Chamber and committees

The selection of the ballot date is a matter for Glasgow City Council.

We will consider triggering the Bellwin scheme if local authorities can establish that they have incurred exceptional costs. We have had no requests to trigger the scheme in relation to the recent gales.

The specification for the Central Heating Installation Programme does not prevent the installation of condensing boilers. The specifications were set in terms of performance levels and not on the basis of make or form of heating.

In financial years 1996-2001 we made offers of Regional Selective Assistance amounting to £137,882,650 towards projects involving capital expenditure of £822,335,910 in the Glasgow Travel to Work Area.

Data from the ONS's Annual Business Inquiry and Annual Employment Survey shows that the growth rate for jobs in Glasgow City for each year is:

1999-2000	6.90%
1998-99	-1.70%
1997-98	2.20%
1996-97	4.50%

2000 is the latest year that these data are available.Information on forecasts is not held centrally.

As stated in the answer to question S1W-17966, Ms Boyack highlighted the Glasgow situation when she addressed the EU Transport Council in Luxembourg in June as part of the UK delegation. The case for Glasgow Underground being exempted is supported by the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions who are leading on these discussions within the EU.

Part 6 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 made a number of reforms to the improvement and repairs grants, including provision for the introduction of a test of applicant's resources to determine the level of grant awarded. During the passage of the act, we promised consultation on the proposed test of resources before Parliament scrutinise the statutory instruments implementing the arrangements. We have set up a working group with members drawn from local authorities, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, Communities Scotland (formerly Scottish Homes) and the Chartered Institute of Housing to advise on the implementation of Part 6 and in particular on the introduction of the arrangements for the test of resources. This group has had two meetings to date and will consider the content of the consultation on the test of resources and, among other things, will examine the "passporting" of those on certain benefits to full grant award.We do not routinely collect data on the percentage of owners of former local authority housing stock in receipt of benefits.

The table sets out the Communities budget for 2000-01 and Social Justice budgets for 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 in real terms.

Budget	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Communities	644	-	-	-
Social Justice	-	698	7121	774

Notes:

1. Excludes £44 million in NHS Cash Balances for use in the repayment of debt principal.

The figures are sourced from Investing in You: The Annual Expenditure Report of the Scottish Executive and The Scottish Budget: Draft Budget 2002-03. The expected spend on Social Justice commitments over the period from 2000-01 will include further amounts carried forward from 2000-01 to 2001-02 and in future years. The details of this were announced by the Executive on 1 November 2001. Real terms figures based on 2000-01 prices.On the reorganisation of ministerial portfolios in October 2000, responsibility for local government policy was moved from the Communities Minister to the Minister for Finance and Local Government. The remaining responsibilities of the Communities Minister formed the Social Justice portfolio. This change had very little impact on the Social Justice budget, as local government finance had previously been the responsibility of the Minister for Finance. £2 million per annum for committees, commissions, publicity and policy was moved from the Communities budget and included in the Local Government budget. This change was explained in the Annual Expenditure Report of the Scottish Executive published in March 2001.In addition, following the recent change in ministerial portfolios, planning, building standards and digital inclusion have been brought within the Minister for Social Justice responsibilities. This has no implications for the overall Social Justice budget.

One component of the £3 million Healthy Respect national health demonstration project seeks to increase awareness of chlamydia among young people and to pilot accessible chlamydia testing opportunities in a range of non-medical settings. Its short-term aim is to get a true picture of the problem in Lothian, by 2003, through greater awareness and more accurate reporting. Its longer-term target is to decrease reported prevalence by 50% by 2010. Lessons learned will be shared throughout Scotland.The Executive is also funding two studies, due to conclude later this year, which will inform any plans to take forward opportunistic screening for chlamydia infection in certain targeted groups.The initiatives undertaken by HEBS and NHS Boards in the sexual health field will also contribute to the aim of reducing the incidence of chlamydia.

The Social Justice Annual Report 2001 and its annex, entitled "Indicators of progress: definitions, data, baselines and trends information", were both published on 26 November 2001. They provide the latest data on the range of milestones used to measure child poverty.We are making improvements in data collection in a number of areas relating to the Social Justice Strategy. As I noted during the debate on the Social Justice Annual Report on 29 November 2001, we are not in a position to give numbers regarding children living in low income households because of technical difficulties with the Department for Work and Pensions' Family Resources Survey data. We are investing £230,000 to double the size of the sample in Scotland and have agreed a programme to change the way they generate Scottish information, in order that we can produce more detailed income data.A detailed description of the methodology used in calculating the low income figures is available in the Department for Work and Pensions' annual publication Households Below Average Income. The 1999-2000 publication was published on 13 July 2001 and a copy is available from the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 14722).