Chamber and committees

Such information is not availablein respect of remand and sentenced prisoners. The average annual cost per prisonerplace is detailed in the SPS’s Annual Report and Accounts for each of the last 10years which are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, Bib. numbers39629, 39630, 34446, 4045, 7929, 18239, 22587, 28640, 34075 and 37154.

Number of Non-Sexual Crimes ofViolence Recorded by the Police, 1990 to 2004, by Police Force Area

The Executive has beensteadily reducing the maximum waiting time for those patient who wait longer.The national maximum waiting times was reduced from 12 months to nine months on31 December 2003 and to six months on 31 December 2005. This willfurther reduce to 18 weeks from the end of 2007. On 31 December 2005, no patientwith a guarantee had waited more than six months for a heart operation or forhip replacement surgery.

NHSScotland is making goodprogress towards meeting the next key target of a maximum wait of 18 weeks bythe end of 2007. At that point, a new approach to defining and measuringwaiting will also be introduced to replace availability status codes (ASCs),which have the effect at present of excluding patients from waiting timesguarantees where for example, they are medically unfit for treatment, wherethey have asked for their treatment to be postponed, or where their treatmentis highly specialised or of low clinical priority. The new approach will befairer, more consistent and more transparent.

Retrospective analyses of waiting timesfor hospital treatment compiled from SMR01 returns are based on data that doesnot record whether patients have had an ASC applied. The information requestedhas been place in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 40082)and it includes the waitingtimes of patients who have been exempted from waiting times guarantees for thereasons given above and therefore overstates true waiting times. It is notpossible to estimate the extent of the overstatement. The SMR3 waiting timescensus data which excludes patients with ASCs, is used for target compliancepurposes, and the tables provided also include SMR3 data for hip replacementfor NHSScotland from the censuses undertaken on 31 December 1997 and 1998.

Census information on NHSScotland performanceagainst the Executive’s maximum waiting times targets for angiography,angioplasty and coronary artery bypass graft surgery has only been collectedsince 2002.

Waiting times for cancertreatments equivalent to the waiting times for the other specified proceduresare not available from routinely collected hospital data, as completeinformation is not captured on all treatment types, such as hormonal therapyand chemotherapy, and not all cancer treatments require a hospital admission.

Information on cancerwaiting times is currently gathered through cancer audit systems in order tomeasure the target that “by December 2005 the maximum wait from urgent referralto treatment for all cancers will be two months” from Cancer in Scotland: Action for Change,published in 2001. Information showing performance against the target by NHS boardof diagnosis is currently available for breast, colorectal, lung, ovarian,melanoma, lymphoma, urological, Upper GI and head and neck cancers and isavailable from the following Scottish Executive website:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/cancer/cancerwaits.

Limited information is availablecentrally on the number of in-patient/day case episodes where operations/procedureswere not carried out following admission. However, it is not possible to identifyon what day the operation was cancelled.

Information on the number ofin-patient and day case episodes where operations/procedures were cancelled followingadmission for years 1996-2005, and the number of patients who were not subsequentlyadmitted to hospital for an operation within 30 days of discharge by NHS board oftreatment and hospital respectively is given in a document which has been placedin the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 40118).

Operations can be cancelled dueto various unforeseen pressures. Some examples of these are: an influx of emergencyadmissions, widespread staff sickness, theatre equipment failure or infection inwards.

On occasions, some patients maybe sent home, following admission, when a planned procedure/operation has not beencarried out. Some reasons for this include; patient being unfit for treatment dueto illness (e.g. chest infection), having omitted to fast before admission, failingto follow pre-admission advice on medication or where theatre time is unavailabledue to unexpected complications arising in earlier theatre cases.

In setting out my initial responseto David Kerr’s report on the future shape of the NHS in Scotland, I madeit clear that I supported his proposals that we should stream planned care, separatingit, where possible, from emergency care. I have asked the Regional Planning Groupsto develop arrangements for streaming planned care that will reduce cancellations,increase predictability and workflow and reduce waiting times.

Rates for staff supplied byPertemps are the same for all Scottish Executive Departments, and depend on thegrade of the post being covered. Table 1 shows the mean average rate paid toPertemps for staff at administrative and clerical grades for each year since1999.

Table 1: Pertemps – Average(Mean) Hourly Rate Paid to Pertemps for Agency Workers Covering A1 to A4 Posts

Note: Calculated for eachyear by summing the agreed hourly rates for each of the administrative andclerical grades, including typists and personal secretaries and security staff,covered by the contract and dividing by the number of grades to give an averagerate. Where a rate or rates has/have changed during the year, an average of thetwo rates has been used.

Rates for staff supplied byHays will vary depending on the skills and specialist expertise required forthe particular role. A mean average hourly rate paid to Hays for staff is shownby department in table 2. The average rate will depend on the usage of thecontract by the department and the types of roles being covered. Because somecandidates are highly specialised they may command a very high rate, althoughusually only for a relatively short period of time. This will have distortedthe rates for some departments.

Table 2: Hays – Average(Mean) Hourly Rate Paid to Hays for All Agency Workers by Department

Note: Calculated for each departmentby summing the hourly rate for each interim manager supplied by Hays to that departmentand dividing by the number of managers supplied to that department.

On occasion individual departmentsbring in temporary staff from employment agencies outwith these two maincontracts, for example where specific professional skills have been required,or in outlying areas, but this information is not held centrally.

New Build Completionsby Local Authority Area: 1999-2005

Source: Newbuild returns by local authorities to the Scottish Executive Development DepartmentAnalytical Services Division (Housing Statistics). Housing association data providedby Communities Scotland.

Note: *Data supplied by the Scottish Ambulance Service.

The information requestedbetween 1997-98 and 2004-05 has already been provided in the answer to questionS2W-18263, answered on 9 September 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at:

No decisions have been takenon ministerial visits after April 2007.

Officials travel in responseto Scottish Executive business needs. No central register is kept of officials’planned visits. We expect that over the next six months officials’ travel willinclude visits to Brussels and Finland to deal with EU business.

The proportion of fires in (a)schools and (b) further and higher education premises that were starteddeliberately is shown in the following table.

Deliberate Firesin Schools and Further Education Establishments, Scotland, 1995-2004

Source: ODPM.

Note:1. Excluding incidentsnot recorded during periods of industrial action in November 2002 and Jan/Feb2003.