Chamber and committees

Scottish Government provides funding for local alcohol services to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) via NHS boards. It is for ADPs to determine the profile of local services - including those they may commission from independent providers - in line with the needs of their local population.

This year (2011-12) Scottish Government funding for local alcohol services is £37million, an increase of £1million from 2010-11. Future funding will be subject to the outcome of the spending review and approval of the budget by the Scottish Parliament.

The number of people under the age of 18 who have been treated for alcohol dependency in Scotland is not available centrally.

In relation to ambulance response times, I refer the member to the answers to question S3W-29061 on 1 December 2009 and S3W-34252 on 10 June 2010. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The average response times for 2010-11 are set out in the following table.

Notes:

*Information provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS).

**SAS systems record data under the previous structure of 15 geographic health boards.

***”All” emergency is defined as Category A, B and C calls.

****The Scottish Ambulance Service completed the roll-out of the priority-based dispatch system across mainland Scotland in March 2004, so 2004-05 is the first year in which average Category A and “all” emergency responses can be measured across Scotland. Figures for earlier years are not available as the information held is not comparable. Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles are subject to different performance management measures so figures are provided at an all emergency level.

Fire service response times to emergency incidents for each NHS board area are not centrally held. The dataset for fire is unable to produce this information at this geographic level.

The information requested is set out in the following tables. These data are extracted from databases held at Health Protection Scotland and are based on laboratory reports of positive diagnoses of HIV, genital herpes, genital chlamydia, gonorrhoea, and infectious syphilis by NHS board from 1999 to 2009. The information in tables one to four is not yet available for 2010.

Cells featuring four cases or fewer (marked with "*") have been suppressed in order to maintain confidentiality. In some instances, secondary suppression of cells featuring greater than four cases has been necessary in order to prevent calculation of figures.

It is important that those at risk of infection come forward for testing and treatment. Current sexual health policy encourages this and has also improved access to sexual health services. This will initially lead to increases in recorded incidents of STIs, particularly chlamydia.

Table 1 - Genital herpes simplex virus 1999-2009: Laboratory diagnoses by NHS Board of Report

Note:

Under/non-reporting for Fife from 1999 to 2002 and for Argyll andClyde, Ayrshire and Arran, Dumfries and Galloway, Forth Valley and Lanarkshire in 2001

Health Protection Scotland (HPS) experienced a problem with the receipt of genital herpes data from Tayside during the last quarter of 2006 and the first quarter of 2007

It is not possible to distinguish a primary genital herpes infection and a recurrent one using the laboratory positive reporting system at HPS. These figures represent all cases who test positive each year for a genital herpes infection.

Table 2 - Genital Chlamydia Infection, 1999-2009: Laboratory Diagnoses by NHS Board of Report

Note: Under/non-reporting for Fife in 1998-99.

Table 3 – Gonorrhoea, 1999-2009: Laboratory reports (episodes) by NHS Board of Report

Note: one episode of gonorrhoea corresponds to an infected individual from whom more than one isolate could have been recovered.

Table 4 - Reports of infectious syphilis, 1999-2009 by NHS Board of report

Note:

Data extracted from the National Enhanced Surveillance of Infectious Syphilis in Scotland (NESISS) database.

2008 data from Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lothian and Tayside have been revised since the publication of equivalent data in answer to S3W-34254

Data not available for 1999.

Table 5 - HIV-infected persons, Scotland 1999-2010 by NHS Board and year of report

Note: Although HIV is predominantly transmitted via sexual contact, data includes cases infected by other means (e.g. injecting drug use).

Source: Tables 1 to 5: Health Protection Scotland - June 2011.

As part of the annual Efficiency Outturn Report, the Scottish Government publishes an overall local government figure, compiled and verified by COSLA. We do not hold figures for individual authorities. The next outturn report, covering 2010-11, is due to be published in October 2011.

Further information about the Scottish Government’s current and previous efficiency programmes are available at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/Efficiency2011-12.

Data on the number of veterans receiving priority treatment are not routinely collected or held by the Scottish Government. We continue to work closely with NHS Scotland and other health service providers to ensure our priority treatment commitment for armed forces veterans with health conditions related to their service is delivered.

As democratically elected bodies, local authorities are directly responsible for managing their own expenditure, taking into account their statutory duty of best value, set out by the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003. Accordingly, the Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Aberdeen to central belt rail enhancements project is not one of the four priority projects highlighted in the Strategic Transport Projects Review published in 2008. As such, implementation of the improvements to the route would be determined as part of the high level output specifications for 2014 to 2019.

Services operating on the Aberdeen to central belt route have seen a number of improvements since the publication of the Strategic Transport Projects Review in 2008, including faster journey times of around 10 minutes, and service frequency enhancements along the route.

Recognising that an effective transport network is vital to economic growth in Aberdeen and the north east of Scotland, Transport Scotland have asked Network Rail to re-examine the proposed service enhancements recommended in the Strategic Transport Projects Review for delivering additional incremental improvements.

The Scottish Government is committed to introducing a new funding floor to ensure no local authority receives less than 85 per cent of the Scottish average revenue support per head. It is our intention that this new floor will be in place for the 2012-13 local government finance settlement.

The development of flood prevention schemes is a matter for individual local authorities.