Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government will be providing £7.5 million for the Reducing Reoffending Change Fund over the current spending review period. This is in addition to resources for the support of community justice services provided by local authorities, and does not preclude supplementary funding by other sources. The Scottish Government is in the process of consulting stakeholders across Scotland on the Fund.

Day to day management of NHSScotland assets, including surplus assets, is delegated to NHS boards to undertake in line with mandatory requirements in the NHSScotland Property Transactions Handbook and guidance issued by Scottish Government.

The Welfare Reform Scrutiny Group was established in January 2011.

The group is made up of representatives from: Scottish Government, COSLA, One Parent Families Scotland, Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens Advice Scotland, Independent Living in Scotland, Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform/Poverty Alliance, The Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations, Rights Advice Scotland, Carers Scotland, Equality and Human Rights Commission and Professor Emeritus Adrian Sinfield of Edinburgh University.

The group has met on five occasions and meeting papers are published on the Welfare Reform discussion forum http://www.employabilityscotland.co.uk/forum/. Papers are not produced for every meeting.

The Scottish Government want childcare services in Scotland that are high quality, affordable, and flexible, supporting parents to remain in, or enter employment. We are committed to expanding the range, capacity and flexibility of early learning and childcare provision ensuring high quality provision that meets the needs of children and families.

We have created an Early Years Change Fund to lead the way on preventative spending and will take the work forward with local authorities, the National Health Service and third sector. The Early Years Task Force which met for the first time on 8 November, will oversee the early years activity on childcare, family centres, play, early learning experiences and supporting parents.

However, our position is that we need control over our tax and benefits system if we are to achieve significant improvements to provision for parents, children and employment support in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has set out its position on the impact on devolved services of the UK Government’s Welfare Reform Bill in the Supplementary Legislative Consent Memorandum lodged on 1 November 2011.

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/Bills/25202.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-03684 on 14 November 2011. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Care Inspectorate does consider staffing levels at the point of registration and post registration regulation, including at inspections. The Care Inspectorate’s findings are published on their website: www.careinspectorate.com. In addition, each care home should display a staffing schedule alongside the certificate of registration.

From 1 April 2011 all care homes must keep a record of dependency levels of service users and these should be updated at a minimum of every four weeks. These dependency assessments should inform the numbers, skill mix and deployment of staffing in a service.

There is a statutory requirement on care service providers to ensure that at all times suitably qualified and competent persons are working in the care service, as are appropriate for the health and welfare of service users. The National Care Standards also require care home staff to have professional training and expertise which allows them to meet the needs of residents. Compliance with these requirements is part of the Care Inspectorate’s inspection process. The Care Inspectorate has a range of measures it can take to ensure that providers comply with requirements.

The Care Inspectorate has a responsibility to scrutinise local authorities to provide an objective, evidence-based assessment of how well people are being served by their social work services; make a constructive contribution towards the further improvement of these services; help safeguard the interests of people who use services and carers, and help local authorities to develop their own approach to improving services. The Care Inspectorate will publish the findings and recommendations for each local authority, and through the Public Services Reform (Act) 2010, local authorities are required to take account of inspection reports and recommendations.

Local authorities are also under a duty to demonstrate best value which requires them to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in performance and in doing so to have regard to economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equal opportunities requirements and to the achievement of sustainable development.

We believe this current balance of duties and responsibilities adequately covers the current landscape for delivery of social care services to older people. As we move towards greater integration of health and social care this balance may need to be revisited.

The skills mix of staffing for individual care homes is dependent on the assessed needs of its residents. There are therefore no plans to issue guidance setting out the percentage of care homes requiring the services of a registered nurse.

In addition, the Care Inspectorate has responsibilities in relation to staffing, and these are set out clearly in the answer to question S4W-03684 on 14 November 2011.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

As of 31 December 2010 there were 920 care homes for older people, of which 889 care homes had completed Annual Returns. Of these:

514 (58%) provide nursing care internally

257 (29%) use external nurses to provide nursing care (and have no internal provision)

118 (13%) do not provide nursing care.

Not all care homes for older people completed annual returns. Homes that did not complete an annual return are mainly services that are newly registered in the three months preceding the annual return date as they are not obliged to do so.