Scottish Parliament News
number 18

Cathy Peattie MSP
Falkirk East

Concern for future of local enterprise funds

The funding crisis facing Scottish Enterprise nationally means a proposed reduction of over
40% in the Forth Valley area for business support through the Business Gateway programme.
The programme is delivered by a consortium of local enterprise trusts, including the Falkirk Enterprise Action Trust, which is now facing cuts of about £117,000.

“Scottish Enterprise are in a terrible mess for an organisation that was set up to provide advice on how to run businesses,” said Falkirk East constituency MSP Cathy Peattie.

“The local consortium has prepared to deliver the scheme on behalf of Scottish Enterprise Forth Valley, but is now presented without warning or consultation with this completely unsatisfactory decision. The Scottish Enterprise cuts are harsher in Forth Valley than in many areas, despite overspends in the bigger cities having contributed to this problem. The cuts will also affect other programmes including Focus on Growth. Indeed, it looks like there will little funding for anything beyond those existing commitments that they are unable to back way from.

“I have made representations to the Enterprise Minister Nicol Stephen about the impact on new and existing businesses in the Falkirk area, and called for these cuts to be reversed. If the Scottish Enterprise shambles can't be sorted out nationally, then perhaps the time has come to consider whether Scottish Enterprise is the best vehicle for the task, or whether its functions would be better accomplished by local authorities.”

Local landlords: Register your properties with Falkirk Council

Falkirk East MSP Cathy Peattie is reminding private landlords to register their properties in an effort to improve standards in private rented housing in the area.

Cathy said that landlords who register will help to improve the quality of the private rented sector by ensuring all landlords understand their legal responsibilities and forcing rogue landlords from the market.

By April 30, all owners of the 1700 privately rented properties in the Falkirk Council area must have submitted an application to register with the Council, or face having their rental income withheld or a £5,000 fine.

“Many local landlords provide tenants with an exceptional service,” said Cathy, but there are a few who continue to exploit the system and vulnerable tenants. Some are even refusing to deal with antisocial tenants, leaving the neighbours and communities to fend for themselves, whilst they continue to collect rent payments.

“By creating a private landlord registration system, tenants and neighbours can be reassured that their landlord is reputable and has been considered fit and proper – and when there are grounds to suggest otherwise potential tenants can be informed.”

Fees have been set by the Executive to cover the expected costs of the scheme. These are £55 per landlord and a further £11 per property. The Executive has also committed over £5 million to councils across Scotland to help implement the scheme. Applications online are quicker and cheaper, with a 10% discount.

Landlords should visit www.landlordregistrationscotland.gov.uk or contact the council to register.

Apply now for free travel

Falkirk East MSP Cathy Peattie is encouraging older and disabled people to apply for their new National Entitlement Card now, in order to get it in time for the concessionary bus pass scheme’s introduction in April.

“This extension of the scheme became a manifesto commitment after I highlighted the shortcomings of the existing scheme in the Scottish Parliament,” said Cathy. “So I am very pleased that the travel scheme is now being extended, replacing free local bus travel with a scheme that covers the whole of Scotland.

“Over a million people are set to benefit, with over 400,000 pass holders having already applied.

“If you are over 60 or disabled, this will give you access to free travel anywhere in Scotland on local and long-distance scheduled buses at any time of the day.

“So if you are eligible: don't miss out, apply now!”

Applications are being processed locally. Contact the Concessions Unit, Abbotsford House, David’s Loan, Falkirk, FK2 7YZ - Tel 01324 504724/504853 - transportplanning@falkirk.gov.uk

New rules on public contracts

New regulations mean Falkirk's small and medium sized businesses have more chance of securing lucrative public contracts, previously mostly offered to larger established businesses, says Falkirk East MSP Cathy Peattie

“This is good news for local businesses, who may have found it difficult in the past even to find out about these contracts. The new rules mean that all contracts, including those worth less than £94,000 for goods and services or £3.6 million for work, will usually need to be advertised – so more local businesses are now able to bid for contracts. This is also good news for local taxpayers - competition should result in better value for money.”

The new regulations ("The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2006" and "The Utilities Contacts (Scotland) Regulations 2006") which came into force on January 31 make it a legal requirement that contracts other than those of very low value should normally be advertised. A company which has missed out on a business opportunity because a public body has not complied with the requirement to advertise can now challenge the decision in the Scottish Courts. The regulations also, for the first time, allow public bodies in Scotland to reserve contracts, of any value, for supported employers, helping ensure that companies such as Remploy get a fair share of public sector business.

