Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive provides Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) with core funding part of which is directed towards supporting Scots language and literacy in Scottish schools. This funding has for example enabled LTS to develop resources such as a Tam O’Shanter CD-ROM and an electronic resource on Edwin Morgan’s poetry.

Funding is also available from the Scottish Arts Council who support such projects as: Itchy Coo, a Scottish story book publishing company; BRAW (Books, Reading and Writing), a Scottish Book Trust initiative with an aim of getting books, particularly Scottish into schools and Live Literature Scotland (LLS), a unique funding scheme which takes Scottish writers, playwrights, poets, storytellers and their work to every corner of Scottish society.

Section 22 of the National Assistance Act 1948 requires local authorities to set the gross fees for local authority care home places at an amount equivalent to the full cost to the authority of providing them. Fees for supported residents of independent sector care homes are simply the rate agreed between the local authority and the provider.

Consequently, the local authority figures will be the total cost of providing care divided by the number of residents in the care home. The figures provided by independent sector care homes will be the total gross charge for all residents each week, before any deductions are made, divided by the total number of residents. Local authority figures are not therefore comparable with those of the independent sector.

Average Gross Weekly Charge per Long-Stay Resident in Care Homes for Adults with Mental Health Problems

	March 2004	September 2004
Sector	No. of Homes	Average Weekly Charge (£s)	No. of Homes	Average Weekly Charge £(s)
Private	15	472	15	484
Voluntary	89	485	89	493

Source: Scottish Care Homes Census (SCHC).

There are five local authority run homes. The average cost for these at the times in the table above was £928 per week.

The Committee on the MedicalEffects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) has considered two major reports onrespiratory ill health for people living close to opencast coal mines. On thefirst of these, The Acute Effects of Air Pollution on the Respiratory Healthof Children in West Glamorgan (1998), COMEAP concluded that the study “didnot support the assertion that asthma was more common in an area close to anopencast coal mine than in areas distant from such industry”. On the second Doparticulates from opencast coal mining impair children's respiratory health’(1999) the Committee concluded that “it is most unlikely that open cast siteswould have any long-term effects on the health of local communities”. COMEAPrecommended that as a precautionary measure, the modifications to the planningprocess suggested by the authors of this study be considered by the relevantplanning authorities and be incorporated in minerals planning guidance.

The ScottishExecutive Health Department is not aware of any credible evidence or rationalefor an increase in the risk of cancer forcommunities close to opencast sites.

The ScottishExecutive therefore has no plans to instigate further research in these areas.

The number of pupils who areidentified as having social, emotional and behavioural difficulties in eachlocal authority area is not held centrally. However, statistical information onthe number of pupils, in each local authority area, with a Record of Needsand/or Individualised Educational Programme as at September 2004, who havesocial, emotional and behavioural difficulties, is contained within theStatistical Bulletin Edn/B1/2005/1 which is available from:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/04/11114958/50011.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

Table A sets out the number of male suicides by establishment in the last five years, and table B provides the age range of these deaths.

Table A

Establishment	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Aberdeen	0	0	2	0	2
Barlinnie	5	4	3	1	1
Castle Huntly	0	0	0	0	1
Dumfries	0	0	0	0	0
Edinburgh	2	1	0	1	0
Glenochil	1	0	0	1	0
Greenock	1	0	0	0	0
Inverness	1	0	0	1	1
Kilmarnock	1	2	2	1	0
Low Moss	0	0	0	0	0
Noranside	0	0	0	0	0
Perth	0	1	0	0	2
Peterhead	0	0	0	0	0
Polmont	0	1	0	0	0
Shotts	0	0	0	0	1

 

Table B

Year	Under 21	21-25	26-30	31-35	36-40	41-45	46 and Over
2000-01	3	4	1	2	0	1	0
2001-02	4	1	4	0	0	0	0
2002-03	1	0	2	2	0	2	0
2003-04	0	0	1	1	0	1	2
2004-05	0	2	1	2	2	0	1

 

Information on the status of the prisoner’s mental health at time of death or any previous history is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. It is, however, likely that the majority would have had a history of mental health or addiction problems.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S2W-5899, S2W-2641 and S2W-5135 on 10 February 2004, 1 October 2003 and 20 January 2004 respectively. 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/webapp/wa.search.

This data is not currently available. The Improving Mental Health Information Programme is working with the NHS boards locally and nationally to standardise the information. Data sets are now being tested with outcomes expected by 2007.

As part of the joint local implementation process for the 2003 act all local areas have been asked to involve their local partners in planning services this should include local service users.

The Scottish Executive has undertaken some specific consultation with services users in relation to the development of child and adolescent health services through HeadsUpScotland, and through commissioning Penumbra to consult with service users and their carers on the Child Health Support Group’s recommendation for psychiatric in-patient services for children and young people. In addition, the Scottish Recovery Network, supported by the Scottish Executive, assists local authorities and their agency partners to promote well-being and social development as a key component of people’s recovery from mental ill-health.

The Scottish Executive has issued no guidance to joint implementation planning groups regarding the selection process for service providers under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003.

All public bodies and local authorities are under a duty of Best Value in planning and delivering services.

Local authorities and NHS boards working with their partners are responsible for designing, providing and supporting mental health crisis services. Comprehensive information on the number of crisis centres by area and provider is not available centrally but will be held by individual local authorities and NHS boards.

The Scottish Executive is supporting pilot projects across Scotland for different models of crisis prevention, support, evaluation and project management. Over £576,000 has been made available since 2004 to support these initiatives.

W S Atkins has been commissioned to undertake a Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance assessment of the transport problems in Maybole. They will report to my officials, and subject to the report fully meeting the terms of the brief, I expect their report to be publicly available in the autumn.

The commission includes provision for further work to identify a preferred by-pass route if this recommended. It is premature to estimate how long such additional work might take.