§ Mr. Allan StewartTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement concerning the amount of grant aid being made available under the Special Grants (Environmental) programme in 1989–90 to voluntary bodies in Scotland working in the environmental field.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonI am pleased to announce that grant aid totalling £208,000 has been offered to the following voluntary bodies in the financial year 1989–90, to assist them in carrying out environmental conservation, improvement or education work in Scotland:
£ Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland 2,500 Association of Community Technical Aid Centres 12,500 Buchan Countryside Group 2,500 Central Scotland Countryside Trust 12,500 Council for Scottish Archaeology 9,000 Environment Centre 10,000 John Muir Trust 3,000 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 12,500 Royal Zoological Society 5,750 Scottish Community Woods Campaign 7,750 Scottish Conservation Projects Trust 36,000 Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations 1,500 Scottish Environmental Education Council 15,000 Scottish Field School of Archaeology 1,500 Scottish Field Studies Association 10,000 Scottish Historic Buildings Trust 13,000 Scottish Rights of Way Society 2,500 Scottish Wildlife and Countryside Link 12,000 Scottish Wildlife Trust 30,000 Strathclyde Building Preservation Trust 3,500 Woodland Trust 5,000 The experience of the first three years of the scheme has been generally good.
I am satisfied that the grants have greatly assisted the voluntary organisations to increase their level of activity 974W and do much useful work. We are of course still in the experimental period with this scheme and are monitoring it closely. We are asking certain organisations for further information prior to allocating their final tranche of grant for the current year. My Department will review this three-year experimental scheme to assess performance and recommend improvements. I hope that in future we shall be able to focus support on those bodies and activities which are carrying out the greatest amount of practical work to conserve and enhance Scotland's environment.