Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive maintains a strong interest in the development of new approaches to local service delivery, and expects Scottish local authorities to do the same. It is important for local authorities to consider all options for securing local services, on the grounds that what matters is what works.

I understand that Camden Borough Council has a street population strategy, which aims to minimise the impact of street activity in the borough. This includes reducing rough sleeping by at least two thirds, but also aims to reduce begging, street drinking and street trading. Our approach to rough sleeping in Scotland is to find solutions by involving those who have experience and knowledge of the problems. We are not targeting particular groups, such as beggars-we are addressing the underlying reasons for their situation.

The Scottish Executive welcomes discounted fare initiatives such as the Fair Travel Scheme in Moray, which is a joint initiative between Stagecoach Bluebird and Moray Council. It is a matter for individual local authorities and public transport operators to consider whether similar schemes might be set up elsewhere in Scotland.

A developer is carrying out a phased development at Anniesland Village Business Park which aims to create or safeguard up to 480 jobs by mid-2002.

The Scottish Executive is committed to tackling smoking and will make funding available for this purpose to the end of the current Spending Review period i.e. 2003-04. Funding beyond that date will be considered as part of the next Spending Review.

The Scottish Executive encourages all local authorities to consider innovative forms of service delivery such as the development of "one-stop-shops". It has provided practical encouragement to this kind of innovation through the Modernising Government Fund (MGF). This has awarded £2 million towards the "Wired West Lothian" project, which is one of a series of MGF supported initiatives that promote inter-agency working and the use information and communications technology (ICT) to provide more joined up services to the public.MGF projects are scheduled to run until March 2002. All of the projects will be monitored, with regular updates and results published on the Scottish Executive's 21st Century Government website. This way all local authorities will benefit from the good practice that results from the projects.The Executive has also established the Central Local 21st Century Government Forum, which includes representatives of West Lothian Council. This has been set up to endorse and promote new models of service delivery across local authorities.In addition the Executive has also agreed to consider whether there are unnecessary barriers to the development of service solutions such as one-stop shops within constraints on local authority trading and, if so, how best to deal with them.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-14782.

The Executive is committed to tackling poverty and deprivation wherever it exists across urban and rural Scotland. A range of data is used to assess deprivation, such as proportions of income support recipients, employment data, the deprivation index and indicators in the Social Inclusion Partnership monitoring framework. Our recent annual report on social justice sets out the indicators being used to track progress towards the milestones for delivering social justice in Scotland.The current Scottish Deprivation Index, revised in 1998, ranks postcode sectors by combining 1991 Census indicators with more recent non-Census indicators of deprivation. We intend to further revise this index as part of our Neighbourhood Statistics initiative and update it as data becomes available from Census 2001.In addition, for rural deprivation, part of the remit of the Rural Poverty and Inclusion Working Group is to ensure that existing indicators are appropriately developed for, and measurable in, rural areas. The group will make recommendations on general data availability for rural areas, including ways of improving monitoring of progress against the social justice milestones for rural areas. We expect the group's report soon.

The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the United Kingdom Government on a wide range of issues, including cross-channel rail freight services.

Details are as follows:

Health Board	£ million
Argyll & Clyde	1.636
Ayrshire & Arran	1.631
Borders	0.436
Dumfries & Galloway	0.622
Fife	1.318
Forth Valley	0.973
Grampian	1.819
Greater Glasgow	4.052
Highland	1.042
Lanarkshire	2.006
Lothian	2.871
Orkney	0.082
Shetland	0.096
Tayside	1.608
Western Isles	0.181
Health Education Board for Scotland	0.950
Common Services Agency	0.793
TOTAL	22.116

The remainder of the £26 million has been used to meet the costs of centrally commissioned services, including the extra costs arising from the enhanced flu vaccination programme.