Chamber and committees

There have been no discussions with the UK Government on European Union or global attempts to stop illegal metal trading and there are no plans at present to discuss the issue.

The information requested is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The information requested is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

No such advice has been provided. It is primarily for the police to advise on measures to prevent all aspects of crime, including metal thefts.

The threshold for exemption from the need to obtain a metal dealer''s licence is set out in section 29(1) of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. It is currently £100,000 and has not changed since the act came into force. A task group was set up by the previous administration to review the licensing provisions contained in the 1982 act. The group recommended that this threshold should be repealed and we have plans to do this in the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. It would then be for local authorities to determine whether there should be any exemptions for larger businesses and, if so, what the level of turnover should be.

In the quarter April to June 2008, 11,094 letters were received by ministers and 94 % received a reply within our target of 20 working days.

The information the member has requested is not held centrally.

The powers to seize vehicles are under section 6 of the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989 and are exercised by police and local authorities.

The Scottish Government continues to work with stakeholders to ensure that elderly and vulnerable people get the care they deserve.

Delivering Care, Enabling Health, Scotland''s strategy for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, reinforces the message that caring is fundamental to nursing services and should be at the heart of nursing practice so that patients, including the elderly, experience the best possible nursing care in hospital and at home. It encourages a culture where caring is fundamental to nursing and remains at the core of all nursing functions. Providing care to individual patients with compassion is a core part of nursing.

Delivering Care, Enabling Health is currently under review. Caring and enabling will remain a fundamental tenet of this policy. We will be producing a revised action plan which will outline several workstreams led at a national level by the Chief Nursing Officer. These programmes of work will support nurses in continually improving the care they deliver to patients, including older people.

Leading Better Care, the report of the review of the role of the senior charge nurse and the clinical quality indicators project, was launched by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing in June 2008. NHS boards will be implementing the revised senior charge nurse role in hospitals across NHSScotland over the next two years. This new role framework will ensure that senior charge nurses are supported in their development as guardians of quality clinical care and standards in their areas.

A number of clinical quality indicators will be implemented in the majority of in-patient settings over the next two years. These include four generic quality indicators that are applicable across a wide variety of in-patient settings: food, fluid and nutrition; falls; pressure ulcer prevention, and monitoring and observation. Implementation of these indicators will lead to improvements in nursing care for all patients, and in particular for elderly people.

Additionally, the national catering and nutrition specification, which was launched in July 2008 and which links directly to the senior charge nurse review, will support NHS boards in implementing the NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) clinical standards for food, fluid and nutritional care, specifically standards 3, 4 and 5 which aim to address the risk of malnutrition in hospital patients. It will also support the delivery of a healthy balanced diet for patients who are nutritionally well.

NHS QIS recently appointed a national falls manager, for a period of two years, who will scope, lead, co-ordinate and manage a multi-agency project on the prevention and management of falls in Scotland. Also, in April 2008, I launched the falls community web space, which will allow health care professionals to access evidence and share experience and good practice relating to falls.

The practice development unit of NHS QIS is working with NHS Education for Scotland and the University of Edinburgh to create a network to support learning and practice development in the care of older people.

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Information on the number of failures to complete legally binding house sales in Scotland is not held centrally.

We have no plans to discuss this specific issue with the Law Society of Scotland but officials meet regularly with representatives of the Law Society to discuss a wide range of issues.

John Swinney and I met with representatives of COSLA, ACPOS and the Scottish Police Authorities Conveners Forum on 31 July. The main outcome was agreement that the Scottish Government should continue to press its case with the Treasury for additional funding to cover the costs of increased commutation factors. We also agreed that talks should continue at official level to ensure progress is made. We remain convinced that there should be parity of treatment by the Treasury with that afforded to England and Wales.