Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S5W-03398

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on NHS boards sharing procurement services; what information it has on (a) how often this occurs and (b) what savings are made, and whether it considers any savings that are made should be reinvested in clinical services.

a) NHS Scotland has a mature shared service capability within National Services Scotland, via the National Procurement Organisation. This has increased the value of national/shared procurement arrangements significantly over the last 10 years with the annual value of national/shared procurement arrangements increasing from approximately £350m p.a. in 2005 to approximately £1.3bn p.a. in 2016. Additionally the National Distribution Centre provides a single logistics service for NHS Scotland with a stock holding of approx 9000 products and a throughput of approximately £150m per year.

b) Savings of £35m - £40m are secured every year from the use of national arrangements. These savings are for re-investment in frontline services.

Question reference: S5W-03402

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how often the NHS procurement process is audited and by whom, also broken down by the outcome of last audit for each NHS board.

NHS National Procurement are the appointed Centre of Expertise for auditing procurement processes at each Health Board as part of the annual capability review. In addition to this, all Health Boards have Internal Auditors, who will include procurement in their routine programme of work.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information regarding the latest audit for each Health Board – this information is retained locally.

Question reference: S5W-03405

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of how many vacated hospital buildings there are in each NHS board, also broken down by when each building will be emptied of all re-useable equipment and furnishings.

Question reference: S5W-03404

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what action it takes to ensure that the NHS procurement process is robust and that those who place orders have no financial or other connection with the suppliers.

Question reference: S5W-03397

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) nursing and (b) other staff there have been in each NHS board in each year since 2007-08.

Under this Government, the number of Qualified Nurses and Midwives has increased by over 2,100 WTE, or 5.2%, to 43,166.2 WTE.

The number of staff working in NHS Scotland has increased by over 11,000 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE), or 8.7 per cent, to 138,125.4 WTE.

Further information on: a) the latest published NHS Nursing and Midwifery staff in post figures by board can be found in the data tables of the workforce statistics website at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2016-09-06/Nursing_and_Midwifery_SIP_J2016.xls

Further information on: b) the latest published overall NHS staff figures by board can be found in the data tables of the Workforce Statistics website at: https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2016-09-06/Overall_staff_J2016.xls

Question reference: S5W-03395

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the comments in the paper, Review of ICT Infrastructure in the Public Sector in Scotland (the McLelland report), regarding e-procurement, for what reasons hospitals and health centres continue to submit sourcing requests using handwritten forms and faxes.

Spend on electronic requisitioning has increased significantly over the last ten years with throughput on PECOS (the core NHS purchase ordering system) now at £1.9billion per annum and all pharmacy ordering being processed through electronic ordering systems (approx. £350m per annum). This equates to over 90% of all NHS procurement being electronically tracked through these two control systems. Residual legacy systems for the remaining spend are constantly under review to develop a migration to the electronic routes.

For example, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are currently working with NHS National Procurement to develop a potential ‘single instance’ ordering system which would improve the throughput of re-ordering.

Question reference: S5W-03769

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 13 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 1 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what communication the Scottish Health Council has had with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde regarding (a) Lightburn and (b) the Vale of Leven Hospital since May 2015.

The independent Scottish Health Council (SHC) works with NHS Boards and communities across Scotland to promote and support the involvement of people in NHS Scotland: that includes instances where changes to NHS services are being considered by a Board or Boards. The Health Council's support and advice on potential service changes is offered within the context of the well-established and long-standing process set out in the national guidance: "Informing, Engaging and Consulting People in Developing Health and Community Care Services" (CEL 4(2010)). Specific communications with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde on proposals in respect of Lightburn and Vale of Leven Hospitals are a matter for the independent SHC.

Question reference: S5W-03403

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 03 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 27 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS-related meetings and seminars were held off NHS campuses in 2016, and at what cost.

Question reference: S5O-00275

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 October 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how the annual value of Scotland’s exports to the EU compares with its exports to the UK.

Question reference: S5W-03392

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 19 October 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making in implement the recommendations regarding procurement set out in the paper, Review of ICT Infrastructure in the Public Sector in Scotland (the McLelland report).

The Review of ICT Infrastructure in the Public Sector in Scotland published in 2011, recommended that the public sector embrace an integrated approach to ICT procurement, apply effective oversight and governance to the procurement process and ensure Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) have appropriate access to public sector opportunities.

The Scottish Government strategic approach to ICT procurement is outlined in Scotland’s Digital Future: Delivery of Public Services which also includes a National Digital & ICT Portfolio Procurement Plan. A Central Government ICT Assurance Framework is also in place to ensure appropriate approvals and assurances are aligned to enable successful project delivery.

The Scottish Government has continued to deliver a number of national collaborative ICT procurement frameworks in areas such as ICT Hardware, Fixed Telephony and Digital & ICT Services. These frameworks are extensively utilised across the Scottish public sector. Another example of effective collaborative procurement has been the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) Programme which has delivered a single public services network available for the use of any, and potentially all, public services organisations within Scotland; with aggregated demand delivering both cost and performance advantages.

Ensuring SMEs have access to public sector contract opportunities is a key objective. The Procurement Reform (Scotland ) Act 2014 and the Scottish Model of Procurement, are designed to make our public procurement contracts readily accessible to SMEs, many of which are currently providing high quality ICT products and services to the Scottish public sector.