Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

Communities Scotland managesa number of programmes aimed at promoting social inclusion. Until 31 March 2005, theseincluded the Social Inclusion Partnership Fund (SIP) and the Better NeighbourhoodServices Fund (BNSF), and from 1 April 2005 the Community Regeneration Fund. Project informationfor the SIP and BNSF programmes is not held centrally.

Information on the CommunityRegeneration Fund is contained in the Regeneration Outcome Agreements for Argylland Bute and West Dunbartonshire. These can be viewed on:

www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk.

West Dunbartonshire is one of the seven areas identified in the ScottishExecutive’s Closing the Opportunity Targets as having the highest levels of workingage benefit claimants in Scotland. Along with Dundee, Glasgow, South and North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde and Renfrewshire,West Dunbartonshire has worked with the Executive to set itself a targetto reduce benefit dependency. The combined target across these areas is to reducebenefit claimants by 30,000 by 2007 and 66,000 by 2010. West Dunbartonshire’s target is 840 and 2,190 respectively.

On Monday 12 June, I launchedWorkforce Plus An Employability Framework for Scotland which aims to help morepeople, particularly those disadvantaged in the labour market, into work. At thesame event on Monday, Malcolm Chisholm announced funding for the seven Closing theOpportunity Gap areas totalling £11 million over the next two years to assist localpartners in bringing together local partners to achieve the target. West Dunbartonshire has been allocated £840,000 of this total.

Since 1999, unemployment rateshave dropped in Scotland by 1.5 percentage points, and in Dumbarton constituencyby 1.7 percentage points. The following table sets out the changes since 1999 inthe worst five areas in the Dumbarton constituency.

Area	Claimant Count  Unemployment Level			Claimant Count  Unemployment Rate
	1999	2004	% Change	1999	2004	% Point Change
Dumbarton North	261	164	-37%	11.8%	10.4%	-1.4%
Dumbarton West	280	187	-33%	11.0%	9.2%	-1.8%
Bonhill East	234	167	-29%	8.1%	7.1%	-1.0%
Helensburgh East	155	107	-31%	7.3%	5.8%	-1.5%
Renton/Alexandria South	172	150	-13%	7.2%	6.3%	-0.9%

Source: Claimant countadministrative database.

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

The Better Neighbourhood ServicesFund operated between 2001-02 and 2004-05 when it was merged with the funding providedto Social Inclusion Partnerships (SIPs) to form the Community Regeneration Fund(CRF).

In addition to the CRF, CommunitiesScotland also provides grant funding to Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) to supportthe provision of housing for rent or low cost home ownership. Communities Scotlandalso provides RSLs with funding from the Wider Role programme to support communityregeneration and social inclusion activities.

Details of the allocation ofeach of these funding streams are shown as follows:

West Dunbartonshire Council

	SIP (£ Million)	BNSF (£ Million)	CRF (£ Million)	Housing Grants to RSLs (£ Million)	RSL Wider Role (£ Million)	Total (£ Million)
1997-98	n/a	n/a	n/a	7.122	n/a	7.122
1998-99	n/a	n/a	n/a	7.929	n/a	7.929
1999-2000	2.193	n/a	n/a	6.707	n/a	8.900
2000-01	2.087	n/a	n/a	8.385	0.133	10.605
2001-02	2.076	2.000	n/a	10.108	0.330	14.514
2002-03	2.228	3.000	n/a	7.808	0.338	13.374
2003-04	2.236	4.000	n/a	7.650	0.646	14.532
2004-05	2.365	3.000	n/a	9.008	1.107	15.480
2005-06	n/a	n/a	4.956	12.658	0.760	18.374

 

Argyll and Bute Council

	SIP (£ Million)	BNSF (£ Million)	CRF (£ Million)	Housing grants to RSLs (£ Million)	RSL Wider Role (£ Million)	Total (£ Million)
1997-98	n/a	n/a	n/a	5.441	n/a	5.441
1998-99	n/a	n/a	n/a	4.427	n/a	4.427
1999-2000	0.206	n/a	n/a	5.653	n/a	5.859
2000-01	0.280	n/a	n/a	4.435	0	4.715
2001-02	0.369	0.60	n/a	4.057	0.013	5.039
2002-03	0.379	0.90	n/a	3.642	0.065	4.986
2003-04	0.370	1.20	n/a	7.288	0.274	9.132
2004-05	0.369	0.90	n/a	10.690	0.142	12.101
2005-06	n/a	n/a	0.985	14.979	0.218	16.182

 

On 12 June 2006, I launched WorkforcePlus, An Employability Framework for Scotland. The framework aims to help more disadvantaged individuals,including lone parents and ethnic minorities towards and into sustained employmentby setting out the actions required at both nation and local level to achieve this.

