Chamber and committees

No. Barnett consequentials only arise as a result of increases in provision for comparable spending areas in Whitehall Departments. HM Treasury maintains that these circumstances do not apply in this case, although discussions are continuing.

The outcome of the review will be announced shortly.

I am aware of the concerns of the Asian restaurant trade in relation to the new migration system. We intend to explore a range of options with the Home Office which will make it easier for those who are skilled to work here and to remain in Scotland.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice wrote to the Home Secretary on 25 January 2008 to raise concerns that the new system would make it more difficult to employ chefs with specific skills from the Asian sub-continent.

In the quarter January to March 2008, 9,329 letters were received by ministers and 94% received a reply within our target of 20 working days.

Remuneration arrangements for “out-of-hours” and “shift work” have been taken forward under the heading “unsocial hours”. New arrangements have now been agreed and have been set out in a redrafted Section 2 of the Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions entitled “Maintaining Round the Clock Services”.

The new arrangements have not been implemented for the Scottish Ambulance Service where discussions involving employers, unions and the Scottish Government are on-going at present. It is hoped that agreement will be reached soon.

With regard to remuneration for staff with “on call” commitments, UK partnership discussions on what arrangements should be put in place are on-going with the aim of reaching agreement on proposals for a new system which can be implemented from 1 April 2010. I can confirm that separate talks are being held with the Scottish Ambulance Service, but these are currently at a very early stage, clearly the next stage would be to enter into negotiations with unions.

The information requested is provided in the following table. It should be noted that Aberdeen City Council was formed following local government reorganisation in 1996-97 so figures for 1995-96 do not exist.

Aberdeen City Council

(£000)	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
Budget Estimate	£253,698	£249,306	£250,121	£259,975	£271,279	£289,378

Note: *This information was taken from the annual provisional outturn/budget estimate forms as returned to the Scottish Government by Aberdeen City Council.

The core Scottish Government has since December 2007 dealt with, or is in the process of dealing with, more than 175 parliamentary questions and 130 freedom of information requests about issues relating to these planning proposals. Responding to these, along with the range of other enquiries received, has had significant resource implications for those staff tasked with responding to them. It is not possible to quantify precisely the amount of time or expenditure dedicated to these responses, as officials do not routinely record time spent on individual tasks.

However, given the unprecedented level of political interest in our handling of enquiries on these two particular applications, I have asked the Scottish Government''s Planning Decisions Division to provide a retrospective estimate of costs. Officials in that Division estimate that, to date, they alone have spent well in excess of 2,000 staff hours “ at a cost of over £50,000 “ since December 2007 on matters such as the many parliamentary questions, freedom of information requests, the Local Government and Communities Committee''s inquiry and other associated tasks and communications relating to the Scottish Government''s involvement in these two proposed developments. This estimate does not include time spent on the normal processing of the planning application for the Menie Estate, called in for determination by the Scottish Government, or handling of routine correspondence relating to the application. The estimate does not include the significant contributions made by officials from various other areas of the Scottish Government.

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I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-11071 on 16 April 2008. 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.

No. The main 2008-09 baseline funding allocations for NHS boards were announced on 8 February 2008. Further funding will be allocated to NHS boards during 2008-09 in respect of specific developments as they are agreed.

Overall spending plans for health in 2008-09 were set out in the Scottish Budget Spending Review 2007 which was announced on 14 November 2007. This will form the basis of the funding to be allocated in respect of these health care policy initiatives.