- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 October 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, in light of the position whereby speech and language therapists have not yet voted to support Agenda for Change and that the speech and language therapist family of profiles is not yet complete, it will issue directions to NHS boards to delay seeking job descriptions for these therapists until these matters are resolved.
Answer
The Speech and Language Therapists family of job profiles is complete. In common with other Agenda for Change profiles, these have been reviewed and await clearance by the Shadow Executive of the NHS Staff Council. Following clearance they will be re-published in preparation for job matching which will commence in January.
In light of this, the Scottish Executive will not issue directions to NHS boards to delay seeking job descriptions for any staff.
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 October 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what action will be taken centrally to ensure that recruitment to new speech and language therapist posts is not adversely affected, in light of the anticipated number of such therapists on pay protection as a result of Agenda for Change.
Answer
The levels of staff protection under Agenda for Change will not be fully known until the job matching and evaluation processes are complete.
On 1 September 2004, the Minister for Health and Community Care wrote to the Scottish Pay Reference and Implementation Group (SPRIG) asking that it carry out work aimed at clearly establishing the levels of protection in Scotland and consider actions which would tackle any remaining significant rates of protection in a way which addresses the negative effect on staff earnings. SPRIG is currently working on a response to this request.
A feature of Agenda for Change is an agreement that where locally there are recruitment and retention problems an addition of up to 30% of basic pay may be made to help overcome this. All requests for the application of recruitment and retention premia in Scotland will require approval from SPRIG.
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 October 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what the maximum acceptable level of pay protection for speech and language therapists will be as a result of the implementation of Agenda for Change.
Answer
The levels of staff protection under Agenda for Change will not be fully known until the job matching and evaluation processes are complete.
Under the original Agenda for Change partnership agreement, published in March 2003, the aim was that protection rates should remain within the agreed overall national forecast of 8% of staff requiring formal protection. This was an overall target, not one for individual staff groups.
On 1 September 2004, the Minister for Health and Community Care wrote to the Scottish Pay Reference and Implementation Group (SPRIG) asking that it carry out work aimed at clearly establishing the levels of protection in Scotland and consider actions which would tackle any remaining significant rates of protection in a way which addresses the negative effect on staff earnings. SPRIG is currently working on a response to this request.
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 October 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps are being taken centrally to ensure rigorous implementation of Health Department guidance related to the job evaluation process, in particular with regard to taking adequate and informed evidence from staff and/or their managers, in light of experience reported by speech and language therapists in West Lothian and other early implementer sites in England.
Answer
Agenda for Change is a new UK level pay and conditions system for non medical NHS staff.
At UK-level all aspects of the job evaluation process will be monitored by the Job Evaluation Working Party, reporting to the Shadow Executive of the new NHS Staff Council. This monitoring will be supported by CAJE, the new Computer Aided Job Evaluation system.
In Scotland informed evidence from this system will be gathered by the Pay Modernisation Team for Agenda for Change and reported to the Scottish Pay Reference and Implementation Group, a partnership body set up to advise Scottish ministers on the implementation of Agenda for Change.
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 October 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to ensure that the outcomes of Agenda for Change are fair for speech and language therapists and their patients, in light of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists’ survey which showed that 90% of such therapists would consider leaving the profession if Agenda for Change is rolled out in its current form.
Answer
The job profiles for speech and language therapists published in December 2003 have been the subject of further review at UK-level along with others from Allied Health Professionals. The reviewed profiles have been seen by the Society of Speech and Language Therapists and their comments taken on board. The resultant improved profiles are now awaiting clearance by the Shadow Executive, a UK national partnership group charged with developing the
Agenda for Change proposals.
In Scotland information on job evaluation outcomes for Speech and Language Therapists, as for all staff covered by Agenda for Change, will be monitored by the Pay Modernisation Team for Agenda for Change and reported to the Scottish Pay Reference and Implementation Group, a partnership body set up to adviseScottish ministers on the implementation of Agenda for Change.
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 October 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 9 November 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what evidence from Agenda for Change project and early implementer sites was submitted in respect of the partnership agreement success criteria to support the conclusion of its Health Department and the Department of Health that implementation of Agenda for Change had been a success and that roll-out should commence in December 2004.
Answer
The Agenda for Change pay system began to be implemented in twelve NHS organisations in England in June 2003. The new pay system has also been subject to testing short of full implementation in four pilot sites in Scotland. Over the last year, the experience of these early implementer (EI) sites and the Scottish pilot sites has been monitored by the UK Health Departments, NHS Trades Unions and managers.
A report on the conclusions drawn from the experience in the early implementer and pilot sites was presented to the NHS Shadow Staff Council and is available on the SHOW website at:
www.show.scot.nhs.uk/sehd/paymodernisation/afc.
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 01 October 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 25 October 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of accommodation bookings received by VisitScotland have been processed entirely on-line and without the intervention of a call centre worker.
Answer
During the current year to date, the number of accommodation bookings that have been processed entirely on-line through the visitscotland.com website represents 6% of the total bookings generated by the company.
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 08 October 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 15 October 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how many rural ownership grants were awarded in 2003-04 in each local authority area.
Answer
I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:
The number of rural home ownership grants (RHOG) that were awarded in each local authority in 2003-04 is as follows.
Number of RHOG Approvals by Unitary Authority (2003-04)
| Unitary Authority | 2003-04 |
| Aberdeenshire | 1 |
| Argyll and Bute | 10 |
| Highland | 36 |
| Orkney | 28 |
| Perth and Kinross | 1 |
| Scottish Borders | 3 |
| Shetland | 1 |
| Western Isles | 3 |
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 August 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 4 October 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how it defines “communities” in relation to its intention to bring broadband to all communities by the end of 2005.
Answer
Through its broadband procurement, the Executive is seeking to ensure that there is access to affordable broadband services in every Scottish census output area (COA). This is an ambitious aspiration as COAs are the smallest geographic unitsused in the official census and the building blocks for the census’ higher orderdefinitions of Scotland’s communities. An output area typically contains about50 households.
- Asked by: Alex Fergusson, MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 August 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 23 September 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how many dental vocational training places in Dumfries and Galloway were taken up by Scottish graduates this year.
Answer
Three vocational dental practitioners are in post in Dumfries and Galloway forthe training year 2004-05 - one in Dumfries, one in Newton Stewart, and one in Stranraer. These training places have been filled by dentists who graduated outside Scotland.
In addition, there is one individual in their second year of General Professional Training in the Community Dental Service in Dumfries. This individual qualified in Scotland.
