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East Dunbartonshire Council was awarded £125,000 in February 2001 to assist them with the cost of early investigation and feasibility study of a possible future schools public private partnership (PPP) development. The council has submitted an Outline Business Case, in line with Scottish Executive Enterprise Department Circular 8/2001, for consideration for taking forward a schools PPP project. The closing date for submissions for the second tranche of schools PPP projects is 31 December 2002.In terms of other support, the Scottish Executive has taken steps to assist councils undertaking schools PPP projects to become "informed clients". This has taken the form of a series of four seminars on relevant issues, with more planned, and computer-based training. Also, face to face training aimed at members of project teams will be rolled out next year.In addition, the Executive has commissioned Partnerships UK to undertake a Key Stage Review of each of the schools PPP projects. This will occur at two stages within the project and is intended to assure both the education authority and the Scottish Executive that the project is sufficiently well prepared at each stage to proceed through the procurement.

While it is for NHS boards and trusts to effectively manage local services, the Scottish Executive remains committed to putting the policy frameworks in place and providing the resources to ensure that waiting times are kept to a minimum at each stage of the patient's journey. The National Waiting Times Unit is working with NHSScotland to reduce delays for patients. Since April this year, the unit has funded approximately 50 initiatives across in-patient, out-patient and day case activity to support the drive towards achieving local out-patient and national in-patient/day case targets. To date, the unit has allocated over £2 million to the North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust. This has facilitated the transfer of 775 patients to the National Waiting Times Centre - The Golden Jubilee National Hospital at Clydebank - for orthopaedic, general surgery and ENT treatment, and the transfer of 485 patients to the private sector for orthopaedic, plastic surgery, ophthalmology and general surgery treatment. The allocation has also allowed the trust to access dermatology services at the centre.

The proportion of older people in East Dunbartonshire who receive intensive home care is shown in the following table.East Dunbartonshire Home Care Clients

Year	No. of Clients 65 and Over	Clients Aged 65+ Receiving an Intensive1 Service Per 1,000 Population
1998	977	5.9
1999	832	5.8
2000	839	6.5
2001	830	7.0
2002	881	7.8

Note:1. Intensive service is defined as "more than 10 hours of home care per week".

In respect of national initiatives to promote improvement in these aspects of child and maternal health, I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-31706 on 27 November 2002. 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.Provisional figures indicate that there has been a small percentage decrease in the national proportion of women who smoke during pregnancy. In East Dunbartonshire figures have remained consistent over the last three years at around 10% below the Scottish average. The proportion of low birthweight babies for Scotland as a whole remains consistent at 2.6% of full-term deliveries. East Dunbartonshire has been consistently lower than the national average until 2001-02 when the proportion rose by 0.9% to 3.1%. The proportion of women breastfeeding at birth and six to eight weeks later is slowly increasing. East Dunbartonshire has been consistently at least 8% higher than the national average. Figures on dental decay among children will not be available until 2003.

The data in the following table, taken from the Labour Force Survey, shows the numbers and percentages for the proportion of 16- to 19-year-olds in Scotland who were not in education, employment or training (NEET) over the period 1996-2002.

	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
No. NEET	35,000	32,000	36,000	33,000	36,000	37,000	35,000
% NEET	14%	13%	14%	13%	14%	14%	14%

Source: Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics.Notes: 1. Figures from spring of each year and revised figures for 1999-2001 due to regrossing of the Labour Force Survey.2. Number rounded to nearest thousand.

There is one Careers Scotland Inclusiveness Project covering the Dunbartonshire area. It has been allocated £594,500 over the period April 2001 to March 2004.

The annual average residence based claimant count unemployment rates for East Dunbartonshire from 1997 to 2001 and the latest monthly data for October 2002 are shown in the following table.

Date	Rate*
1997	4.1%
1998	3.6%
1999	3.0%
2000	2.8%
2001	2.5%
Nov 2002	2.4%

Note:*All the rates will be subject to revisions in 2003. This is because they are dependent on information from mid-year population estimates and the Labour Force Survey. Revised mid-year population estimates will become available from analysis of the 2001 census and the Labour Force Survey will then be regrossed. This will give new estimates of economic activity.

New figures to the end of September 2002 were released on 28 November. These indicate that 47,000 young people in Scotland have now gone into jobs from the New Deal, of which 668 were from East Dunbartonshire.

The Young Students' Bursary is provided as entitlement based on the level of parental income. Eligibility for the bursary is assessed as part of the overall assessment of eligibility for student support.In academic year 2001-02, there were 13,579 recipients of the Young Students' Bursary. In the current academic year, to date, 20,190 awards have been made. The following table shows the percentage of recipients domiciled in each area since the bursaries were introduced.

Area	Percentage
(a) East Dunbartonshire	2.43
(b) Kirkintilloch	0.65
(c) Lennoxtown	0.09
(d) Twechar	0.14
(e) Auchinairn	0.36
(f) Bishopbriggs	0.27
(g) Bearsden	0.59
(h) Milngavie	0.24
(i) Milton of Campsie	0.09

A range of action is in hand:

• Dunbarton and Lomond Inclusiveness Project;
• Pre-vocational programmes;
• Get Ready for Work;
• New Deal, and
• New Futures Fund projects

The Dunbarton and Lomond Inclusiveness project, Positive Futures, is working with a range of key partners to provide early intervention and post-school support for young people with additional support needs.