Chamber and committees

The contract to help with the Scottish census is with CACI (UK) Ltd. It was awarded under EU procurement rules which do not allow bidders to be excluded because they are subsidiaries of US companies. But the Registrar General put in place contractual precautions described in paragraph 6.8 of Scotland''s Census 2011, laid before the Parliament in December 2008, to ensure that personal information collected in the census could not leave Scotland and that the US Patriot Act could not catch that information.

The main contract for back office services for the 2011 Census, including certain IT services, was awarded in June 2009 to CACI (UK) Ltd.

The value of the contract awarded in June 2008 for back-office services (including printing the questionnaires and other material necessary for the census; providing a website to allow the questionnaire to be completed online and to offer general information and help on the census; the capture of the data on the paper questionnaires and the coding of responses from all questionnaires) was £18.6 million. It is not possible separately to identify the IT work involved in the contract.

The Act states that each local authority is required to publish an annual report on its performance of its functions in relation to the Act. The first reports cover the period 1 October 2009 to 31 March 2010 and are due to be published by 30 June 2011. The Act also requires the Scottish Government to publish a report on the local authorities. That report is due to be laid before the Parliament by 30 September 2011.

The Scottish Government fully endorses the principle that opportunities to participate, including standing for elected office, should be open to everyone and that active citizens are at the heart of the democratic process. Ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and similar factors should never constitute a barrier to involvement. The Scottish Parliament is founded on important principles which emphasise the importance of access, power-sharing and equal opportunities.

The Scottish Government provided funding of £2.1 million over 2008-11 to national disabled people''s organisations with the aim of increasing the participation and inclusion of disabled people in the development and delivery of public policy at a national and local level. Ministers will shortly announce what national disability projects will be funded in 2011-12.

Lord MacLean wrote to me on 10 December 2010 informing me that because hearings scheduled for December 2010 had to be cancelled, due to adverse weather, there would be an impact on the overall inquiry timetable and a delay in publishing the final report at the end of May 2011.

Lord MacLean also advised that, on further investigation of the commissioned witness statements and the evidence gathered, it had become apparent that for the experts to produce high quality and credible reports they would require additional time. It is extremely important that the final report and its recommendations are robust in order that the Scottish Government can consider how these recommendations can assist in continuing to raise the standard of care for patients in Scotland and that the lessons learned can be shared not just across NHS Scotland but worldwide.

However, I have not yet agreed this further extension. Discussions with Lord MacLean continue and as soon as a date for publishing the final report has been agreed, I will inform the Parliament.

Table 1 shows the 28-day hospital emergency readmission rate in the financial years ending 31 March 2009 and 2010, broken down by NHS board of residence. Data for the financial year ending 31 March 2011 will be available in September 2011.

The period of 28 days is to some extent arbitrary, but has been widely adopted as maximising the trade off between including as many readmissions related to the initial admission as possible and excluding as many unrelated readmissions as possible. The figures include readmissions within 28 days whether or not the readmission was related to the previous hospital stay.

Table 1: Number of Discharges with a Subsequent Emergency Readmission within 28 days, and Hospital Emergency Readmission Rate as a Percentage of All Discharges, by NHS Board of Residence; Financial Years 2008-09 and 2009-10

NHS Board	2008-09			2009-10
	Number of Admissions	Number of Re-admissions	% Readmitted	Number of Admissions	Number of Re-admissions	% Readmitted
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	96,809	7,890	8.2%	99,182	8,286	8.4%
NHS Borders	24,750	2,229	9.0%	24,226	2,135	8.8%
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	33,890	2,534	7.5%	34,568	2,490	7.2%
NHS Fife	75,829	5,657	7.5%	75,902	5,501	7.2%
NHS Forth Valley	46,618	4,069	8.7%	47,004	4,296	9.1%
NHS Grampian	103,144	7,612	7.4%	105,322	7,967	7.6%
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde	299,948	24,507	8.2%	304,622	24,582	8.1%
NHS Highland	74,866	5,571	7.4%	75,108	5,564	7.4%
NHS Lanarkshire	140,735	10,862	7.7%	142,103	11,,106	7.8%
NHS Lothian	149,002	13,422	9.0%	149,048	12,587	8.4%
NHS Orkney Islands	5,704	318	5.6%	5,652	311	5.5%
NHS Shetland Islands	5,065	315	6.2%	5,251	305	5.8%
NHS Tayside	77,019	6,933	9.0%	71,884	6,835	9.5%
NHS Western Isles	7,668	558	7.3%	7,864	540	6.9%
All Scotland	1,141,047	92,477	8.1%	1,147,736	92,505	8.1%

Source: ISD Scotland SMR01.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-36286 on 28 September 2010. All answers to parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Funding for Choose Life in 2011-12 is wrapped up within the total funding allocation to NHS Health Scotland of £1.4 million. Based on previous budget allocation, approximately 50% of this will be spent on Choose Life.

Under the concordat between the Scottish Government and COSLA, funding for local suicide prevention action is wrapped up in general allocations to local authorities.

We do not hold any information on how many GP practices have re-opened negotiations with premium telephone providers.

We have however written to chief executives of NHS boards on 23 February 2011 reiterating the Scottish Government''s policy that patients should not incur charges above the normal telephone call rates. We have also requested that they encourage GP contractors to review their current telephone arrangements.