Chamber and committees

I have asked MikeEwart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response isas follows:

The following tableshows the average daily population for each month since May 2007. For clarity thetable also distinguishes between convicted and remand prisoners in custody and thoseon Home Detention Curfew (HDC).

Month 2007	In Custody	HDC	Total
May	7,152	294	7,446
June	7,175	290	7,465
July	7,210	294	7,504
August	7,372	287	7,658
September	7,450	301	7,751
October	7,386	297	7,682

 

Following ameeting between officials on 6 September 2007, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and I metwith council representatives on 27 September to discuss school buildingand other issues. The Cabinet Secretary also met the council leader on 4October.

Detailedproposals for individual schools are a matter for the council, who have, Iunderstand, subsequently met with delegations representing the “wave 3”schools.

A broad estimate has been made of the cost in staff time of processing motions, and on this basis the average cost of a motion is £27.80.

Since becoming CabinetSecretary for Health and Wellbeing I have had formal meetings with NHS boardschairs on 18 June, 23 July and 1 October. At these meetings a wide range of currentissues are discussed with chairs. These have included:

Waiting Times

Alcohol and Smoking

Cancer

Annual Reviews

Workforce Issues

Free Personal Care

Dentistry

GPs Surgery OpeningHours

Sport and PhysicalActivity

Community PlanningPartnerships

The Abolition of AvailabilityStatus Codes

Modernising MedicalCareers

Service Reconfigurationand Independent Scrutiny

Delivering for MentalHealth

Shifting the Balanceof Care

The Healthier Scotland Objective Performance Measurement Framework

National ResourceAllocation Committee

Glasgow Airport Incident

New Action Plan

Health Inequalities

Organ Donation TaskForce

Point Prevalence Surveyfor HAI

Regulation White PaperImplementation

Staff Absence

e-Health

NHS Pay

100 Day Progress

Better Health BetterCare

Health InequalitiesTask Force

Cancer Waiting Times

Audiology

Long-Term Conditions– Audit Scotland Report

Primary Care Out-of-HoursServices – Audit Scotland Report

Information Sharingbetween the NHS and the Police

Alcohol AwarenessWeek

60th Anniversary of the NHS

Choosing Scotland’s Future.

The Scottish Governmenthas no dedicated functions in relation to the Trident missile system and thereforeno related costs.

The following tableprovides the information requested in relation to the 44 appointments and re-appointmentsmade by the Scottish ministers to public bodies regulated by the Commissioner forPublic Appointments in Scotland since 16 May 2007:

Public Body	Name of Appointee	Declared Political Activity
Executive NDPBs
Accounts Commission for Scotland	Michael Docherty	–
Highlands and Islands Enterprise	William Roe	–
Learning and Teaching Scotland	Prof. Douglas Weir	–
National Galleries of Scotland	Herbert Coutts Charles James Dawney	Labour –
Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care	Ijaz Ashraf Ian Gibson Helen Brown Linda Dunion Douglas Hutchens	Labour Lib Dem – – –
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission	Prof. Brian Caddy Hugh Stewart Campbell Gerard McClay	– – –
Scottish Enterprise	Ray Perman Pat Denzler Fred Hallsworth Douglas Lamb Donald MacRae Colin McClatchie	Labour – – – – –
Scottish Social Services Council	Garry Coutts Kingsley Thomas Michael Cairns Elizabeth Carmichael Karen Croan Maureen O’Neill	Independent Labour – – – –
Advisory NDPBs
Scottish Advisory Committee on Distinction Awards	Dr Stephen Engleman	–
NHS Bodies
National Waiting Times Centre	Peter Ramsay Mairi Brown Hilary Mounfield Jim O’Neil Kenneth Thomson	Conservative – – – –
Scottish Ambulance Service Board	William Brackenridge	Independent
Dumfries and Galloway NHS Board	Heather Brash Michael Keggans	– –
Highland NHS Board	Colin Punler	Labour
Lanarkshire NHS Board	Margaret Nelson	–
Others
Parole Board for Scotland	Francis Brown Charles Milne Aileen Devanny Andrew Jones Jo Knox David O’Donnell Moira Ramage David Stewart	Conservative Independent and Labour – – – – –
Total Number	44	12

 

This information isroutinely published on the Scottish Government’s Public Bodies website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/directory.

A one penny changein the Scottish variable rate in 2007-08 would be worth approximately +/- £300 million.

The ScottishGovernment already employs online advertising in its social marketing campaigncommunications, in response to the public's increasing likelihood to turn tothe internet for their information needs. It is used only where it is deemedappropriate and relevant to do so and is not perceived to be a replacement fortraditional newspaper advertising, which still plays an important role indelivering some of our communications tasks. Online advertising acts as asupplementary tool for when a communication project requires a targeted channelto deliver a message to a group of people, often with a specific interest.

It has alreadyproved to be extremely cost-effective in helping us engage with our targetaudiences, as it is so versatile. For example, it can be used to drive upresponse rates to a message, promote debate on a topic, signpost the public toan information point, or provide an expedient and automated response mechanismwhich can remove the need for expensive staffed call centres.

The table, which isavailable in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 43591) showsnumbers of discharges with primary diagnoses of: heart disease, angina, myocardialinfarction, heart failure or arrhythmia by NHS board of residence for the yearsended 31 March 2003 to 31 March 2006.

Atherosclerosis cannotbe show explicitly because it is often the underlying cause of the above conditions,as well as the cause of other conditions such as peripheral vascular disease andthrombotic strokes, and it may not be mentioned specifically in hospital dischargesummaries. Variation in recording of atherosclerosis may result in a misleadingindication of the numbers of such hospitalisations.

These data arenot held centrally.