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Current centrally-held data on orthodontic staff is correct to 30 September 2003.

Information on NHS orthodontic practitioners within hospital and community health service (HCHS) and general dental practice in NHSScotland as at 30 September 2004 will be published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under Workforce Statistics, at www.isdscotland.org/workforce on 10 February 2005.

We are confident that NHS Grampian is taking active steps to improve its orthodontics service. The board has not asked for help in this but the Executive stands ready should such help be sought.

At present the board is recruiting two permanent consultants and will provide interim services using locum consultants. Additional treatment sessions are being run to ensure that urgent cases are seen almost immediately and to provide continuity of treatment where this has already started.

NHS Grampian is about to engage an independent company to assess 140 patients in February.

The information on consents received and determined in the past three years is set out in the following table.

Year	Applications Received	Applications Determined	Running Total of Outstanding Applications at Year End	Average Time to Determination (in months)
2002	3	Nil	4	n/a
2003	17	7	14	13
2004	23	6	31	17

 

The Scottish Executive has not commissioned or published research on “Scottish Contribution to Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Obligation”.

Research and development expenditure for the rest of the UK, excluding Scotland, in 2002 was £334 per head of population. The remaining information, including the comparison of Scotland with the UK and the other EU member states, is contained in the answer to your question S2W-12287, on 30 November 2004. 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/webapp/wa.search. Data for 2003 is not yet available.

There are currently no grants or incentive packages available from the Executive to encourage dentists willing to set up NHS orthodontic dental practices but this issue is under active consideration by the Executive.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Responsibility for tackling the issue of empty homes rests with local authorities as part of their Local Housing Strategies. It is an expectation set out in the guidance that, as part of a wider strategic approach to address housing need, alongside neighbourhood renewal and community planning initiatives, their strategy should consider whether the existing public and private housing stock is being managed to best effect and if there are management solutions based on that stock to existing or emerging housing problems.

An analysis of data from the Post Census Vacant Survey is available through the Publications and Data – Data Library section on the Scottish Executive Housing Statistics website:

www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/housing/hsbref.

Table 1 provides background information on the number of vacant housing authority dwellings at 31 March for each of the last five years, by reason for the vacancy. It cannot be used to determine how many vacant dwellings could be brought into use. Table 2 gives year-on-year percentage changes.

Table 1: Housing Authority Dwellings Vacant at 31 March, Numbers

Reason for Vacancy	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
(a) Used as temporary accommodation for homeless	326	348	395	410	296
(b) To be demolished or sold with vacant possession within two years	5,356	7,249	6,954	7,279	4,809
(c) Part of modernisation or major repair programme	1,172	1,027	1,168	1,132	676
(d) In identified low demand area	4,293	4,077	4,054	3,836	2,751
(e) Other	10,373	9,376	8,175	8,479	5,972
Total vacant dwellings	21,520	22,077	20,746	21,136	14,504

Table 2: Housing Authority Dwellings Vacant at 31 March, Year-on-Year Percentage Changes

Reason for vacancy	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
(a) Used as temporary accommodation for homeless	n/a	7	14	4	-28
(b) To be demolished or sold with vacant possession within two years	n/a	35	-4	5	-34
(c) Part of modernisation or major repair programme	n/a	-12	14	-3	-40
(d) In identified low demand area	n/a	-5	-1	-5	-28
(e) Other	n/a	-10	-13	4	-30
Total vacant dwellings	n/a	3	-6	2	-31

Notes:

1. Figures are for local authority and Scottish Homes stock.

2. Figures contain some estimates due to outstanding/incomplete returns.

3. Due to housing stock transfers, figures for local authority dwellings in Glasgow, Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders are not included in 2004. This will account for some of the decrease seen between 2003 and 2004.

4. If a dwelling falls into more than one category, it is allocated to the category that appears first in the table.

5. Dwellings are included in category (a) if they are used solely as temporary accommodation for the homeless.

6. There is no information to determine whether dwellings in category (b) could be made habitable.

7. Dwellings are included in category (c) if the modernisation or repair scheme is due to be implemented within two years.

8. Dwellings are included in category (d) if the authority has developed a strategy to deal with the low demand.

9. The table provides a snapshot of the situation as at 31 March each year. Dwellings may remain vacant for longer than one year, or become vacant intermittently over the five year period. Therefore, the rows cannot be summed to give a total number of vacant dwellings over the period.

The information requested is not available centrally. Most orthodontics treatment is carried out in an outpatient setting and is likely to undertaken at the second and subsequent appointments. Information on waiting times is available only for a first out-patient appointment with a consultant, following a General Medical/Dental Practitioner referral.

