- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 28 August 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Mary Mulligan on 3 September 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what consideration it has given to the recommendations in its Central Research Unit report, A review of the first year of the mandatory licensing of houses in multiple occupation in Scotland.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-2240 today. All answers towritten parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, thesearch facility for can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 August 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Mary Mulligan on 28 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress is being made on proposals to allow registered social landlords to self-certify houses in multiple occupation and when it will report on these proposals.
Answer
A working group is currently being convened to consider a number of issues arising from the review of mandatory licensing of houses in multiple occupation(HMOs), including the development of a self-certification framework for publicly accountable HMO landlords. The group is expected to start work in September.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 28 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2O-236 by Jim Wallace on 19 June 2003, how the #2 million to encourage articulation between the further and higher education sectors will be used.
Answer
The£2 million which the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) have allocated for 2003-04 to encourage articulation between further education andhigher education has a number of aims. It will help institutions themselves to improve articulation arrangements, help to address problems that students faceduring transition between the sectors and will aim to enhance and develop linksbetween the sectors.Decisionsaround the actual allocation of resources will be informed by early results ofa study into mapping, tracking and bridging between further and highereducation. This is being undertaken on behalf of SHEFC by the Scottish AdvisoryCommittee on Credit and Access and the Wider Access Regional Forums.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 August 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 27 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress it has made in increasing, and encouraging the enforcement of, penalties in respect of litter, as referred to in A Partnership for a Better Scotland.
Answer
The level of fixed penalty fine for littering was increased from £25 to £50 on 1 July 2003. We are currently consulting in Putting our communities first: A Strategyfor tackling Anti-Social Behaviour on means of improving the enforcement ofpenalties for littering.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 August 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 27 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will assist local authorities to meet the target in A Partnership for a Better Scotland of recycling 25% of waste by 2006.
Answer
The Scottish Executive will continue to work in partnership with individual local authorities, the COSLA and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency to implement the National Waste Plan.We have allocated £230 million over this and the next two financial years to the Strategic Waste Fund to assist local authorities in achieving the national recycling and composting target of 25 per cent of municipal solid waste by 2006.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 August 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 27 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive how it will create opportunities for new products manufactured from waste, as referred to in A Partnership for a Better Scotland.
Answer
The Executive provides funding to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)and REMADE Scotland that aim todevelop and expand markets for recycled products and materials. We will work in partnership with these bodies and the Enterprise Network to ensure that opportunities to make new products manufactured from waste are maximised.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 26 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what the reasons are for the rise in the number of people experiencing waiting times of 26 weeks or more and 52 weeks or more in clinics in the Greater Glasgow NHS Board area over the last three years.
Answer
We are determined to address rising out-patient waiting times which are a stubborn problem for a number of reasons, including implementation of the New Deal for Junior Doctors and the European Working Time Directive. The Executive has included a commitment in the White Paper,
Partnership for Care, and the Partnership Agreement,
Partnership for a Better Scotland, that no patient will wait longer than 26 weeks for a first out-patient appointment following GP referral, by 2005.
The National Waiting Times Unit is currently discussing and agreeing plans and local out-patient waiting times targets with NHS Greater Glasgow which will demonstrate the progress they are expected to make towards delivery of the 26weeks target.
To help NHS Scotland achieve the 26 weeks target, I launched the Out-patientAction plan on 13 June 2003. The Centre for Change and Innovation will drive forward the implementation of this plan through a co-ordinated programme of service redesign and the promotion and dissemination of good practice across NHS Scotland.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 26 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive what its strategy is to reduce NHS waiting times.
Answer
Our strategy for ensuring that sustained reductions in waiting times are delivered for patients across Scotland was set out in
Partnership for Care - Scotland's Health White Paper, which was published on 27 February 2003. We have made clear in our Partnership Agreement that reducing NHS waiting times is our key priority for the health service for the next four years.
Challenging national maximum waiting times targets have been set for out-patient consultations and for hospital in-patient and day case treatment. In addition, specific maximum waiting targets have been set for the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease and cancer, and for access to a member of a primary healthcare team. The targets in relation to waiting for in-patient and day case treatment have been guaranteed to patients: if boards are unable to provide treatment within the maximum waiting times themselves, they will be obliged to arrange treatment elsewhere - either within NHS Scotland or with other providers. Each NHS board has agreed local targets with the National Waiting Times Unit which demonstrate the progress they are expected to make towards delivery of the national targets and guarantees in 2003-04.
Increased support is being provided to NHS boards and trusts to reduce waiting times, by my department, and in particular the National Waiting Times Unit and the Centrefor Change and Innovation, by for example:
- introducing a new, national programme of service improvement and redesign;
-leading work on capacity planning;
- ensuring the Golden Jubilee National Hospital supports NHS boards by contributing appropriately to reducing waiting times for out-patient, diagnostic, day caseand in-patient services;
- booking spare capacity in the private sector to reduce the longest waiting times, where such action complements NHS boards’ strategies for developing sustainable local solutions to tackle long waits, and
-sharing examples of good practice across NHS Scotland.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 July 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 26 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive how any reduction in NHS waiting lists in Scotland compares to any reduction in NHS waiting lists in England and Wales.
Answer
Information on NHS waiting lists is compiled and recorded on different bases in England and Wales and in Scotland, and the two sets of information are therefore not comparable.
Waiting list figures for Scotland are published on a quarterly basis on the Information and Statistics Division website, at:
http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/info2.jsp?pContentID=1170&p_applic=CCC&p_service=Content.show&.Waiting list figures for England are published on a monthly basis on the Departmentof Health website, at:
http://www.doh.gov.uk/waitingtimes/index.htm
Waiting lists are not an effective indicator of NHS performance. What matters to patients is how long they have to wait for treatment, not how many people are ahead of them. That is why we have set challenging national maximum waiting times targets in the clinical priorities of cancer and heart disease, as well as for all out-patient consultations and in-patient and day case treatment. By the end of this year no patient should wait longer than nine months for in-patient/day case treatment, falling to six months by the end of 2005. The NHS is making good progress towards achieving the nine month target.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 24 July 2003
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 19 August 2003
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-193 by Hugh Henry on 3 June 2003, when it now anticipates that the Nicholson Committee review on licensing laws will be published and what the reasons are for its publication being later than anticipated.
Answer
The Nicholson report is being published today. The Executive is very grateful to Sheriff Principal Nicholson and his committee for producing a comprehensive and coherent report on this complex area of Scottish legislation. Given the far-reaching implications of the many recommendations, the Executive will be formally consulting interested parties about the report over the next four months.The report can be viewed on the Executive website and copies are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 28903).
