Chamber and committees

Hospitals in rural areas, including district general hospitals and community hospitals, make an important contribution to the well-being of populations in these areas. Maintaining high quality services in rural hospitals provides a number of challenges to NHS boards, who are responsible for planning sustainable services for the whole population of their area. Many boards are looking at strengthening linkages between rural hospitals and hospitals in larger population centres. The Executive has commissioned Professor David Kerr to undertake a review of NHS services, including how best to provide services in rural areas. The result of Professor Kerr’s work is expected in late spring.

Clearly the recruitment, retention and training of clinical staff is vital to the provision of safe and sustainable services. Several initiatives are under way. These include:

· the establishment of a chair of remote and rural medicine in Stornoway, jointly between Western Isles NHS Board and the University of the Highlands and Islands;

• fellowships in remote and rural general practice;
• an intercollegiate group of the Scottish Medical Royal Colleges is developing plans for specific training programmes in remote and rural medicine, and

a short-life working group is currently assessing a range of retention initiatives aimed at all categories of staff.

It is for The Highland Council to decide on the priorities for the provision of new schools in their area, within the resources available to them. These resources include the financial support we have offered the council for a schools PPP project with a capital value of around £100 million; direct capital grant in the form of a Schools Fund allocation of £4.332 million in 2005-06 rising to £4.751 million by 2007-08, and the substantial resources which the Council can generate within the level they can afford, principally through borrowing, under the prudential framework.

Yes.

The Executive has regular discussions with the UK Government on a wide range of issues. The requirements for 3G coverage were set in the conditions of the licences auctioned in April 2000 and now administered by the UK-wide regulator, OFCOM. Each 3G operator must be capable of offering a service to cover 80% of the UK population by the end of 2007. Provision beyond this figure is a commercial decision for operators.

A small number of additional allocations are to be made to the NHS prior to the end of the financial year. This will include additional provision to assist NHS boards make progress towards delivery of national waiting time commitments and enable boards to reduce the number of outpatients waiting more than six months from 52,000 to 25,000 and the number of in-patients/day cases waiting more than six months from 7,000 to 3,500 by 31 March 2005. The funds will be allocated on the basis of achievement of milestones for delivery of agreed targets.

The table below gives information provided by police forces for the number of police officers redeployed from court duties. Information on the number of officers freed up from escorting has not been quantified by the police but it is estimated to run to some 100 officers. Also the next phase, implementation of non-core tasks such as inter-force and UK custody transfers, which is scheduled to commence this month, will result in further officers being released.

Number of Officers Redeployed from Court Duties

Central Scotland	14
Dumfries and Galloway	6
Fife	4
Grampian	3
Lothian and Borders	35
Northern	1
Strathclyde	134
Tayside	12
Scotland	209

 

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-13619 on 18 January 2005. 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/wa.search.

I refer to the response to S2W-13266 on 24 January 2005 in relation to the cost of the work carried out to the end of January 2005 in connection with the EU requirements in relation to the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services.

There is no formal estimate of the future cost to the Executive of the tender process. However, if the tendering goes ahead, I expect that a similar team of officials to that which is currently working on the tendering proposals would be in place until contract handover date. On the basis that contract handover takes place in late 2007 staff costs would be approximately £550,000 in current prices. As with the reply to S2W-13266 this figure does not include the cost of senior officials in Transport Group, specialist officials or ministers as their time cannot be separately accounted for. Neither does it include a proportion of the overheads which the Executive accrues generally.

Further external technical advice would be commissioned to finalise the service specification, to assist in the Executive’s evaluation of bids and to support the Executive in monitoring and managing the contract handover and implementation. I would anticipate that this will cost in the region of £200,000 to 300,000. These costs are, of course, estimates and would depend on a number of factors, for example, the number of bidders, the complexity of tender negotiations and issues arising during contract handover.

The total cost of the Skye Bridge project was £39 million, of which some £15 million was publicly funded. Both these figures are quoted at 1991 prices.

Toll receipts totalled £33,370,829 in cash terms between October 1995 and September 2004. This includes compensation payments, totalling £7,564,517 in cash terms, in respect of the costs of increased frequent user discounts from 1998, the freeze on toll levels from 2000 and the imposition of VAT on tolls from February 2003. A breakdown of these totals is set out in the following table:

Year	Toll Revenue (£)	Compensation Payments (£)
1995	397,599	0
1996	3,178,385	0
1997	3,253,993	0
1998	3,579,642	637,482
1999	3,666,434	712,723
2000	3,755,373	801,483
2001	3,641,085	858,414
2002	4,003,881	1,028,589
2003	4,137,522	1,623,888
2004	3,756,915	1,901,938

 

The breakdown of direct costs incurred by the Executive (to end January 2005) in connection with the EU requirements in relation to the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services is set out in the table below. It does not include the cost of senior officials in Transport Group, specialist officials or ministers as their time cannot be separately accounted for. Neither does it include a proportion of the overheads which the Executive accrues generally. The figures have been calculated in cash terms.

Staffing (Note1)	£ 800,000 (approx)
Travel and Subsistence Expenses for Officials (Note 2)	£12,000 (approx)
Consultation Exercises (Note 3)	£40,000 (approx) (incl. VAT)
External Advice (Note 4)	£286,000 (approx) (incl. VAT)
Total	£1,138 million

Notes:

1. A dedicated team of officials has been in place to deal with the EU requirements in relation to the Clyde and Hebrides ferry services since November 1999. Individual staff costs (including pension and NI contributions) are complex to calculate. This figure is derived from the structure of the team from November 1999 to the present and average full staff costs for each relevant grade for each financial year.

2. Travel and Subsistence incurred by the dedicated team of officials. It does not include a proportion for ministers.

3. This includes design, printing and postage. It does not include staff time which is accounted for separately.

4. The Executive has commissioned external advice, totally approximately £286,000, where the expertise was not available internally:

-research to provide additional evidence to the Commission on the uniqueness of the Caledonian MacBrayne fleet. This supported the Executive’s proposals to retain the fleet in public ownership and to bind the successful bidder to those vessels.

-technical advice on the service specifications for the Clyde and Hebrides services and the Gourock to Dunoon route.

-technical advice on the proposed restructuring of Caledonian MacBrayne

-research into the application of the EU rules in other member states. This research is due to be completed shortly.