Chamber and committees

One hundred and thirty-three houses for rent or low cost home ownership have been built (completed) by housing associations in Aberdeen City council area between 1 May 2007 and  31 March 2009. There were no completions in April 2007, so this figure is consistent with the quarterly information available on the Housing Statistics for Scotland web pages at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/NewBuild.

I will write to the member as soon as the information is available. A copy of the response will be available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 48199).

I refer the member to my answer to question S3W-23971 on 27 May 2009 for the action we are taking on malnutrition in Scotland''s hospitals. It is important to note that that increased rates of detection have influenced the statistics on hospital deaths where malnutrition has been a factor and that the vast majority of these deaths were as a result of malnutrition secondary to other clinical conditions.

I will write to the member as soon as the information is available. A copy of the response will be available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 48199).

It is important to note that improved detection and diagnosis has influenced the published statistics on malnutrition in and on discharge from hospitals. We continue to give a high priority to the detection of malnutrition on admission to hospital and to recognising and meeting patients'' nutritional needs while they are in hospital.

Scotland has led the UK in introducing screening for all patients on admission to hospital to establish the risk of under-nutrition. This allows care plans to be put in place to meet individual needs. We are already doing groundbreaking work as part of our comprehensive programme to improve and enhance nutritional care of patients in hospital. This builds on the standards on food, fluid and nutrition introduced in 2003. We are backing the work up with £1.5 million of new investment. Patients in Grampian will benefit from this as will those in the rest of Scotland.

In 2008 we also introduced a Food in Hospitals catering specification to assist NHS boards to deliver a healthy, balanced diet to patients. We have created Nutrition Champions in each NHS board, and senior charge nurses have introduced protected meal times to ensure that staff have time to support vulnerable patients and help them to improve and maintain their nutrition where appropriate.

I have asked Mike Ewart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

The following table give details of the design capacity, assessed operational limits and average prisoner population for each Establishment on a month-by-month basis for 2009.

	Design Capacity	AOL*	January	February	March	April
Aberdeen	155	255	212	223	231	232
Addiewell	700	700	163	471	700	702
Barlinnie	1,018	1,600	1,402	1,320	1,324	1,462
Cornton Vale	375	440	381	415	439	402
Dumfries	179	216	209	191	196	188
Edinburgh	872	960	798	809	864	922
Glenochil	670	750	738	728	668	666
Greenock	255	330	310	302	248	261
Inverness	104	162	152	148	149	147
Kilmarnock	500	644	620	546	547	546
Open Estate	425	519	265	259	246	261
Perth	722	801	740	762	709	695
Peterhead	306	306	304	305	305	306
Polmont	623	700	654	644	690	704
Shotts	537	537	536	532	531	537
Totals	7,441	8,920	7,484	7,655	7,847	8,031

Note: *Assessed Operational Level.

There have been no council house completions in Aberdeen City since May 2007. Thirty-three council houses were started between April and June 2007, but these had not yet been completed by March 2009, the latest date for which figures are available.

Figures on council housing starts and completions by local authority area are available online at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/NewBuildLA.

NHS Grampian does not record how many hospital meals or specific types of food were not eaten. It does, however, regularly monitor the total wastage of all food in its hospitals.

Food wastage can occur for a number of reasons. Patients'' illnesses, treatment regime or age can all reduce appetite or cause it to vary. Adequate nutrition while in hospital is of course very important and NHS Grampian''s nursing practice in these circumstances is to encourage patients to have at least a small amount of food.

Other factors can lead to some wastage. For example, NHS Grampian offers patients a choice of several main meal courses at the point of service. This improves the patient experience, but can result in more waste than through a pre-ordering arrangement. NHS Grampian''s Catering Management Team take food wastage very seriously both in terms of the patients'' wellbeing and the need for efficiency. All NHS boards in Scotland are seeking to reduce waste through initiatives such as protected meal times.

Legislation granting the Lord Advocate a right of appeal against a sentence on the ground that it is unduly lenient came into force on 1 August 1997. While information on the total number of appeals lodged since that date is not readily available, a record has been maintained since 1 January 2003 of cases where the right of appeal has been exercised and it has been exercised on 68 occasions since that date. A table of all these cases is published on the Crown Office website, and is regularly updated.

The recruitment documents of those persons who apply to become police constables may be retained by the relevant force under the ACPOS Recommended Records Retention Period guidance.

The recruitment documentation for successful applicants will be transferred to the officers'' personnel file. For unsuccessful candidates the following documents may be retained for no more than the application decision year plus six additional years:

Application Form

Vetting Form

Copy Birth Certificate

Home Assessment

Recruiting Database Records

Record of Interview.