I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-19433 on 23 September 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliaments website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

More generally, it is not possible to breakdown the distribution of resources by local authority area, as Scottish Executive grants are mainly provided to national organisations. However, the activities of these national organisations are taken forward across Scotland.

Average waiting times are not regarded as a particularly effective measure of the availability and efficiency of drug services. Rather, the information compiled by drug action teams and submitted to Information Services Division specifies the number of people who wait for less than a week, less than two weeks and so forth, for different types of intervention. Table 1 presents information on the length of time waited, by drug action team area, for (a) clients who have received drug intervention, which includes detoxification and (b) clients who are still waiting for prescribed drug intervention for the period July September 2005, the most recent period for which comprehensive data is available.

Table 1a: Prescribed Drug Treatment Number of Clients Seen, July to September 2005

Time Waited Drug Action Team		8-14d	15-21d	22-28d	5-8 wks	9-12 wks	13-26 wks	27-52 wks	52+ wks	Total
Aberdeen City	0	4	1	0	0	0	0	0	3	8
Aberdeenshire	28	9	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	38
Angus	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Argyll and Clyde	53	17	0	2	1	2	2	0	0	77
Ayrshire and Arran	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Borders	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	9	3	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	15
Dundee City	13	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	14
East Lothian	21	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	22
Edinburgh City	31	2	0	1	4	0	0	0	0	38
Fife	13	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	13
Forth Valley	5	1	0	2	11	0	0	0	1	20
Glasgow	94	17	14	1	7	0	1	1	1	136
Highland	5	2	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	9
Lanarkshire	7	3	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	12
Midlothian										0
Moray	10	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	15
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Perth/Kinross	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Shetland	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3
West Lothian	9	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	11
Western Isles	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Scotland	305	62	21	11	24	2	4	1	5	435

 

Table 1b: Prescribed Drug Treatment Number of Clients Waiting at end of Quarter, July to September 2005

Time waited Drug Action Team		8- 14d	15-21d	22-28d	5-8 wks	9-12 wks	13-26 wks	27-52 wks	52+ wks	Total
Aberdeen City	1	0	0	0	0	2	4	6	3	16
Aberdeenshire	0	0	0	0	4	0	1	0	0	5
Angus	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Argyll and Clyde	2	1	3	1	7	6	21	15	20	76
Ayrshire and Arran	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Borders	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	19	0	22
Dundee City	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	1	3
East Lothian	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	2	3
Edinburgh City	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	11	10	22
Fife	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	4	7
Forth Valley	3	3	3	4	9	6	43	47	45	163
Glasgow	3	6	2	3	10	5	24	25	11	89
Highland	1	2	1	0	4	0	23	27	31	89
Lanarkshire	0	1	0	0	0	0	5	8	3	17
Midlothian										0
Moray	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Perth/Kinross	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	2
Shetland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
West Lothian	1	0	1	0	2	3	2	9	0	18
Western Isles	0	1	0	1	1	1	1	0	0	5
Scotland	13	14	10	9	38	24	129	170	130	537

Notes:

1. Prescribed drug treatment includes detoxification, maintenance or reduction programmes, and is defined as the prescribing of a substitute drug, (e.g. methadone, lofexidine, subutex) for facilitating the complete cessation of the use of illicit drugs, controlling withdrawal symptoms or reducing illicit drug use. GP prescriptions are not included in this data.

2. The waiting time is measured from the date a decision is made regarding what is the appropriate treatment for the client to the first date offered for beginning the treatment.

There is no register of cocaine users in Scotland. Information provided by drug action teams through corporate action plans for 2005-06 shows that there are 30 facilities across Scotland which target psychostimulant users.

This information is not collected centrally.

The Scottish Executive has made good progress in implementing the policy, announced in January 2003, to provide bilingual signs on the A82 trunk road between Tarbet and Inverness and on those west coast trunk roads that pass through mainland communities where Gaelic is spoken and lead to the Western Isles ferry ports of Kennacraig, Oban, Uig and Ullapool.

