Chamber and committees

Devolved School Management provideshead teachers and schools with the autonomy and flexibility to make the most effectiveuse of resources, which best suit local circumstances. How they would use this inrelation to staffing issues would be a matter for headteachers and education authoritiesto determine.

Allocations to individual HigherEducation Institutions are a matter for the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council(SHEFC).

I refer to the answer I gaveto S2W-7293 on 27 April 2004. Other than in BEd Music, BEd Technology and BEd PhysicalEducation courses, SHEFC does not allocate places to specific subjects.

SHEFC allocates 171.8 FTE studentplaces to BEd Technology Courses, distributed as follows:

University of Edinburgh – 51 places.

University of Glasgow – 120.8 places.

These figures will not be availableuntil NHS boards have completed their detailed plans for out-of-hours service provision.Boards have this work well in hand and are currently developing and refining theirmodelling. A key element in this work is determining the number of GPs who wishto transfer their responsibility for out-of-hours service provision, informationwhich boards are currently finalising in discussion with GPs in their area.

Practices opting to transfertheir out-of-hours responsibility to NHS boards will surrender 6% of their globalsum to reflect the reduced workload and responsibility. These funds will be availableto boards to meet the costs of service provision. In addition the out-of-hours developmentfund will be increased from the existing level of £6.3 million to £10 million in2005-06 to help deliver the new arrangements.

A national working group comprisedof key stakeholders, including NHS boards, GP out-of-hours co-operatives, NHS 24and the Scottish Ambulance Service is established to support NHS boards in theirplanning and to develop a range of possible alternative models and arrangementsfor providing out of hours services which local NHS systems can adapt to their localneeds.

The new consultant contract came into force on 1 April 2004.NHS boards are presently engaged in a job planning process with consultants which,it is envisaged, will be largely complete by the end of May 2004. The precise cost to boards of implementing the contract will depend on the outcome of this process. The cost will be covered by the overall record uplift in allocations to health boards from the Scottish Executive of £370 million (7.8%) in 2003-04 and 365 million (7.25%) in 2004-05, supplemented by the recent allocation of £30 million to NHSScotland as a contribution to the costs of pay and service modernisation in 2003-04.

On Agenda for Change, the proposed national roll-out date is October 2004. On progress towards implementation, the central pay modernisation team for Agenda for Change are providing training and awareness sessions on both the job evaluation processes and the Knowledge and Skills Framework associated with Agenda for Change. Four project sites across Scotland are piloting staff matching and evaluation processes. Progress will be overseen by the Scottish Pay Reference and Implementation Group, which includes representatives from NHSScotland management, trades unions, and the Scottish Executive Health Department.

The exact cost of assimilating staff onto the Agenda for Change pay system will not be known until NHS boards complete job matching and evaluation processes for their staff. As with the consultant’s contract cost, this will be covered by the overall uplift in allocations to health boards outlined above.

On funding to help with implementation of pay modernisation, three specific funding packages have been provided by the Executive to assist boards in delivering Agenda for Change and the consultant and GMS contracts.

We have allocated £3.5 million to NHS boards in Scotland for the period 2003-05to support the establishment of pay modernisation teams in each local NHS systemwhich will oversee the implementation of the three strands of pay modernisation.Allocations by NHS board are shown in Table 1 below.

Board/Trust	Total Amount 2003-05	Notes
Argyll and Clyde NHS Board	£300,000	Includes Western Isles
Ayrshire and Arran NHS Board	£200,000
Borders NHS Board	£100,000
Lanarkshire NHS Board	£300,000	Includes State Hospital
Grampian NHS Board	£300,000	Includes Shetland and Orkney
Greater Glasgow NHS Board	£500,000	Includes Golden Jubilee Hospital and NHS24
Highland NHS Board	£200,000
Tayside NHS Board	£300,000
Dumfries and Galloway NHS Board	£100,000
Fife NHS Board	£200,000
Forth Valley NHS Board	£200,000
Lothian NHS Board	£400,000
Special Health Boards
Common Services Agency	£250,000	Includes NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, NHS Health and NHS Education for Scotland
Scottish Ambulance Service	£150,000
Total	£3,500,000

In addition, on 9 July 2004, £540,000 was given to the four project sites who are piloting the staff matching and evaluation processes for Agenda for Change in Scotland. This was allocated as shown at Table 2 below.

 

Common Services Agency	£150,000
Golden Jubilee	£ 50,000
Highland	£100,000
West Lothian	£240,000
Total	£540,000

Note:

£1 million was also allocated for 2003-04 to resource central pay modernisation teams who will provide dedicated leadership to support delivery of the three strands of pay modernisation.

The final cost of implementing the Quality and Outcomes Framework within the new General Medical Services (GMS) contract is dependent upon the level of achievement by practices across Scotland. Current assumptions around the budget for quality payments are being made on the basis of 80% of practices achieving approximately 85% of the total points available in the framework. In theory there is a possibility that all practices achieve 100% of the quality points available, however given the focus on complex evidence based care and the reporting requirements of the framework, we would consider it very unlikely that such levels would be achieved in the first two years of the scheme being operational. 

The progress of practices against the framework will be closely monitored, for financial planning purposes, through out the year and these risk assumptions will be continuously reviewed.

Quality payments to practices will also based on disease prevalence and this information will not be available until later this year, as it is being gathered as part of the implementation of the new framework. Consequently funding allocations to NHS boards for quality achievement will not be made until later in the year to enable this emerging information to be factored in to calculations.

Ultimately any potential overspend in this area of the contract must be managed within the overall financial envelopefor the GMS contract.

The Executive will respondto the Scottish Science Advisory Committee’s report, Science Matters, shortly.In the meantime, my officials will consider options for future continuingprofessional development opportunities for school science technicians.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-7107. All answers towritten parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, thesearch facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-7106. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, thesearch facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search.

The Executive has no plansto review the role or the pay and conditions of school science technicians. Theseare matters for local authorities as employers.

Much work has still to bedone on the detail of the new tourism network, and how it will work, but areadestination marketing will be carried out by the tourism hubs which will makeup the new network.