Chamber and committees

The number of new entrants to the foundation training programme for 2011-12 will be decided shortly.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 requires ministers to report at least every four years on progress towards the commitment that by 2016, so far as is reasonably practicable, persons do not live in fuel poverty. The updated Scottish Fuel Poverty Statement detailing such progress will be published on 25 November 2010.

The Scottish House Condition Survey 2009 Annual Report will be published on 25 November 2010. This publication has been pre-announced, in line with national statistics practices, on the Scottish Government website. The list of forthcoming publications can be found at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Search/Forthcoming.

The Scottish Government expects NHS boards to make and retain a minimum of 3% efficiency savings in 2011-12.

In June 2008, the Scottish Government asked NHS24 to take the lead role in co-ordinating the service (including its development and all associated procurement) on behalf of, and in partnership with, NHSScotland.

In May 2009, a national partnership agreement was drawn up, clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the various partners in taking forward the NHS inform service.

An evaluation of NHS inform will be carried out during 2011.

It is planned that boards providing direct patient care will be able to retain the efficiency savings which they generate in 2011-12.

There is no specific staff group called the NHS Executive Managers cohort. There are currently two distinct cohorts subject to the same overall pay arrangements: the Executive Cohort and the Senior Management Cohort. Definitions of each are set out in circular HDL (2006)59. These definitions of staff groupings applied from 2006, however assimilation to new pay scales and terms and conditions was ongoing over a number of years.

Information published on the Workforce Statistics website at:

www.isdscotland.org/workforce shows the number of management grades (non Agenda for Change) was as follows on 30 September of each year:

2007	1,914
2008	1,503
2009	1,377

However further investigation has shown these figures include staff who were still on Whitley grades who were not members of the Executive or Senior Management cohorts as per the 2006 circular. Therefore additional information has been sought from the NHSScotland national payroll system, which provides an accurate record of the cohorts. The below figures represent the combined totals of all staff on grades
A to I in both the Executive and Senior Management cohorts at 30 September of each year.

2007	1,386
2008	1,288
2009	1,282

 

Data is not yet available for 2010.

The pay remits for the Executive and Senior Management cohorts are assessed nationally  in accordance with Scottish Government Public Sector Pay Policies: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-sector-pay which require aggregated figures. The total pay bill details given below include any costs resulting from staff progressing through their pay ranges based on performance and include all employers'' costs.

Year	Total Pay Bill Costs
2007-08	£101,963,089.00
2008-09	£101,934,464.00
2009-10	£100,819,636.00

The National Performance Management Committee has no responsibility for pay and cannot limit payments.

Local authorities'' net expenditure on support for carers, including respite care was £134.74 million in 2008-09. The figure for 2009-10 will be available early in 2011 and that for 2010-11 will be available in 2012. The figures for 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07 are £93.987 million, £109.001 million and £100 million respectively. These figures are not broken down to show the level of funding to carers centres but do show a significant increase in net expenditure on support for carers.

There has been an increase in overall respite weeks provision across Scotland. Statistics published on 28 September show that the amount of respite provision rose by 8,950 weeks between 2007-08 and 2009-10, exceeding the target of a rise of 6,000 weeks.

I refer the member to An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland: Respite Care, published on 28 September 2010 which includes information for each local authority on total respite weeks, 2006-07 to 2009-10. Eight authorities have provided less respite weeks in 2009-10 compared with the position in 2007-08 (baseline year). The link is:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/Recent/Q/Page/6.

The Carers and Young Carers Strategy, published jointly with COSLA in July, has clear expectations around the provision of innovative, personalised short breaks/respite, preventative support and emergency respite. That is why I announced in the strategy £1 million for short breaks in 2010-11. We have decided to roll this forward, making £5 million in total to 2015. The National Carers Organisations are about to finalise proposals for the use of this funding.