Almost £1 million has already been invested in providing signs on the A87, A887, A830 and the A835. Work on the A828 at an estimated cost of £230,000 is scheduled to be undertaken within financial year 2006-07. Work on the A85, A82 and the A83 at an estimated cost of £1,600,000 is scheduled to be undertaken from 2007-08 onwards.

Transport Scotland has the operational responsibility for this area, and can be contacted for more information if required.

Publicly funded English language classes for immigrants, including migrant workers, are provided in further education (FE) colleges, community learning and development (CLD) partnerships and adult literacy and numeracy (ALN) partnerships, and by a small number of voluntary providers.

The Scottish Executive’s current work to develop an adult ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) strategy for Scotland is designed to aid these various sectors to be even more responsive to the rapidly changing ESOL student population, including the influx of migrant workers, through mechanisms for increased collaboration between providers and coordination of ESOL provision. Public consultation on the formulation of a national ESOL strategy ended on 31 October 2005. Detailed analysis of the consultation responses, which indicate broad agreement with the vision and guiding principles for the strategy, is currently being completed, and we plan to launch our adult ESOL strategy this Spring.

Publicly-funded English language classes for immigrants, including migrant workers, are provided in further education (FE) colleges, community learning and development (CLD) partnerships and adult literacy and numeracy (ALN) partnerships, and by a small number of voluntary providers. Disaggregated data on the support for English language classes for migrant workers, as distinct from other provision, are not available because of the way that these various bodies are funded.

However, the Scottish Executive has taken substantial action in recent years to facilitate the provision of English language classes. Between 2001 and 2004 an extra £5.4 million was allocated to the FE sector to ensure that colleges boost provision. From 2004-05, this resource has been mainstreamed into FE baseline funding. This funding has helped to expand considerably the provision of English language classes and reduce waiting lists for lessons.

While we do currently allocate considerable resources for provision of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in Scotland, we recognise the need for a clear strategy in this area. Public consultation on the formulation of a national adult ESOL strategy for Scotland ended on 31 October 2005. Detailed analysis of the consultation responses, which indicate broad agreement with the vision and guiding principles for the strategy, is currently being completed, and we plan to launch our adult ESOL strategy this spring.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-21471 on 15 December 2005. All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facilityfor which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Since then I have announced consentfor one further wind farm and no refusals have been issued.

Services are delivered locally and it is therefore the responsibility of individual local authorities and NHS boards to determine and provide appropriate service provision to meet local needs and priorities from within the substantial resources available to them. This includes provision in the current year for spending by local authorities of £1.6 billion on community care and funding in the current year of £8.8 billion to the NHS.

Building a Health Service Fit for The Future (Bib. number 36608) and the Executive’s response Delivering for Health (Bib. number 37847) set a clear direction for the development of services in the future, including for older people. We expect NHS boards and Regional Planning Groups to use them to deliver services and to drive their service improvement.

The Range and Capacity Review Group is also looking at future care services for older people and investigating how services can be used as an alternative to long-term residential care. They are considering a range of issues such as more flexible services, step-up and step-down, and preventative care of long-term conditions. The group’s findings are due in the spring.

Average (mean) number of patients registered with an NHS general dental practitioner who is (a) non-salaried and (b) salaried; at 31 March 2005

(a) Non-Salaried Dentist1	(b) Salaried Dentist2
1,373	679

Source: MIDAS (Management Information and Dental Accounting System).

Notes:

1. This analysis excludes practitioners with list numbers limited to orthodontics, as these list numbers do not attract registrations.

2. The profiles of the NHS non-salaried and salaried general dental services are significantly different and, due to the types of service provided by salaried dentists, registration figures are not comparable. Many salaried dentists provide an access only service, either full or part of the time, and do not therefore register patients or register only a small number of patients. In addition, senior and specialist salaried dentists may not register patients due to the type of service they provide. Consequently, salaried dentists with fewer than 100 registered patients at 31 March 2005 have been excluded.