What measures it is taking to increase access to community services for economically disadvantaged people in rural and semi-rural areas.

The Executive is committed to promoting improvements to service delivery in our rural areas. Through our mainstream policies and programmes, for example in transport, health and modernising government, we are working to improve the access of rural communities to a wide range of services. We are also targeting the challenges facing our rural communities in accessing services, through specific programmes such as the Scottish Rural Partnership Fund and the Rural Transport Fund. This is in addition to the action we are taking to implement many of the recommendations of the report, Services in Rural Scotland, published by the Scottish National Rural Partnership in January 2001, aimed at encouraging more innovative approaches to service provision in rural areas.