The Scottish Executive is committed to building workforce capacity within NHSScotland.Under the banner of Facingthe Future, a number of recruitment and retention initiatives have beenlaunched to specifically build capacity across the nursing and midwifery workforce.These include a review of workload, a review of nurse bank arrangements in Scotland as wellas additional funding for clinical leadership programmes.Presently we are unaware of anyspecific concerns relating to a shortage of midwives in Scotland.