The median waiting times for a first out-patient appointment with an orthodontic consultant, following referral, by NHS hospital, in the year ended 30 September 2004, is provided in the table.

NHSScotland: Median Waiting Times for a First Out-Patient Appointment¹ with an Orthodontic Consultant, Following a General Medical/Dental Practitioner Referral. Year Ended 30 September 2004^P

Hospital	Median Wait
Abbey Health Centre	45 days
Adamson Hospital, Cupar	95 days
Argyll and Bute Hospital, Lochgilphead	-2
Ayr Hospital	33 days
Borders General Hospital, Melrose	405 days
Caithness General Hospital, Wick	336 days
Campbeltown Health Centre	152 days
Castle Douglas Locality Office, Dumfries and Galloway	-2
Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock	37 days
Dr Gray's Hospital, Elgin	728 days
Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary	336 days
Dunbar Hospital, Thurso	-2
Dundee Dental Hospital	59 days
Edinburgh Dental Institute, Lauriston Building	151 days
Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary	56 days
Fort William Community Clinic	50 days
Garrick Hospital, Stranraer	-2
Glasgow Dental Hospital and School	322 days3
Greenock Health Centre	-2
Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride	81 days
Inverclyde Royal Hospital, Greenock	82 days
Islay Hospital, Bowmore	-2
Lawson Memorial Hospital, Golspie	149 days
Lorn and Islands DG Hospital, Oban	-2
Monklands Hospital, Airdrie	104 days
Perth Royal Infirmary	485 days
Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline	33 days
Raigmore Hospital, Inverness	267 days
Ross Memorial Hospital, Dingwall	413 days
Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital	77 days
Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley	6 days
St Andrews Memorial Hospital	399 days
St John's Hospital At Howden, Livingston	17 days
Stirling Royal Infirmary	110 days
Thurso High School, Ormlie Road, Thurso	-2
Town and County Hospital, Nairn	245 days
Vale of Leven District General Hospital, Alexandria	-2
Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy	44 days
Western Isles Hospital, Stornoway	152 days
Wishaw General Hospital	64 days
NHSScotland	81 days

^PProvisional.

Notes:

1. Includes patients with a waiting time guarantee. Excludes patients with availability status codes.

2. Median waiting time not provided where the number of appointments is less than 40.

3. Information for Glasgow Dental Hospital and School relates to the period 1 April 2004 to 30 September 2004. Data is not available prior to that period.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to respond. Her response is as follows:

Communities Scotland offers a range of schemes to promote low cost home ownership targeted at those on lower than average incomes such as first time buyers. In the period 1999-2000 to 2003-04, as shown in the following table, Communities Scotland grant assisted for construction, the building of thefollowing number of low cost home ownership homes.

Communities Scotland Grant Assisted Low Cost Home Ownership Homes (1999-2000 to 2003-04)

Year	Total
1999-2000	2,168
2000-01	1,134
2001-02	374
2002-03	623
2003-04	1,372

 

The current ISD Scotland data is correct to 30 September 2003. The following table shows the headcount and whole-time equivalent (WTE) numbers and rates per 100,000 population of consultant orthodontists, broken down by NHS board, at 30 September 2003. There were no vacancies reported for this census period.

NHS Board (at 30 September 2003)	Headcount1	WTE2	Headcount Rate per 100,000 Population	WTE Rate per 100,000 Population
Scotland	29	25.1	0.57	0.50
NHS Argyll and Clyde	2	2.0	0.48	0.48
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	2	2.0	0.54	0.54
NHS Borders	1	0.5	0.92	0.46
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	1	1.0	0.68	0.68
NHS Fife	1	1.0	0.28	0.28
NHS Forth Valley	3	2.3	1.07	0.82
NHS Grampian	2	2.0	0.38	0.38
NHS Greater Glasgow	5	3.8	0.58	0.44
NHS Highland	2	2.0	0.96	0.96
NHS Lanarkshire	3	3.0	0.54	0.54
NHS Lothian	5	3.5	0.64	0.45
NHS Orkney	-	-	-	-
NHS Shetland	-	-	-	-
NHS Tayside	3	1.9	0.78	0.49
NHS Western Isles	-	-	-	-

Source: ISD Scotland, Medical and Dental Workforce Census.

Notes:

1. A doctor may hold more than one appointment. Their appointments may be in more than one NHS organisation. In this case, they are counted once under each organisation but only once in the total.

2. WTE (whole tme euivalent) adjusts headcount staff figures to take account of part time staff. NHS board totals do not add to Scotland figure due to rounding.

ISD Scotland will be releasing the medical and dental census position, correct to 30 September 2004, on 10 February 2005.