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It is for councils and their tenants, in light of local circumstances, to decide how best to secure investment in council housing. The benefits of transfer include providing investment; giving tenants guarantees about future rent levels and investment programmes, and dealing with councils' historic housing debt.

Spending on a wide range of Executive programmes will impact on the jobs indicators of target 3 of the social justice section of Building a Better Scotland. Some of the Executive's spending plans will have a direct effect. For example, we will spend an additional £20 million from 2004 to help people in deprived communities through child care. Other spending plans will have a less direct, but nevertheless important effect. For example, we will spend an extra £34 million on rolling out the Educational Maintenance Allowances from 2004 to allow young people from less well-off families throughout Scotland to remain in school and in further education.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-29338 today. 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/search_wa.

For parents living in deprived areas, the absence of affordable child care is one of the barriers to entering employment. The absence of appropriate skills, ill health, and/or access to places of employment are also impediments to entering work.The Scottish Executive is committed to removing the range of barriers that parents face to entering employment, and I recently announced an additional £20 million over 2004-06 to tackle some of these barriers in deprived areas, including access to child care.

The exception was to second a person into the then Scottish Office for more than 12 months without first establishing a field of candidates. It was made to secure particular expertise quickly in the area of housing.

The measures announced in press release SESJ055/2002 relate to the Executive's spending plans for 2004-05 onwards, and not to the period before May 2003.

refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-29305. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found on http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-29305. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found on http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

The Scottish Ambulance Service does not subcontract to private ambulance services, therefore it is not liable for any costs incurred by such companies.

Twenty-eight senior civil servants (SCS) were recruited during 2001-02 to cover supply and demand arising from retirals, leavers, promotions and the creation of new SCS posts.Of the 28, 19 people from both internal and external sources were appointed via one generic recruitment campaign to provide a pool to cover for vacancies arising over the period January 2002 to June 2003.