Forth Valley hits waiting list targets

Falkirk East MSP Cathy Peattie has welcomed the latest figures for waiting times, which show that in Forth Valley, by the end of 2005, nobody was waiting more than six months – down from over 800 people three years before.

“In December 2002,” said Cathy, “there were 815 people who had been waiting over six months
to receive inpatient or day treatment, and 259 who had waited for more than nine months.
A year later, nobody was having to wait more than nine months, and now that has been cut
to six months. The next target is to reduce waiting times to a maximum of 18 weeks by 2007.

“I am sure that we are all very grateful to local NHS staff for their hard work and commitment to delivering these improvements.”

The Scottish Executive set targets across Scotland which aimed to ensure patients waited no more than six months for inpatient or day cases; 6 months for new outpatients; a maximum of 8 weeks for heart investigations and a maximum of 18 weeks for heart treatments.

The Scottish Executive now intend to set the targets at 18 weeks for inpatients and outpatients and 9 weeks for diagnostics by 2007.

International Women's Day

Money for local organisations welcomed, pay and job gap attacked

Several local organisations made successful bids to the Scottish Executive's Violence Against Women fund, it was revealed on International Women's Day, 8th March.

• Falkirk Open Secret were awarded £49,216 for their VAW services in 2006/7, and £48,944 for the following year.

• The Forth Valley Domestic Abuse Strategy Group was given £65,000 each year for VAW Policy Coordinators.

• Falkirk & District Women's Aid will get £25,000 each year to fund an outreach family resource worker

• Falkirk Sacro (Safeguarding Communities-Reducing Offending) get £33,513 in each year for a Women's Services Worker

• The Falkirk Children's Commission will get £31,649 in 2006/7 and £28,256 in 2007/8 to fund a Young People's Development Worker

Falkirk East MSP Cathy Peattie began the backbench contributions to the Scottish Parliament debate on International Women's Day, by thanking the Scottish Women's Convention for an excellent conference earlier that day, and welcoming the funding for the Falkirk groups.

“That is extremely welcome and I know that excellent work will be done with that money,” she said.

Cathy went on to highlight both the advances that had been made and the continuing barriers to women in the workplace, noting that girls now do better than boys at school and in further and higher education and “now make up 46 per cent of the workforce but, despite higher levels of academic achievement and greater participation in employment, they still face disadvantage and significant barriers to progressing their careers.

The full-time gender pay gap is 17.1 per cent and the part-time gender pay gap is 38.4 per cent. That is the worst in the European Union—we have nothing to be proud of. Only one director in seven is female.Women make up only 9 per cent of the senior judiciary, 10 per cent of senior police officers and 13 per cent of national newspaper editors. In Scotland, only one secondary head teacher in five is a woman. Less than 20 per cent of members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords are women. I doubt that anyone will bet on our achieving equality by the 22nd century.”

Referring to a recent Equal Opportunities Commission report - "Sex and power: who runs Britain 2006" – Cathy spoke of the difficulties women face breaking through the “glass ceiling”.

“It is not only a case of male-dominated professions giving preference to male candidates for promotion; a major barrier is the working culture that demands that staff work long and unsocial hours to get on. Work should not be incompatible with family life. EOC polling shows that six out of 10 people think that balancing work and family life is harder for working women now than it was 30 years ago. That is not progress.

“Affordable child care is still a major issue. Women in families are often forced into part-time work and jobs that are below their potential. Each year, 30,000 people are sacked, made redundant or leave their jobs due to pregnancy discrimination. Almost half—45 per cent—of women who have worked while they were pregnant say that they have experienced some kind of discrimination because of their pregnancies. That has happened in a country that needs more children. It does not make sense.

“The absence of flexible family-friendly working is not just a personal loss to men and women; it is a loss to the economy. Career progress and caring responsibilities should not be mutually exclusive or detrimental to each other. With an aging population, we simply cannot afford not to make the most of our potential.”

Cathy noted that another recent report, from the women and work commission, had estimated that “removing barriers to women working in occupations traditionally done by men, and increasing women's participation in the labour market, could be worth between £15 billion and £23 billion or 1.3 to 2 per cent of gross domestic product."

Welcoming the new gender equality duty in the public sector, Cathy called for the principles to be extended to other sectors of employment, and that all sectors should adopt more family-friendly working practices.

“Last but not least,” said Cathy, ”we need to ensure that women have equal involvement at the highest decision-making levels in the country. In local government, health boards, quangos, government organisations, non-governmental organisations, here in the Scottish Parliament, at Westminster and beyond, we need more women represented. We all have a duty to ensure that that happens. I invite everybody here today to celebrate international women's day—but do not forget tomorrow that women have a right to be represented.”

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