Chamber and committees

I can only answer in relationto senior recruitment in Scottish Executive departments. Public utilities and similarorganisations are responsible for their own recruitment advertising. The main mediaoutlets used to date for advertising senior positions in the Scottish Executiveare The Scotsman, The Herald, The Times and their associatedSunday newspapers. Where posts are of a particularly specialist nature, professionaljournals are also considered.

Staff recruitment and selection,and the procedures underpinning these, are matters for Scottish Water to determine.I understand Scottish Water is in the final stages of recruiting a director of communications(formerly corporate affairs) and will make an announcement shortly.

There are currently two vesselsbeing completed for the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services. These are the MV Loch Shira (to be deployedon the Largs to Cumbrae route) and the MV Argyle (to be deployed on the Wemyss Bayto Rothesay route). Both vessels are expected to come into service in the Springof 2007. They will be owned by the new vessel owning comany, Caledonian MaritimeAssets Ltd (CMAL), and leased to the operator of the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services,currently CalMac Ferries Ltd. These two vessels will bring the number of vesselsbrought into service since 2000 to seven, representing some £58 million of investment.In future, CMAL will be responsible for the procurement of new vessels. It is likelythat an announcement will be made shortly on future vessel investment plans.

The Scottish FisheriesProtection Agency expects to be in a position to go out to tender for theconstruction of a fisheries protection vessel in the spring of 2007 andanticipates being able to decide on a preferred bidder later in the summer.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-29897 on 27 November 2006. All answers to writtenparliamentary questions are available on the Parliaments website, the search facilityfor which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The Health Department, ChiefScientist Office, has received representation from three members of MRC staff employedin the Virology Unit in Glasgow and an indirect approach from the MRC Trade Union Side.

Research Councils are the responsibilityof the UK Government and any decision on the outcome of the review of the unit isa reserved matter. CSO has, however, been invited by the MRC to provide a submissionreflecting the Scottish Executive Health Department perspective. This will formpart of the documentation to inform the strategic review group.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-28903 on 25 October 2006. Allanswers 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/webapp/wa.search.

Transport Scotland hasoperational responsibility for this area, and can be contacted for more information.

Since January 2006 the otherparties involved in the action have declined to discuss any form of resolution of the matter and the Executive is pursuing its legal action against the parties responsiblefor the damage to the Erskine Bridge. A legal hearing to determine liability and the amountof damages has been fixed to take place in the Court of Session commencing on 22 January 2008. Dueto the number of parties involved in the action and the complexity of the case itis expected that the hearing will continue until March 2008.

Transport Scotland hasoperational responsibility for this area, and can be contacted for more information.

The Scottish Fisheries ProtectionAgency (SFPA) has decided to terminate this tender process. In the final stagesof the tender concerns were raised over clarification of bids. The Chief Executiveof the SFPA appointed independent consultants to review that process and concludedfrom their report that the procurement should be halted.

The Chief Executive has issueda comprehensive statement on this matter, a copy of which is on the SFPA websitealong with a copy of the independent consultants report.

There are many nurses who arequalified to treat patients with Crohn’s Disease, however this information isnot held centrally.

Within the Clinical NurseSpecialist data collection there are two categories that may specialise inworking with patients with Crohn’s disease. These are CNS (stoma) and CNS(gastro-intestinal). As of 30 September 2005, there were 24 (headcount) stoma nursespecialists and 33 (headcount) gastro-intestinal nurse specialists acrossNHSScotland. The numbers per NHS board are included in the table.

NHS Board	Stoma	Gastro-intestinal
NHS Argyll and Clyde	1	2
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	2	1
NHS Borders	1	2
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	1	2
NHS Fife	2	3
NHS Forth Valley	0	0
NHS Greater Glasgow	7	9
NHS Grampian	3	0
NHS Highland	0	0
NHS Lanarkshire	5	2
NHS Lothian	2	11
NHS Orkney	0	0
NHS Shetland	0	0
NHS Tayside	0	1
NHS Western Isles	0	0
Scotland	24	33

Source: ISD Scotland.

Information on the ClinicalNurse Specialists in post in NHSScotland is published on the Scottish HealthStatistics website under Workforce Statistics, at http://www.isdscotland.org/workforce.