Chamber and committees

The NHSScotland Resource AllocationCommittee is working to a timetable whereby it will report its recommendations toministers by the end of June 2007.

Over the months of July, Augustand September 2006, the committee undertook a consultation based on the researchit had commissioned in the previous year to determine how the Arbuthnott Formulacould be improved and refined. This included research into population measurementand demography; the resource allocation adjustment for health care needs due tomorbidity and life circumstances and other factors, and the excess costs of supplyinghealthcare services including the remoteness adjustment within the formula. As partof the consultation process the committee also ran three regional workshops in Edinburgh,Aberdeen and Clydebank for interested parties.

The committee recently publishedon its website, www.nrac.scot.nhs.uk,the consultation responses and the analysis of the responses along with a papersummarising the analytical work plan for the final post-consultation phase of itswork.

NHS boards have been given ageneral allocation of £6,870.4 million for 2007-08, an average increase over theequivalent 2006-07 allocation of 6.44%. Details of each NHS board’s allocation isas follows:

	Allocation (£ Million)	Increase (£ Million)	Increase %
Ayrshire and Arran	530.2	31.6	6.34%
Borders	154.1	10.1	7.00%
Dumfries and Galloway	221.2	13.1	6.28%
Fife	462.4	30.2	7.00%
Forth Valley	363.0	23.7	7.00%
Grampian	627.3	39.6	6.74%
Greater Glasgow	1,734.9	98.2	6.00%
Highland	445.8	25.2	6.00%
Lanarkshire	735.0	46.2	6.71%
Lothian	930.9	60.2	6.91%
Orkney	28.7	1.7	6.24%
Shetland	33.9	1.9	6.00%
Tayside	549.4	31.1	6.00%
Western Isles	53.6	3.0	6.00%
	6,870.4	415.8	6.44%

Note: The general allocationincludes provision for Hospital and Community Health Services and the cost of drugsprescribed by general practitioners.

Allocations to Special HealthBoards for 2007-08 are as follows:

	Allocation (£ Million)	Increase (£ Million)	Increase %
NHS National Services Scotland	236.3	11.8	5.20
NHS Education for Scotland	350.5	19.8	6.00
State Hospital	32.7	1.9	6.00
Scottish Ambulance Service	177.8	10.1	6.00
NHS Quality Improvement Scotland	15.7	0.5	3.60
NHS Health Scotland	16.8	0.6	3.60
NHS 24	51.7	2.9	6.00
National Waiting Times Centre	38.8	2.2	6.00
	920.3	49.8	5.72

 

I understand that the committeeis making its report public today. I am gratefulto Sir Peter Burt for leading the review and to Professor John Baillie, Peter Danielsand Dr Janet Lowe for all their hard work over the past two years.

This is a substantive and substantialpiece of work and merits careful consideration by the Executive, the Parliament,local authorities and the wider Scottish public. I hope this comprehensive reportcan be a catalyst for an informed and constructive debate on the future of localtaxation in Scotland.

The Executive response to WestLothian Council’s report in July 2004 highlighted that the study had identifiedkey issues which still need to be addressed. More recently a different service patternachieving more quick journeys which might have wider benefits has been suggested.West Lothian Council has now reconvened the working group and has commissioned furtherwork both to address the outstanding issues in the original study and to evaluatethe alternative service pattern.

The Executive will consider whetherto implement any of the outcomes of that study evaluated.

Transport Scotland hasthe operational responsibility for this area, and can be contacted for more informationif required.

The numbers of local authoritydwellings sold to sitting tenants are accessible on-line through the data libraryin the publications and data section of the Scottish Executive housing statisticsbranch website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/housing/hsbref(sales to sitting tenants: table 4 (financial year to 2004-05) or table 6 (calendaryear to 2004)). Data for 2005 will be published on 23 May 2006.

The number of sales of registeredsocial landlord property are shown in the following table.

