The guidance recommends that all children should have contact with health professionals within the first 24 hours for a full physical health check; within the first 10 days of life for a blood spot test for particular illnesses and a general check to ensure there is no cause for concern; new-born hearing screening is offered to all babies within the first four weeks of life unless born prematurely or ill; at six to eight weeks for a full physical health and development check, including weight; at  two, three and four months for immunisation and to check weight; at 12 months for immunisation; at 13 months for immunisation and to check weight; between the ages of three to five years for immunisation and to check weight; between four and five years for an eye sight test, usually at pre-school, and between the ages of four to six, usually in school year primary 1, for a full physical health check including height, weight and dental check.

Practitioners should provide clinical advice based on the weight measurement when appropriate.

Healthy Eating, Active Living, the Scottish Government''s three year action plan to improve diet, increase physical activity and tackle obesity was published in June 2008 and NHS Health Scotland has developed guidance to support NHS Scotland boards to deliver against the HEAT target for the delivery of behaviour change programmes for overweight children between five and 15 years old and their families (April 2008).

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/04/15161325/13390.

The Scottish Universal Core Programme of contacts includes contact with a health professional within the first 24 hours of life, within the first 10 days, at six to eight weeks, at two, three and four months, at 12 and 13 months and at three to five years. Newborn hearing screening is offered to all babies within the first four weeks of life unless born prematurely or ill.

The Scottish child health programme includes routine checks to detect any health problems and to ensure that children get any care or treatment they need as soon as possible, including immunisations. Up until school entry, information and advice on a range of health promotion topics should be provided such as weaning, nutrition, child development, safety and dental health. Most of the core programme is undertaken by health visitors/public health nurses, however some of contacts listed above are undertaken by other health professionals.

The Scottish Government published a three-year action plan to improve diet, increase physical activity and tackle obesity in June 2008. NHS Health Scotland has also developed guidance to support boards to deliver against HEAT targets for the delivery of behaviour change programmes for overweight children between five and 15 years old and their families.

The allocations for 2009-10, broken down by authority, are provided in the following table. The allocations for 2010-11 are not yet available.

The whole 2009-10 local government finance settlement is provisional until the Parliament approves both the overall 2009-10 Scottish Budget Bill and the Local Government Finance Order 2009.

Additional Allocation to Deliver 10,000 Additional Respite Weeks (this is Additional to Concordat Funding for this Commitment)

Similar services are being setup in NHS Borders and NHS Lothian.

We have also agreed with COSLA that they will monitor the delivery of the additional respite weeks and will report to the Scottish Government with total Scotland-wide figures.

The Audit Scotland Performance Indicator figures showing the baseline for each local authority for 2007-08 were published in December 2008. The break-down of additional respite weeks to be provided by each authority in 2008-09 is not yet available. COSLA officials are liaising with local authorities regarding the arrangements for collecting information to monitor the delivery of the commitment.