Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government expects every public body to deliver efficiency savings of at least 3 per cent per annum. NHS Health Boards have achieved this level, and delivered efficiency savings in 2015-16 in excess of £290 million. This has been reinvested by the Health Boards in frontline services.

NHS Boards achieve efficiency savings in a wide range of areas, including those set out in NHS Scotland Efficiency and Productivity: Framework for SR10: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2011/02/11144220/12. The Framework requires savings to be made through, amongst other means, reductions in senior management, better workforce productivity, and increased use of shared services.

The Scottish Government is working closely with NHS Lothian to ensure that the delay in the construction of the new Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh is kept to a minimum.

NHS Lothian had prepared a comprehensive and well developed commissioning and migration plan for the transfer of services from existing facilities based on the contractual handover date to the Board. This is now subject to review on receipt of a revised handover date from the Project Company. While it is disappointing not to be moving from existing facilities as previously anticipated, NHS Lothian recognise the cause of the delay and will respond in a positive manner to a revised programme demonstrating that neither health and safety, nor quality will be compromised in its delivery.

The hiring of new contractors is the responsibility of the consortium building the new facilities and they have a number of contingency plans in place to deal with the delay. This includes actions such as keeping a dialogue open with other sub-contractors who had bid for the original contract, dialogue with suppliers of the sub-contractors so they can take over supply of material and or labour if necessary and constant interaction with the workforce so they have the ability to hire personnel in the short term.

The main contractors in infrastructure projects are required to submit a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) to ensure that only eligible bidders with the requisite financial and technical capacity and capability are invited to proceed to the tendering stage. In respect of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children project, a minimum financial standing was set for each applicant’s construction contractor and each of the three consortia bidding for the contract met that requirement.

It should be recognised that the Royal Hospital for Sick Children is a Non Profit Distribution (NPD) project, where a fundamental feature is that an element of risk is transferred to the Project Company and that their Rate of Return reflects this transfer. Sub-contractors are managed by the main Project Company as per the agreed contract and while the two sub-contractors that went into administration has resulted in a delay to the project, the new construction timetable will not result in any additional costs to NHS Lothian.

This information is not held centrally by Scottish Government.

These complaint statistics are not held centrally.

This information is not centrally available.

Chiropractors are complementary and alternative practitioners who provide services outside that which is offered by the NHS. As such information on waiting times for chiropractors are not collected.

Most funding provided by the Scottish Government is to support both adult and young carers and is not separated out. Between 2008 and 2017 we invested nearly £39 million in Health Boards' Carer Information Strategies for support to adult and young carers.

Since 2012 we have also invested over £300,000 in workforce development which includes programmes working with young carers.

For young carer specific support, the Scottish Government has provided over £2 million for the annual Young Carers Festival, and for other initiatives. We also fund the Scottish Young Carers Services Alliance to support the development of services for young carers.

The total amount for supporting carers in 2007 is likely to be less than in any year from 2008, as the existing initiatives were not in place then.

Transport Scotland, on behalf of the Scottish Government, maintains a multi-modal model of traffic data which covers the area serviced by the A720. Traffic information is obtained from 39 automatic traffic counters which are located along the route. Information from this model can assist in forecasting future traffic demand on the region’s major roads.