A fresh drive to improve the state of Scotland's housing stock will be announced by Communities Minister Wendy Alexander.

But opposition parties are expected to hit out at the Scottish Executive and accuse the minister of acting too slow over tackling levels of homelessness.

Ms Alexander is expected to tell the parliament on Thursday that she wants to improve repairs both in the local authority and private sectors.

If the Labour politician's proposals go through, councils can expect to face scrutiny over their repairs' standard - and there will be a new effort to improve common factoring in the private sector.

Ms Alexander will announce plans to target cash for housing improvement grants on those most in need and MSPs will debate the executive's intention to extend the right to buy to 40,000 housing association tenants.

But opposition parties argue that homelessness remains at high levels throughout Scotland - and that executive action is insufficient to address that problem.

They also accuse ministers of over-hyping their plans, claiming that the all-important Housing Bill will not be in force until next year.

New and improved houses

Ms Alexander's announcement on Thursday will come a day after she revealed that the Scottish Homes' programme will deliver 637 new or improved homes for Scottish families.

That helps to fulfil an executive promise to build 18,000 new and improved homes over the next three years for affordable rent or low-cost owner occupation - an average of 6,000 new homes every year for Scottish families.

Ms Alexander said: "This is great news for Scottish families. Through hard work and good management by Scottish Homes, we will this year approve an extra 637 homes.

"This is another critical step in delivering our vision - warm, dry homes for all Scots.

"We promised 6,000 homes and we are doing much better. I expect we will exceed our target by more than 1,000 - these 7,000 new homes across all parts of Scotland are about delivering to Scottish families what they want."