Chamber and committees

Data specifically for band 6 hospital pharmacist vacancies by NHS board for 2007, 2008 and 2009 are not centrally held.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of monitoring pharmacy establishment over the longer term and have been working with Information Services Division (ISD) who have now put arrangements in place to collect specific pharmacy establishment and vacancy data as part of their ongoing statistical monitoring of NHSScotland.

Information showing band 6 pharmacist vacancies by NHS board for acute and mental health hospitals as at 30 September 2010 can be found using the following link to workforce information published by ISD at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/servlet/FileBuffer?namedFile=Pharmacy_Vacancies_Sep_2010.xls&pContentDispositionType=attachment.

The information requested is not held centrally as data specifically for band 6 hospital pharmacist posts is not captured separately in the workforce statistics. NHS Service Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland publish data annually and trend information for headcount and whole time equivalent of combined hospital and community pharmacy staff by band and NHS board as at 30 September 2007 to 30 September 2010 is available at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/servlet/FileBuffer?namedFile=Other_therapeutic_staff_and_personal_social_care%202010.xls&pContentDispositionType=attachment.

Teacher and pupil census data is gathered during the autumn term each year. The resulting statistical bulletins were published on 27 November in 2009 and on 1 December in 2010.

There are legal obligations on local authorities to provide pre-school education and these are set out in the Standards in Scotland''s Schools etc, Act 2000.

When proposing the closure of any school, including a school based nursery, local authorities must undertake a consultation using the updated and robust process set out in the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010.

The Scottish Government has made clear that for councils to access the full amount of the financial package, it will require each local authority to agree formally to the full list of commitments contained within the package.

Each local authority leader has been asked to write to the Scottish Government, by 28 February 2011 at the latest, to provide a formal assurance that the budget approved by the council includes provision to deliver all the specified commitments agreed. If not, the revenue funding available to the councils concerned will be reduced by an average of 6.4%, rather than 2.6%.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-38425 on 20 January 2011 with regard to there being no education funding allocation. All answers to written parliamentary question are 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.

Argyll and Bute Council''s provisional allocation for 2011-12 is £220.059 million if it signs up to the terms of the financial package by 28 February. If it does not sign up by 28 February it will receive £211.981 million, £8.078 million less.

Local authorities receive funding from the Scottish Government in the form of a block grant. There is no education funding allocation. It is for each local authority to deploy the total financial resources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities, its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government''s key strategic objectives. Argyll and Bute Council''s provisional allocation for 2011-12 is £220.059 million if it signs up to the terms of the financial package by 28 February. bor

This is being considered as part of the service model for chronic pain being developed by the Chronic Pain Steering Group.

The following table sets out the number of patients, by NHS board, who were referred to pain management centres outside of Scotland in 2008-09, 2009-10 and in 2010-11 (up to 14 September 2010). In all cases, patients were referred to the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, in Bath.

NHS Board	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11 (to 14 September 2010)
Ayrshire and Arran	2	2	2
Borders	0	0	0
Dumfries and Galloway	0	0	0
Fife	3	3	1
Forth Valley	0	0	2
Grampian	7	2	8
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	1	0	2
Highland	1	2	1
Lanarkshire	2	0	1
Lothian	1	0	0
Tayside	6	9	4
Orkney	0	0	0
Shetland	0	0	0
Western Isles	0	0	0
Total	23	18	21

 

My meeting with representatives of the Scottish Muscle Network, which is due to take place early in 2011, has been arranged to discuss taking forward the recommendations in both the mapping exercise carried out by the network and in the Mackie Report published by the Cross Party Group on Muscular Dystrophy.