Chamber and committees

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.

In the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority senior managers do not receive any non-consolidated bonus payments and none has been paid. In the Cairngorms National Park Authority, annual totals of between £1,260 and £2,644 have been awarded to senior managers since 2007-08. A further breakdown cannot be provided without contravening data protection principles, as this information could identify individuals.

Chief executives'' pay arrangements are covered separately by the Scottish Government''s pay policy for senior appointments, and remuneration details for both National Park Authority chief executives are published yearly in the organisations'' annual report and accounts.

The revenue and capital budgets for 2010-11 are detailed for each of the national park authorities in the following table.

	Operating*	Capital	Total
	£000	£000	£000
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority	7,512	67	7,579
Cairngorms National Park Authority	4,871	33	4,904

Note: *The operating figure includes depreciation.

Comparative information by NHS board on the performance management outcomes for staff in the Executive and Senior Management Cohorts is not released. In many cases this would lead to the identification of individuals due to the small numbers involved.

The role of the National Performance Management Committee is set out in HDL 2006(54). The committee''s terms of reference has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 52071).

It is not possible to determine how much of the total of £5 million allocated to NHS boards for carer information strategies (CIS) in 2010-11 has been allocated to carers centres. We have not requested that NHS boards provide information on the level of resources allocated to particular aspects of the CIS. However, we fully expect the boards'' annual reports to the Scottish Government for 2010-11, to be received after March 2011, to set out progress and achievements against the minimum requirements in NHS HDL (2006) 22 (24 April 2006).

We know from discussions with carers'' organisations, NHS boards, local authorities and carers that a significant part of the total CIS funding of £9 million over three years is supporting carers centres.

There has been no change to the number of new entrants to Foundation Training programme for 2010-11, which remains at 804.

The National Performance Management Committee has met on the undernoted dates:

For the 2007-08 performance year:

25 February 2008;

2 May 2008;

28 July 2008;

8 August 2008;

29 August 2008;

26 September 2008;

27 October 2008;

27 November 2008.

For the 2008-09 performance year:

26 January 2009;

3 April 2009;

8 May 2009;

9 July 2009;

14 August 2009;

1 September 2009;

25 September 2009;

16 October 2009;

13 November 2009; 

7 January 2010.

For the 2009-10 performance year (to-date):

8 March 2010;

16 April 2010;

14 May 2010;

16 July 2010;

13 August 2010;

8 September 2010;

8 October 2010;

1 November 2010.

Information on the gender of staff in the Executive and Senior Management Cohorts is not held centrally.

NHS Inform is a constantly evolving service and there are currently a number of strands of work in train, including information relating to carers, cancer, healthy lifestyles and mental health and wellbeing.