The Scottish Executive provides for the additional costs to councils serving remote and dispersed rural and island communities through special measures in the local government finance distribution formula. Adjustments redistribute around £40 million of grant support towards rural councils each year, helping to meet additional service costs and hold down council tax levels. Additional assistance, totalling over £24 million this year, is provided through the Special Islands Needs Allowance to compensate councils with significant islands costs. A review of the level and distribution of SINA is due to be completed this year.

In addition, the Executive is providing record levels of support for lifeline air and ferry services and through the Rural Transport Fund, £14.6 million in new investment over three years from 1998-99 to improve transport links in rural Scotland.

Employment policy is reserved to the UK Government which therefore takes the lead on the funding and delivery of New Deal throughout Great Britain, although in close consultation with its partners, including the Scottish Executive.

The New Deal evaluation programme is carrying out detailed monitoring of the post-New Deal experience of a sample of individuals. We are committed to a continuous improvement strategy for New Deal and the Scottish New Deal Advisory Task Force are actively monitoring performance and progress.

The Scottish Executive is discussing with CoSLA how the money and debt advice services provided by local authorities in Scotland can be improved.

The Scottish Executive is involved in ongoing discussions about the full range of statistics relevant to poverty issues in both reserved and devolved matters with a range of Whitehall departments including the DSS, Inland Revenue and HM Treasury. A number of datasets, analysis and models have already been developed for Scotland in the past year with their assistance, and a number of further projects are currently being considered.

The Scottish Executive is currently developing a database of poverty related information for Scotland with assistance from the DSS and Inland Revenue. It is considering a wide range of currently available data sources in addition to the option of boosting existing surveys for Scotland, and introducing new data collections. A project is currently underway to investigate the possibility of using the Scottish Household Survey dataset to produce relevant analysis. An area of priority within the Executive is to develop a more comprehensive range of local area data. Information on poverty will be covered by this initiative.

I made a statement to the Parliament yesterday on these matters.

A sum of £8 million from the central reserve was allocated to rough sleeping and homelessness initiatives and was included in the £12 million announced on 1 June. None of this money comes from the £34 million which was the subject of an announcement on 4 July 2000. Some £10 million was announced on 4 July to assist long-term care of the elderly. The remaining amount will go into health related spending, but no firm decisions have yet been made on this.

Of the extra £12 million for rough sleeping and homelessness initiatives, £8 million came from the end-year flexibility central reserve and the remaining £4 million from the additional money allocated to Scottish Assigned Budget as a consequence of the UK Budget announced in March 2000.

Question S1W-3483 was answered today.

We have received a number of letters and telephone calls from housing association tenants. Tenants and other interested parties will also have the opportunity to offer comments on our detailed proposals for the "modernised" right to buy as set out in Better Homes for Scotland's Communities - the Executive's proposals for the Housing Bill.