Sales of Registered SocialLandlord Property to Sitting Tenants

Local Authority	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Aberdeen City	28	25	26
Aberdeenshire	16	16	8
Angus	25	22	11
Argyll and Bute	7	5	6
Clackmannanshire	37	21	17
Dumfries and Galloway	10	453	282
Dundee City	44	29	28
East Ayrshire	72	33	28
East Dunbartonshire	17	18	13
East Lothian	26	10	20
East Renfrewshire	9	5	4
Edinburgh, City of	47	49	45
Eilean Siar	0	0	0
Falkirk	26	15	19
Fife	80	76	53
Glasgow City	288	1,626	1,101
Highland	47	49	39
Inverclyde	44	40	26
Midlothian	58	39	30
Moray	0	1	1
North Ayrshire	63	46	46
North Lanarkshire	81	68	75
Orkney Islands	0	0	0
Perth and Kinross	1	1	0
Renfrewshire	87	99	62
Scottish Borders	139	308	311
Shetland Islands	0	1	3
South Ayrshire	29	19	16
South Lanarkshire	32	37	35
Stirling	8	7	1
West Dunbartonshire	42	37	46
West Lothian	44	33	28
Rent to Mortgage	101
Scotland	1,508	3,188	2,380

Source: CommunitiesScotland.

Note: 1. Includesright to buy and rent to mortgage, except for 2002-03 where rent to mortgage salescannot be broken down by local authority area.

Information on number of newhouse completions in the social rented sector in each year from 1992 to 2004 ineach of the 32 local authority areas was provided in my reply to Alex Neil in S2W-24608on 12 April 2006. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Information for 2005 will becomeavailable following publication of the December 2005 Housing Statistics Bulletinon 23 May 2006. Information is not held centrally on the number of thesewhich were as a result of developer planning gain contributions.

Figures on local authority stockas at 31 March of each year are published in the quarterly Scottish Executive StatisticalBulletin (Housing Series) Housing trends in Scotland: quarters ending 31 March. Thisis available on-line in the publications section of the housing statistics branchreference site http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/housing/hsbref.

Figures on registered sociallandlord stock as at 31 March of each year are published by Communities Scotlandin Scottish Registered Social Landlord Statistics. The reports for 2003-04and 2004-05 are available on-line in the publications (statistics) section at:

http://www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk.

Figures for 31 March 2003 are shownin the following table.

Registered Social LandlordStock as at 31 March 2003

Local Authority
Aberdeen City	3,685
Aberdeenshire	3,194
Angus	2,828
Argyll and Bute	2,501
Clackmannanshire	1,734
Dumfries and Galloway	2,144
Dundee City	8,262
East Ayrshire	2,933
East Dunbartonshire	704
East Lothian	1,463
East Renfrewshire	938
Edinburgh, City of	12,948
Eilean Siar	249
Falkirk	2,653
Fife	6,749
Glasgow City	122,044
Highland	4,541
Inverclyde	3,566
Midlothian	2,686
Moray	1,070
North Ayrshire	4,020
North Lanarkshire	8,214
Orkney Islands	377
Perth and Kinross	2,559
Renfrewshire	6,548
Scottish Borders	12,517
Shetland Islands	278
South Ayrshire	1,429
South Lanarkshire	4,129
Stirling	1,270
West Dunbartonshire	5,815
West Lothian	4,424
Scotland	238,472

Source: CommunitiesScotland.

Note: 1. Figuresconsist of self-contained units.

The information requested, whereavailable, is given in the following table:

Total Council Tax Benefit Payments(£ Million)

