- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 10 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how many more pre-school places will be needed to meet its pledges on extended pre-school provision.
Answer
The manifesto commitmentto deliver additional pre-school education relates to the level of entitlement ratherthan the number of places. The first step of an increase for all nursery provisionto 475 hours is not based on the creation of any new places. Options for implementingthe commitment in full are being developed and impact on capacity in the sectorwill be carefully considered.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive whether Lord Sutherland’s review of the policy of free personal and nursing care will consider the effect of the policy on other services delivered to older people in Scotland and, in particular, whether resources have been diverted from general services for older people to pay for free personal and nursing care services and what action will be taken to prevent any such diversion.
Answer
The Independent FundingReview of Free Personal and Nursing Care, chaired by Lord Sutherland, will investigatethe level and distribution of resources to local authorities in implementing thispolicy. Local authorities arerequired to meet their statutory responsibilities for the assessment and deliveryof services to older people in their area. It is for each individual local authorityto determine the most appropriate allocation of the total resources available toit to meet these and it’s other responsibilities.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how many pre-school providers are at risk of imminent closure, broken down by (a) local authority and (b) type of provider.
Answer
This informationis not held centrally.
Statistics on thenumber of pre-school education providers by local authority and type ofproviders are available in the pre-school and child care statistics 2006 availableat http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/09/13155926/0.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will investigate the reasons for pre-school closures and make the findings available to the Parliament.
Answer
Theresponsibility for planning and delivering pre-school education lies with localauthorities. Authorities need to take population projections into account toensure that there is enough pre-school education provision available in theright areas. Over time this may involve opening new provision and closing othercentres in line with patterns of demand.
The Scottish governmenthas no plans to undertake an investigation into the reasons for the closure ofindividual pre-school education settings.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how much each local authority spends per child on pre-school provision.
Answer
Statistics onlocal authority spend are not collected on a per child basis. The pre-primaryeducation expenditure figures for 2005-06 (the latest year for which figuresare available) are provided in the following table. Pre-primary educationexpenditure includes expenditure on nursery schools, other under 5s expenditurenot located in primary schools or special schools, childcare services andregistration services.
Pre-primary EducationExpenditure 2005-06 (£000)
| Local Authority Area | Gross | Net |
| Scotland | 284,484 | 267,174 |
| Aberdeen City | 8,689 | 8,608 |
| Aberdeenshire | 9,661 | 9,623 |
| Angus | 4,706 | 4,602 |
| Argyll and Bute | 5,252 | 4,854 |
| Clackmannanshire | 3,563 | 2,900 |
| Dumfries and Galloway | 7,592 | 7,389 |
| Dundee City | 8,077 | 7,384 |
| East Ayrshire | 8,824 | 7,905 |
| East Dunbartonshire | 4,776 | 4,251 |
| East Lothian | 5,053 | 4,472 |
| East Renfrewshire | 6,346 | 5,693 |
| Edinburgh, City of | 20,793 | 19,179 |
| Eilean Siar | 1,587 | 1,474 |
| Falkirk | 8,405 | 7,269 |
| Fife | 16,265 | 15,777 |
| Glasgow City | 45,061 | 43,826 |
| Highland | 11,478 | 9,766 |
| Inverclyde | 5,224 | 5,004 |
| Midlothian | 4,855 | 4,547 |
| Moray | 4,035 | 3,899 |
| North Ayrshire | 6,951 | 6,750 |
| North Lanarkshire | 18,916 | 18,023 |
| Orkney Islands | 801 | 801 |
| Perth and Kinross | 5,380 | 5,155 |
| Renfrewshire | 12,625 | 12,054 |
| Scottish Borders | 4,767 | 4,519 |
| Shetland Islands | 1,365 | 1,329 |
| South Ayrshire | 5,403 | 5,157 |
| South Lanarkshire | 13,391 | 12,191 |
| Stirling | 5,934 | 5,472 |
| West Dunbartonshire | 8,255 | 7,630 |
| West Lothian | 10,454 | 9,671 |
Source:LFR 1 (Education) returns.
Note:Gross expenditure is the total expenditure. Net expenditure is the grossexpenditure minus any income, for example from grants, fees or charges.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how it intends to respond to the recommendation in Community Care Providers Scotland’s report, Social Care and Support Services in the Voluntary Sector: Funding Survey 2007, that central government should review spending levels on social care and support in relation to (a) demand for services and (b) the effect of the introduction of a number of initiatives in recent years.
