Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-12959 on 30 May 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The Scottish Government supports health boards in their management of staff sickness absence in a variety of ways.

Foremost amongst these is a coordinated strategy to improve the health and wellbeing of the NHSScotland workforce. This includes the innovative occupational health project known as OHXtra which is currently being rolled out across health boards. Work to date includes a wellness monitoring toolkit, mental health employment support, case management support and campaigns to address the problem of violence and aggression. In addition, Partnership Information Network policies are currently being reviewed in partnership with trade unions.

With regard to the management of sickness absence itself, attention is currently being directed at promoting and extending the use of existing good practice rather than issuing further guidance. There is much being done within NHSScotland that can be held up as models of best practice but we have to ensure that all areas, staff groups and levels of management are indeed following best practice consistently. The Scottish Government has conducted a stock take exercise to identify examples of good practice in the management of sickness absence and followed this up in November 2007 by issuing a compendium of the best examples to all health boards. This work will continue. A specialist group (The Promoting Attendance and Managing Sickness Absence Group) has been established at national level with membership from NHS management, trade unions and the Scottish Government and has within its remit responsibility to identify, disseminate and promote good practice.

Health boards produce attendance management plans and are required to demonstrate publicly through the annual review process and in their local delivery plans, that the issue has ownership at top management level and is being actively addressed.

Sickness Absence rates for each of Scotland''s 22 health boards are monitored and reported on regularly. Rates are currently falling and the most recent data shows an average rate for NHSScotland in March 2008 of 5.08%.

More detailed analysis, for example by staff group or by type of absence is carried out for particular purposes but this is not collated centrally.

A single system for measuring sickness absence has been applied within NHS Scotland only since April 2005, before which different approaches to calculating sickness absence were taken within individual boards.

We need to be cautious about making comparisons with reported rates for other organisations. NHS Scotland has its own system which expresses total hours lost due to sickness as a percentage of total available hours and we have specific definitions for each of these which may not correspond with those used by other organisations. In a 24/7 organisation we need to be careful about when periods of absence start and finish. Whilst it is possible to compare NHS Scotland rates with those of other organisations we must always remember that we are not necessarily comparing like with like. This is the case even with the NHS in the rest of the UK where there are different processes for recording and reporting on sickness absence.

The important thing is that we have a reliable and consistent measure within NHS Scotland which we can use to monitor and report on progress.

Sickness Absence rates for each of Scotland''s 22 health boards are monitored and reported on regularly. Yearly rates are available at:

www.isdscotland.org/isd/servlet/FileBuffer?namedFile=WFA07.xls&pContentDispositionType=inline.

Some health boards have expressed an interest in carrying out more detailed analysis of the relationship at local level between postcode areas and sickness absence rates. This would allow possible correlations with deprivation statistics to be examined and is something that the Scottish Government might well support through the Promoting Attendance and Managing Sickness Absence group.

The position at present, however, is that comparisons between NHS sickness absence rates and local deprivation statistics are not available.

Progress against each of the commitments in the concordat will be reported annually by COSLA at the end of each financial year.

We have acknowledged that the current legislation requires clarification. We will seek the Parliament''s approval for legislation to stop councils charging for food preparation.

To date, individual councils have acted on their own legal advice. The issue of refunds is a matter for each council to consider in light of its previous practice.

Yes. In the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing''s statement to the Parliament on 7 May 2008 she confirmed that we will introduce legislation to clarify that councils should not charge for food preparation as part of an assessed package of personal care.

The review is expected to begin in June 2008.

We expect to publish the report early in 2009.

Four applications were submitted from VisitScotland for the 2007-2013 European Structural Funds ERDF Programme. The New Tourism Growth Fund total project costs £998,827 requesting a grant of £374,560, Green Tourism Initiatives for Business Growth total project costs £1,137,633 requesting a grant of £401,362, Homecoming Scotland 2009 total project costs £3,958,341 requesting a grant of £1,335,338 and Green Tourism Consumer Promotion total project costs £2,874,215 requesting a grant of £991,379. This package of funding aims to accelerate growth in the tourism sector by supporting businesses, creating jobs and increasing tourism incomes in the lowlands and uplands area, creating sustainable growth in the local economy.