	2003-04	2004-05
Scotland	337.2	357.5
Aberdeen City	10.5	11.8
Aberdeenshire	7.2	8.3
Angus	4.9	5.6
Argyll and Bute	5.3	5.5
Clackmannanshire	3.2	3.4
Dumfries and Galloway	7.5	8.2
Dundee City	12.9	13.7
East Ayrshire	8.6	9.1
East Dunbartonshire	3.9	4.6
East Lothian	4.8	5.1
East Renfrewshire	3.3	3.6
Edinburgh, City of	25.5	28.0
Eilean Siar	1.6	1.7
Falkirk	7.4	8.0
Fife	18.7	19.7
Glasgow City	78.8	78.4
Highland	10.7	11.8
Inverclyde	7.4	8.0
Midlothian	4.4	4.9
Moray	3.1	3.5
North Ayrshire	10.1	10.8
North Lanarkshire	22.9	24.1
Orkney Islands	0.7	0.8
Perth and Kinross	5.5	6.3
Renfrewshire	12.6	13.8
Scottish Borders	4.6	5.2
Shetland Islands	0.6	0.7
South Ayrshire	7.0	7.5
South Lanarkshire	20.6	21.5
Stirling	4.2	4.5
West Dunbartonshire	9.9	10.0
West Lothian	8.6	9.2

Source: Department of Work andPensions, subsidy claims data.

Figures may not sum due to rounding.

Note: Data for 2004-05 are provisionaland that data for 2005-06 are not yet available.

Budgeted council tax yields areavailable from council tax returns submitted by councils in March 2006, and areprovided separately in the reply to the answer to question S2W-25172 on 8 May. Thereis no centrally held estimate of local income tax rates that would replace theseyields for each local authority in Scotland.

All answers to written parliamentaryquestions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for whichcan be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

It has recently come to lightthat, due to an administrative oversight, a file of statements that was availableto all parties to the Dunblane Inquiry, is not currently included within the documentsheld at the National Archives of Scotland. Extensive enquiries have been made todetermine how this happened. It appears that at some point between the transmissionof the files from the Inquiry Office to the National Archives of Scotland at theend of the Inquiry, and the cataloguing of the files at the National Archives ofScotland, the file was either inadvertently not included or mislaid. The file wastherefore not part of the papers which were passed to the Crown Office in 2003 when consideration wasbeing given to making inquiry documents available to the public and was not madeavailable to the public in October 2005.

As soon as this error becameknown Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service officials took immediate stepsto begin to redact the statements that could be disclosed. Both the original fileand the redacted copy will be lodged at the National Archives of Scotland and willbe available for inspection by members of the public from20 April 2006.

Theevidence contained in these witness statements does not add substantively to theevidence in those statements already disclosed. The majority of the statements arefrom medical staff, including ambulance personnel, GPs and hospital doctors. Thecontent of these particular statements is so detailed that it could cause considerabledistress to the next of kin of the bereaved and injured. These statements are thereforeconsidered to be unsuitable for disclosure in their entirety and will be placedwith the other documents in respect of which I have already explained that the ClosureOrder of 100 years will remain.

The Executive have supplied the following corrected answer:

Colin Boyd QC: It has recently come tolight that, due to an administrative oversight, a file of statements that wasavailable to all parties to the Dunblane Inquiry is not currently includedwithin the documents held at the National Archives of Scotland.  Extensiveenquiries have been made to determine how this happened.  It appears thatat some point between the transmission of the files from the Inquiry Office tothe National Archives of Scotland at the end of the Inquiry, and thecataloguing of the files at the National Archives of Scotland, the file waseither inadvertently not included or mislaid.   The file wastherefore not part of the papers which were passed to the Crown Office in 2003 whenconsideration was being given to making inquiry documents available to thepublic and was not made available to thepublic in October 2005.

 As soon as this errorbecame known Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service officials tookimmediate steps to begin to redact the statements,which could be disclosed.  Both theoriginal file and the redacted copy were lodged at the National Archives ofScotland.  The redacted copy was made available for inspection by members of the public on Thursday 20 April 2006.  

The evidence contained inthese witness statements does not add substantively to the evidence in those statementsalready disclosed.  There are also statements from medical staff, including ambulance personnel, GPs and hospitaldoctors.  The content of these particular statements is so detailed thatit could cause considerable distress to the next of kin of the bereaved andinjured.  These statements are therefore considered to be unsuitable fordisclosure in their entirety and will be placed with the other documents inrespect of which I have already explained that the Closure Order of 100 yearswill remain.