The framework is targeted atseven Closing the Opportunity Gap areas, including West Dunbartonshire, with the highest levels of benefit claimants in Scotland. Theseareas have set a combined target to reduce benefit claimants by 30,000 by 2007 and66,000 by 2010. The West Dunbartonshire component of these targets is 840 and 2,190 respectively.We have allocated £840,000 to West Dunbartonshire Community Planning Partnershipover the next two years to assist local partners in bringing together services tohelp achieve this target.

Information on mortality fromcoronary heart disease by local authority is available from GRO death data. Theage standardised coronary heart disease mortality rates from 1999 to 2004 for Argylland Bute and West Dunbartonshire are shown in the following table.

		1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Argyll and Bute	Deaths	265	269	261	251	249	231
	Age standardised mortality rate	170.4	170.9	159.1	158.5	143.6	135.5
	% Decrease Year-on-Year		0.3%	-6.9%	-0.4%	-9.4%	-5.7%
West Dunbartonshire	Deaths	275	255	248	227	262	222
	Age Standardised Mortality Rate	211.4	193.5	187.5	160.8	199.0	164.2
	% Decrease Year-on-Year		-8.5%	-3.1%	-14.2%	23.8%	-17.5%

Note: GRO death data are currently only available up to yearending December 2004.

The Rough Sleepers Initiative(RSI) was launched in 1997. Between 1997 and 2002 local authorities received fundingfrom the Rough Sleepers Initiative on the basis of bids made to the Executive settingout the need for such funding in their area.

Local authorities’ activitiesfunded as a result of RSI have now become integrated with local authorities’ widerhomelessness strategies and since 2004-05 these activities have been included withintheir local outcome agreements, which set out on an annual basis how they are implementingthese strategies.

The final evaluation of the RSIwas published in March 2005 (which can be found at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/03/20886/54982)and concluded that this initiative had achieved significant progress and producedtangible reductions in the need to sleep rough across the country. The evaluationconcluded that the RSI enhanced services in cities and often created specific servicesfor the first time in rural and smaller urban areas.

The following table shows theallocations of funding to Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire authorities under the RSI:

Year	Argyll and Bute	West Dunbartonshire
1997-98	0	0
1998-99	0	£11,200
1999-2000	£8,000	£34,300
2000-01	£274,880	£86,010
2001-02	£114,480	£104,347
2002-03	£114,480	£102,000
2003-04	£114,480	£102,000
2004-05	£114,480	£106,000
2005-06	£124,000	£110,000
2006-07	£125,000	£111,000

 

The number of Antisocial BehaviourOrders (ASBOs) granted in Argyll and Bute council area since 2002-03 is as follows: 2002-03 (0);2003-04 (0); 2004-05 (0).

The number of Antisocial BehaviourOrders (ASBOs) granted in West Dunbartonshire council area since 2002-03 is as follows: 2002-03 (3);2003-04 (3); 2004-05 (4).

The Scottish Executive does nothold centrally reliable data on the use of ASBOs by local authority area prior to2002-03. Data on ASBO use is also not available by constituency area.

Housing Revenue Account (HRA)capital expenditure, as recorded on the councils’ HRA returns, is shown in the followingtable.

Council	1999-2000 (£ Million)	2000-01 (£ Million)	2001-02 (£ Million)	2002-03 (£ Million)	2003-04 (£ Million)	2004-05 (£ Million)	2005-06 (£ Million)
Argyll and Bute	4.1	3.2	3.2	3.5	3.5	3.6	3.1
West Dunbartonshire	8.2	8.2	7.2	6.8	8.8	11.6	13.7

Note: The figures for 2005-06are estimates.

The main source of new affordable,good quality housing in the Dumbarton constituency is Communities Scotland’s AffordableHousing Investment Programme. This programme includes their Core Development Programmeand the Community Ownership Programme.

The Dumbarton constituency willthis year benefit from over £10 million of investment from the Core DevelopmentProgramme. This will include the expected approval of 48 new units of affordablerented housing. In addition, five units of shared equity housing funded from theHomestake scheme (located in Alexandria) will go on sale.

West Dunbartonshire Council hasyet to take a final decision on making an application to join the Community OwnershipProgramme. It has been consulting with tenants and residents over its intentionto do so. It has also been developing linked proposals to bid for resources fromthe Early Action Fund of the Community Ownership Programme.

Where areas are proposed forsignificant levels of investment, involving demolishing existing stock and buildingnew homes, local housing associations will be working with the Council and localresidents to develop area-based regeneration plans.

For existing social rented housing,the Scottish Executive has a policy objective of ensuring that stock owned by localauthority landlords, and registered social landlords (housing associations) meetthe Scottish Housing Quality Standard by 2015.

The statistics requested areavailable from 1999 onwards and are contained in the following table:

Table 1: Percentage ofPeople Aged 65 and Over Receiving Intensive Home Care

Local Authority	Year
	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Argyll and Bute	0.8%	1.1%	1.1%	1.3%	1.3%	1.4%	1.3%
West Dunbartonshire	1.5%	1.5%	1.6%	1.8%	2.4%	2.9%	2.8%

Source: Home Care StatisticalReturn H1.