Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-01771 on 5 August 2011. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

On 1 April 2011 the establishment figures for inspection staff at Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland was 286.78 full time equivalent.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-02244 on 26 August 2011. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-02244 on 26 August 2011. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-02448 on 21 September 2011. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that the cost of temporary and agency staff since 2007-08 has been:

The budget for 2011-12 is currently £20,000 but this figure is subject to revision over the course of the year. The figures are not held centrally broken down between temporary and agency staff.

The Scottish Government has funded National Services Scotland to produce the outline business case for the National Staff Banks/Erostering. In the meantime, five NHS boards in Scotland have established or are in the process of establishing a board AHP Bank, pending the national bank infrastructure becoming available, to facilitate cross board working.

Responsibility for legislation relating to any oversight of the governance of a public limited company, whether for community care purposes or not, would fall within the “regulation of a business association”, and is therefore reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament.

In this regard I have written to the Secretary of State for Health to request that Scottish Government Officials are involved in considering what action may be taken to guard against future risks such as those highlighted in the Southern Cross case.

Work to gather statistics in relation to the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 is currently being undertaken and will be published in due course.

The Scottish Government measures progress against reducing poverty through its national poverty indicator within Scotland Performs. Information on this can be accessed at:

http://scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/indicators/poverty.

The source of information is the Department for Work and Pension's Family Resources Survey, Households Below Average Income datasets.

The Scottish Government has also signed up to the UK Child Poverty Act which contains four measures of child poverty. Progress on these measures are reported on in the annual Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland publication at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/933/0116722.pdf.