Chamber and committees

On the 25 January 2009, the Scottish Funding Council allocated £7 million so that colleges can offer customised training for individuals who lose their job, including apprentices.

Where apprentices are made redundant and cannot find alternative employment, and are not close to completing their apprenticeship, we are working with Skills Development Scotland, the Scottish Funding Council, sector skills councils and trade bodies to guarantee that they have the opportunity to complete alternative, relevant training. Scotland''s colleges have a key role to play in this. The Scottish Funding Council and Scotland''s colleges have also been represented at our discussions on how to ensure that our offer best works to meet the need of apprentices.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is the government agency which is responsible for monitoring the safety of medicines and vaccines, including the HPV vaccines. The MHRA and the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) run the UK''s suspected adverse reaction reporting scheme, called the Yellow Card Scheme. As of 19 March 2009, 158 reports of suspected adverse reactions following Cervarix, or brand unspecified HPV vaccine,have been received by the MHRA from Scotland. out of a total of 1,454 reports of suspected adverse reactions received across the UK. This follows administration of more than 700,000 doses of vaccine across the UK.

An updated summary of these reports is published on the MHRA website each week at (www.mhra.gov.uk/HPVvaccine). These reports relate to adverse medical events which the reporter considered could have been caused by the vaccine (i.e. if there was merely a suspicion of causality). Therefore, reports may be true side-effects or they may have been purely coincidental events, due to underlying or undiagnosed illness, that would have occurred anyway in the absence of vaccination.

The MHRA has reported that, to date, the majority of adverse reactions have related to the signs and symptoms of recognised side effects, or were due to the injection process (e.g. due to a fear of the needle). CHM has advised that no serious risks have been identified and the balance of risks and benefits of Cervarix remains positive.

The impact of the work of a range of therapists, including occupational and speech and language therapists, is included in the inspection of special schools by HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE).

Where appropriate, an HMIE report on a special school will comment on the impact of the contribution of therapists in helping to meet the learning needs of the young people there.

The allocation of funds in the Affordable Housing Investment Programme in 2009-10 is based on the following principles:

reinstating core funding in all local authority areas to at least 2007-08 levels;

providing additional resources where required to meet legal commitments largely arising from previous local authority stock transfers, and

directing the balance of funding available to those local authority areas in greatest homelessness pressures and greatest overall housing shortage.

We do not allocate funding to other housing developments outwith the Affordable Housing Investment Programme.

This information is not available at this time.

The Scottish Government has announced a record investment of £644 million next year for affordable housing, which will allow us to build more homes, support the construction industry and keep the economy moving. We are also urgently considering new ways of financing infrastructure investment, including through consultation with the Housing Supply Task Force.

The current contract for the provision of air ambulance services is due to expire on 31 March 2013. The Scottish Ambulance Service will begin the process of re-procuring this service in the second half of this year, 2009, with the outcome being a new contract beginning on 1 April 2013.

We currently expect to achieve a record number of completions of over 6,000 affordable homes in the 12 month period to 31 March 2009.

This is part of the work programme of Shifting the Balance of Care, under the Better Health, Better Care Action Plan, with the aim of delivering services as locally as possible.

The Scottish Government has no plans to transfer routine repeat prescribing to community pharmacists. Trained pharmacists can prescribe under supplementary and/or independent prescribing arrangements. These arrangements can include repeat prescribing.

In addition, the Chronic Medication Service (CMS), which is one of the key elements of the new community pharmacy contract, will formalise the role of community pharmacists in the management of individual patients with long-term conditions.