Chamber and committees

This information is not collected centrally. Dentists are not obliged to advise NHS boards if they are accepting or have stopped accepting new NHS patients.

Dental records are the property of the dentist. The dental records of patients previously, but no longer, registered with a dentist under NHS will therefore remain in the dentist’s possession. Under their NHS terms of service dentists are required to retain records for a period of two years after completion of any course of treatment.

It is for Caledonian MacBrayne as employer of the staff concerned to consider such matters and I understand that it has made a detailed assessment of the effect of a decision to introduce offshore crewing would have on the staff concerned.

The company wrote to all of its staff 4 November 2005 as part of a 90 day consultation process on its offshore crewing proposals, providing a detailed explanation of the implications for terms and conditions and the right to state benefits. In doing so, it confirmed that the terms and conditions of staff employed through an offshore company would be unchanged and would transfer, together with continuous service rights, to an offshore crewing company that would be established as a subsidiary of Caledonian MacBrayne.

The Exchequer funding that is made available annually to the Scottish Executive would not change as a consequence of a decision by Caledonian MacBrayne to introduce offshore crewing arrangements.

Should Caledonian MacBrayne proceed and implement their offshore crewing proposals prior to the start of the new contract this will have no impact on the security of employment for the Caledonian MacBrayne workforce. The Invitation to Tender will invite bids on the basis that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) applies and the staff will transfer, should another operator win the contract. Recent case law strengthens the view that TUPE will apply. In addition, offshore status will not affect the more general protection available to employees under UK employment law. Employees would continue to be employed within the UK and on UK flagged vessels. As such they would continue to have the same statutory rights they currently enjoy in relation to their employment.

We advised Caledonian MacBrayne in April 2005 that we would be content were it to decide to introduce offshore crewing, on the basis that this is normal practice within the UK shipping industry.

While the website provides full details of all the routes under consideration I accept the outline plan on the front page could cause confusion. I have asked officials to update the website immediately.

A report on informationrequests handling in the Scottish Executive for requests recorded centrally andreceived during the period 1 January 2005 to 1 July 2005; is available inthe Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 37868) and on the freedomof information pages of the Scottish Executive website. This report providesinformation on the number of requests for which information has not beenprovided and the number of requests dealt with within the 20 working-day timeperiod. For requests dealt with within the 20 working-day time period, theaverage time taken to reply to such requests is approximately 15 working days.

The cost of each of the options reflect not just length but costs associated with the engineering complexity and land prices, all of which differ between routes.

No.