Clinical nurse specialists for cleft lip and palate care in NHS Lothian and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have not been withdrawn to cover general nursing duties.

Over the last six months the two clinical nurse specialists for cleft lip and palate care in NHS Lothian have worked a total of 12 hours in theatre recovery at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh. This time has been used to refresh their skills and, more importantly, to facilitate education for non-specialist staff on the post-operative care of children with cleft lip and palate conditions. This latter element is a key component of the role of the clinical nurse specialist and entirely in keeping with our plans for continuous improvement of the quality of care for all patients. In NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde the hours and working patterns of the clinical nurse specialists in the cleft lip and palate service remain unaltered.

In NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, three clinical nurse specialists provide 51 hours of specialist cleft lip and palate care per week. This represents 100% of their working week.

In NHS Lothian, two clinical nurse specialists provide 56.25 hours of specialist cleft lip and palate care per week. This represents 100% of their working week.

Information on working days lost due to staff illness in hospitals administered by the NHS is not centrally collected. However, information on hours lost due to sickness absence by NHS board is collected. Relevant details are presented in the following table:

Sickness Absence Hours Lost by Selected NHS Board: Year Ending 31 March

	Hours lost
	2007	2008	2009	2010
Borders	242259.9	251650.5	250586.1	244021.0
Dumfries and Galloway	322110.4	363970.8	325336.9	324456.6
Lothian	1792335.2	1797734.7	1700165.5	1689524.0
Ayrshire and Arran	951889.8	945862.6	958661.5	849519.4
Lanarkshire	1183500.5	1125863.0	975881.2	895184.5

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS)

Information about how many days lost were attributed to infections that resulted in the closure of wards is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3O-11646 on 7 October 2010 which is available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The information in respect to (a) is as shown in the following table, which shows Zero Waste Fund (ZWF) monies distributed to local authorities. In accordance with the concordat, neither capital or revenue funding is ring fenced, as it is each local authority''s responsibility to allocate funding as they see fit, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government''s key strategic objectives. For (b), the Scottish Government is unable to offer any commitment to funding until after the Spending Review on 20 October 2010.

(£ Million Rounded)

Council	Capital Share of ZWF 2010-11	Operating Share of ZWF 2010-11	Operating Share of Former SWF Top Up¹	Total Share of ZWF 2010-11
Aberdeen City	0.219	1.025		1.244
Aberdeenshire	0.228	1.080		1.308
Angus	0.107	0.505		0.612
Argyll and Bute	0.101	0.480	0.005	0.586
Clackmannanshire	0.047	0.224		0.271
Dumfries and Galloway	0.149	0.703	0.173	1.025
Dundee City	0.143	0.672		0.815
East Ayrshire	0.116	0.547	0.011	0.674
East Dunbartonshire	0.102	0.479	0.125	0.706
East Lothian	0.091	0.430		0.521
East Renfrewshire	0.086	0.406		0.492
Edinburgh (City of)	0.493	2.339		2.832
Eilean Siar	0.027	0.127	0.044	0.198
Falkirk	0.145	0.689	0.045	0.879
Fife	0.349	1.657		2.006
Glasgow City	0.609	2.872	0.056	3.537
Highland	0.235	1.112	0.027	1.374
Inverclyde	0.079	0.371		0.450
Midlothian	0.077	0.362		0.439
Moray	0.085	0.403		0.488
North Ayrshire	0.133	0.629		0.762
North Lanarkshire	0.313	1.479		1.792
Orkney Islands	0.020	0.097		0.117
Perth and Kinross	0.143	0.681	0.045	0.869
Renfrewshire	0.167	0.785		0.952
Scottish Borders	0.109	0.516		0.625
Shetland Islands	0.021	0.100		0.121
South Ayrshire	0.114	0.541		0.655
South Lanarkshire	0.298	1.412		1.710
Stirling	0.092	0.437		0.529
West Dunbartonshire	0.089	0.417		0.506
West Lothian	0.163	0.773	0.004	0.940
Scotland	5.150	24.350	0.535	30.035

Notes:

1. These sums are the former SWF projects that were in the pipeline and not concluded at the time of SR2007.

Zero Waste Fund apportioned on the basis of waste disposal formula as agreed with COSLA.

Throughout the revaluation process ministers and officials have taken a number of actions to communicate with the business community. This includes meeting, corresponding and listening to representations from a number of individual ratepayers and business organisations.

The Scottish Government has had no discussions with representatives of South Lanarkshire Council or with Scotgen regarding the proposed energy-from-waste plant at Dovesdale Farm.

Since 2008, the Scottish Government has actively engaged with COSLA to review the barriers that prevent local authorities enacting the Allotment (Scotland) Act 1892. The Scottish Government has also engaged with a number of other organisations including the Scottish Natural Heritage and Forestry Commission Scotland as well as other publically funded bodies such as Greenspace Scotland to explore increasing the amount of land available for growing spaces.

The Scottish Government has also established a Grow Your Own working group whose members include the Scottish Allotment and Garden Society, Elmwood College, Soil Association, Landshare, Commonwealth Orchards, Greenbelt Group, Greenspace Scotland, National Farmers Union and Community Food and Health (Scotland) which has a remit to produce best practice guidance, to explore the opportunities to and constraints of opening land up to development of grow-your-own initiatives and to advise the Scottish Government on the most effective way to provide strategic support for allotments.

Discussions on sustainable public sector food and drink procurement have been held with a wide range of bodies during 2010, including:

APUC, Scotland Excel, Public Procurement Reform Board, European Commission, COSLA, NHS National Procurement, NHS Facilities Scotland, NHS Public Health and Well being, NFUS, Food Standards Agency Scotland, SAOS, Scotland Food and Drink, Scottish Food and Drink Federation, Sodexo, Brakes Foodservice, Campbell''s Meat, 2014 Commonwealth Games Business Gateway, QMS, Scottish Enterprise and the Cross Party Group on Food.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-36314 on 23 September 2010. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scotish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.