- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 10 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether Best Value reviews in local government are introduced as a means to deliver financial savings or as a means to consider the needs of local communities and their expressed views about services.
Answer
Best Value is central to the Executive's drive to modernise local government. Best Value is about ways of working which improve local authority service delivery. These include linking budgets and other resources to key service priorities, ensuring that decision-makers receive full and accurate information about service performance, and seeking out benchmarking partners.
The long-term aim is to achieve the quality and range of services local residents and businesses want at prices they can afford. Best Value reviews should include mechanisms for consultation with customers and council tax payers, and for being open about performance outcomes in priority services.
In better aligning demand for and supply of services, we expect Best Value to be a useful tool in establishing where funds are being applied to little effect and could be better recycled within the authority. The Executive's consultation paper, Best Value in Local Government: Next Steps, suggests that councils' plans should include an estimation of the resources they intend to release and redistribute through implementation of Best Value. The paper suggests a floor target for this of 2% of total budgets each year.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 10 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive when it will provide a definition of Best Value to be used in forthcoming legislation.
Answer
The Executive's consultation paper,
Best Value in Local Government: Next Steps, published in June 2000, invited views on the development of a long-term legislative framework for Best Value in Local Government. This includes the development of a legislative definition for Best Value.
The closing date for responses to the consultation paper was October 20. Ministers will outline their intentions by the end of the year.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Angus MacKay on 10 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it will take to ensure the common application of Best Value across the public sector.
Answer
The Executive has committed itself to extending the principles which already underpin Best Value in local government to the wider public sector in Scotland. To that end the then Minister for Finance, Jack McConnell, announced on 20 September our intention to introduce Best Value Reviews covering the main public spending programmes in Scotland and for this process to be overseen by a new Best Value Board. Further details will be announced shortly.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 10 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to ensure that key decision makers, including elected members and officials receive full and accurate reports regarding local authority service performance.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-10710.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Peter Peacock on 10 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to ensure that local authorities seek out local government benchmarking partners.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-10710.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 9 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-10242 by Susan Deacon on 18 October 2000, what steps it is taking to collate data on the number of branded prescriptions dispensed where a generic equivalent exists.
Answer
Data is regularly made available to health boards and Primary Care Trusts to identify recurring potential savings which might be achieved by further generic prescribing by practitioners in their area.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 9 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to ensure that generic medicines are dispensed when off-patent branded prescriptions are made out.
Answer
None. Automatic generic substitution would not always be clinically appropriate.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 9 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to increase the proportion of generic rather than branded medicines which are prescribed and dispensed.
Answer
GPs have for some time been encouraged to prescribe generically, unless there are good clinical reasons for proprietary products to be prescribed. Increasing use of local formularies and GP computing systems; the development of practice-based prescribing protocols, and enhanced pharmacist input into prescribing review and audit have resulted in excellent progress having been achieved in this area and the current rate of generic prescribing is now over 70%. The remaining identified potential savings from greater generic prescribing are comparatively low at approximately £2 million (0.3% of the overall cost of prescribing in Scotland).
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by David Steel on 6 November 2000
To ask the Presiding Officer whether the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body supports the introduction of a tobacco policy in the new parliament complex at Holyrood which will ensure that the parliament is a "smoke free" public building.
Answer
Under the current SPCB policy on Smoking in the Workplace, smoking is not permitted at any time in any of the buildings in the parliamentary complex except in a designated smoking area. At the moment, the central courtyard behind PHQ is the only designated smoking area.
The SPCB has recently commissioned a survey of all members and staff to see whether or not designated smoking areas should be provided for in our new complex at Holyrood. The outcome of this survey will inform its decision on this issue.
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 October 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 2 November 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what the total cost, in real terms, was to the NHSiS of prescription medicines in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answer
The information is set out in the table below. The figures reflect the total gross ingredient cost in real terms of all prescription items dispensed in the community in Scotland.Gross Ingredient Cost of Prescriptions Dispensed in Scotland 1995-96 to 1999-2000
Financial Year | Gross Ingredient Cost (£) in Real Terms1 |
1995-96 | 454,488,477 |
1996-97 | 482,614,848 |
1997-98 | 513,116,641 |
1998-99 | 527,874,654 |
1999-2000 | 587,394,186 |
Notes:
1. The general index of retail prices has been used to deflate the average costs into real terms using 1995-96 as a baseline.
