacturers, retailers and caterers, all of whom have a key role in influencing people's food choices.

This £44 million surplus money arose out of the internal market in the NHS, created by the previous UK Government. Under Treasury rules the money was frozen and conferred no additional spending power, and ordinarily it would have been returned to the Treasury.

In order to keep this money in Scotland, officials negotiated an agreement with the Treasury. As it conferred no additional spending power it was agreed that the money must be used in a way which does not count as public expenditure. The repayment of debt principal does not count as public expenditure and it was finally agreed that The Executive could use the money for the redemption of housing debt as part of the Housing Stock Transfer Scheme.

The NHS financial regime requires that Trusts make a 6% return on capital assets. This 6% is paid through a mixture of dividends on public dividend capital (effectively a payment reflecting the value of public sector capital tied-up in the Trust) and interest on debt. Even if the debt were repaid, a return of 6% would still be charged. There would therefore be no benefit if the NHS debt were repaid.

The redeployment of this money was part of a general reallocation package announced on 6 October 1999, which included extra funds for health.

The arrangement for using the money to redeem housing debt, as part of housing stock transfer schemes, is a novel scheme for making good use of money which would otherwise have had to be returned to the Treasury.

Question S1W-6255 sought information on the aggregate external finance (AEF) for particular individual councils, thus my reply quoted the relevant AEF distribution figures published in the report which accompanied the Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 2000, approved by the Scottish Parliament on 1 March. Although the £42 million undistributed Excellence Fund formed part of the total GSE figure for education in Investing in You; a distribution was not available for inclusion in the Order. Councils have since received their allocations for most of the funding and will be advised of their allocations of the remaining £13.45 million in due course, but the original individual AEF figures for councils are not revisited after approval of the Order. Any additional specific grants distributed during the year are paid to councils directly.

Over time, the assisted places scheme budget will reduce to nil from a budget of £13.9 million in 1998-99. The allocations made to the scheme as a result of the comprehensive spending review are shown in the table below.

Assisted Places Scheme CSR Allocation

1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
£ million	£ million	£ million
11.7	9.7	7.5

This question was originally answered on 11 January 2000.

The Scottish Executive's contribution to the rescue package came from savings across a range of programmes in the Executive and was made available due to the reallocation of end-year flexibility by the Finance Minister. The money was added to the education, culture and sport budget.This question was originally answered on 11 January 2000.

I expect the working group to report by June 2000.This question was originally answered on 11 January 2000.

The number of children in residential accommodation is almost 25% less than it was a decade ago. At the same time, provision of holiday or respite care has increased. Both trends are welcome.

We are keen to ensure there is a community placement for every child who might benefit from one. Through the Children's Services Development Fund, we have increased funding for community placements from £2.2 million in 1999-2000 to £4.7 million for the current year. We are also working with local authorities and the voluntary sector to increase recruitment of foster carers and will be commissioning research into local authority adoption practices.

The information requested is shown in the table below and has been derived from the 1999-2000 Survey of School Meals conducted by the Scottish Executive Education Department.

Free School Meal Uptake in January 2000 by Education Authority

Education authority	Number of pupils recorded as entitled to free meals	Of which present and taking a meal on the Census day	Percentage Uptake
Scotland	151,042	109,905	72.8
Aberdeen City	3,542	3,001	84.7
Aberdeenshire	2,345	2,133	91.0
Angus	1,652	1,313	79.5
Argyll & Bute	1,846	1,441	78.1
Clackmannanshire	1,570	1,314	83.7
Dumfries & Galloway	2,553	2,201	86.2
Dundee City	5,522	3,279	59.4
East Ayrshire	4,119	3,249	78.9
East Dunbartonshire	1,818	1,385	76.2
East Lothian	1,904	1,235	64.9
East Renfrewshire	1,591	1,138	71.5
Edinburgh, City of	11,226	7,977	71.1
Eilean Siar	484	396	81.8
Falkirk	4,098	3,362	82.0
Fife	9,316	7,294	78.3
Glasgow City	33,263	23,892	71.8
Highland	4,869	3,135	64.4
Inverclyde	3,245	2,461	75.8
Midlothian	2,336	1,488	63.7
Moray	1,383	1,141	82.5
North Ayrshire	5,478	4,513	82.4
North Lanarkshire	13,192	8,739	66.2
Orkney Islands	259	217	83.8
Perth & Kinross	1,468	1,205	82.1
Renfrewshire1	6,742	4,240	62.9
Scottish Borders	1,323	1,058	80.0
Shetland Islands	275	246	89.5
South Ayrshire	2,774	2,094	75.5
South Lanarkshire	9,891	6,601	66.7
Stirling	2,115	1,491	70.5
West Dunbartonshire	4,553	3,562	78.2
West Lothian	4,290	3,104	72.4

Notes:

1. This table contains January 1999 results for Renfrewshire as the January 2000 results are undergoing further scrutiny.