Chamber and committees

Under the Scottish Government''s normal grievance procedures, grievances are dealt with by the local line manager of the complainant and given the sensitivity of these matters, details of cases are not shared. Information on the average time for handling normal grievance procedures is therefore not available.

Grievances raised under the Scottish Government''s Dignity at Work policy are
co-ordinated by the HR function. Each Directorate General has very few cases and the length of time the process takes, varies depending on the complexity of the case. Across the Scottish Government as a whole, the average time to complete a grievance raised under the Dignity at Work policy, is between four to six months.

Under the Scottish Government''s normal grievance procedures, grievances are handled by local line management and there is no central information available on the numbers of cases raised.

Grievances raised under the Dignity at Work policy are coordinated within the HR function. It is therefore possible to identify the number of cases raised. The Dignity at Work grievance cases initiated in the Office of the Permanent Secretary are as follows:

April 2005 to March 2006 “ 0 cases

April 2006 to March 2007 “ 0 cases

April 2007 to March 2008 “ 0 cases

April 2008 to March 2009 “ 0 cases.

Under the Scottish Government''s normal grievance procedures, grievances are handled by local line management and there is no central information available on the numbers of cases raised.

Grievances raised under the Dignity at Work policy are co-ordinated within the HR function. It is therefore possible to identify the number of cases raised. The Dignity at Work grievance cases initiated in Director-General Health and Chief Executive are set out below:

April 2005 “ March 2006 “ 0 cases

April 2006 - March 2007 “ 0 cases

April 2007 “ March 2008 “ 0 cases

April 2008 “ March 2009 “ 0 cases.

In accordance with Scottish Government procedures minor and informal disciplinary action is handled within the line management chain. As a result the Scottish Government holds centrally information only on cases where formal, rather than informal, disciplinary action was initiated against members of staff.

Disciplinary action was taken against the following numbers of staff.

April 2005 to March 2006

Eight members of staff

DG Finance and Corporate Services (FCS) “ one

DG Environment “ seven.

April 2006 to March 2007

12 Members of Staff

DG Environment “ three

DG Justice and Communities “ three

DG FCS “ three

DG Economy “ one

DG Education “ one

DG Health “ one.

April 2007 to March 2008

Nine members of staff

DG FCS “ five

DG Environment “ two

DG Education “ one

DG Heath “ one

April 2008 to March 2009

12 members of staff

DG FCS“ six

DG Economy “ three

DG Environment “ three.

Arts & Business Scotland received a total of £427,930 of public funding in 2009-10.

These investments have levered a further £311,000 through new arts sponsorship from businesses and have supported the provision of services to arts organisations, the value of which Arts & Business Scotland estimates to be at least an additional £500,000.

NHS 24 employs or contracts with GPs in partner health boards, including NHS Lanarkshire, to respond to agreed levels of pre-prioritised calls from patients in their area. These calls are funded by NHS 24.

NHS boards and local authorities are expected to work within their combined resources to manage delayed discharge. £29 million previously earmarked for delayed discharge, was added to the overall local government settlement in 2008-09.

The Lanarkshire partnership has been very successful in tackling delayed discharges. They have identified up to £500,000 to enhance routine services over the winter period to ensure that success continues.

NHS Lanarkshire have established a range of measures along with their local authority partners to ensure no patients are delayed in hospital for longer than necessary, but it is the whole system approach by the partnership which includes good communication between agencies and the use of flexible and responsive support services which collectively deliver good outcomes.

The partnership in Lanarkshire has been successful in recording no patients delayed for longer than the agreed six week discharge period from April 2008 until October 2009. Unfortunately, due to an unexpected increase in hospital activity, eight patients were delayed at October in Lanarkshire hospitals. I understand the partnership has now recovered the position.

I have asked Michael Cameron, Acting Chief Executive of the Scottish Housing Regulator to respond.

His response is as follows:

We identify the risks each registered social landlord (RSL) presents to our regulatory purpose. The main risks to our purpose are likely to be:

financial failure in an RSL;

stock quality and investment failures, and

governance failures leading to, and arising from, mismanagement and misconduct, and poor service quality.

With regard to assessments of progress in relation to affordable housing paid for or supported by local authorities, we do not currently hold information centrally on properties funded wholly or partly by second home council tax funds. However, Scottish Government Regional Housing Investment Teams liaise with local authority partners over the use of council tax second homes monies both as part of Strategic Housing Investment Plans discussions and more regular programme management discussions. Details of affordable housing supported by local authorities, including the new Council Housing Building programme, are published in quarterly statistics on our website and provide details of site starts and completions:

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