Answer
Ministers are in dialoguewith a range of stakeholders to gather evidence and views on how we can use thestrategic spending review to set plans that will enable us to fulfil our purposeand achieve our strategic objectives. Social care and support will be part of thatconsideration.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how many telephone calls have been handled by the National Child Protection Line in each month since its launch in February 2007.
Answer
The Child ProtectionLine has answered the following calls since February 2007:
| Feb 2007 | 98 |
| March 2007 | 82 |
| April 2007 | 40 |
| May 2007 | 36 |
| June 2007 | 44 |
| July 2007 | 27 |
| Total | 327 |
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding each local authority receives from it to provide pre-school services.
Answer
The Scottish governmentprovides local authorities with block grant for their core revenue servicesthrough the core local government finance settlement. A needs-based methodology(otherwise known as grant aided expenditure (GAE)) is used to determine the allocationof that block grant. As GAE is a component used in distributing the total blockgrant that the Scottish Government provides to local government, it is not abudget or a spending target. It is for each local authority to decide how bestto allocate the resulting overall block grant across all their services, basedon local needs and priorities.
The GAEallocations for each local authority for pre‑school services in 2007‑08is shown in the following table.
| Local Authority Area | Nursery Teaching Staff (£ Million) | Pre-School Education (£ Million) |
| Aberdeen City | 0.931 | 6.822 |
| Aberdeenshire | 1.281 | 9.959 |
| Angus | 0.563 | 3.775 |
| Argyll and Bute | 0.416 | 3.069 |
| Clackmannanshire | 0.256 | 1.634 |
| Dumfries and Galloway | 0.666 | 5.319 |
| Dundee City | 0.664 | 4.698 |
| East Ayrshire | 0.617 | 4.031 |
| East Dunbartonshire | 0.536 | 3.291 |
| East Lothian | 0.504 | 3.197 |
| East Renfrewshire | 0.506 | 3.175 |
| Edinburgh, City of | 2.045 | 13.686 |
| Eilean Siar | 0.121 | 1.051 |
| Falkirk | 0.788 | 4.980 |
| Fife | 1.897 | 11.896 |
| Glasgow City | 2.913 | 19.259 |
| Highland | 1.080 | 8.649 |
| Inverclyde | 0.402 | 2.773 |
| Midlothian | 0.457 | 3.016 |
| Moray | 0.441 | 3.249 |
| North Ayrshire | 0.727 | 4.556 |
| North Lanarkshire | 1.893 | 11.575 |
| Orkney | 0.087 | 0.764 |
| Perth and Kinross | 0.719 | 5.307 |
| Renfrewshire | 0.924 | 5.795 |
| Scottish Borders | 0.597 | 4.606 |
| Shetland | 0.119 | 1.157 |
| South Ayrshire | 0.521 | 3.271 |
| South Lanarkshire | 1.595 | 10.002 |
| Stirling | 0.461 | 3.326 |
| West Dunbartonshire | 0.472 | 3.018 |
| West Lothian | 1.015 | 6.303 |
| Scotland | 26.215 | 177.195 |
In addition thereare other relevant GAE allocations which go wider than pre-school services. Theseinclude Sure Start (£59.912 million), special education (£272.688 million) and childcarestrategy (£44.556 million).
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 17 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive what effect the recent announcement on the role of the private sector will have on the provision of audiology services in NHS Scotland.
Answer
The Cabinet Secretaryfor Health and Wellbeing has publicly made clear the Scottish Government’s oppositionon the use of public money to assist the private sector compete with the NHS.
The national private sector call-off contract, put in place underthe audiology modernisation project to support NHS boards in reducing waiting times,recently ended. In the meantime, the Allied Health Professionals contract, whichruns until May 2008, allows NHS boards to employ temporary locum audiologists toassist in reducing waiting times.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 17 August 2007
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 6 September 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive whether audiology waiting times will be brought into line with those of other NHS consultant-led services and targeted to 18 weeks from GP referral to fitting of hearing aid.
Answer
Since audiology servicesare not consultant-led, or defined as a speciality, and are a sub-specialty ofear, nose and throat, they do not fall under the current 18 week target of the ScottishGovernment. However, the Scottish Government is committed to improving servicesfor the benefit of patients, ispleased that a number of NHSScotland boards have met, and in some cases exceeded,the 26 week target from referral to fitting set by the Audiology Modernisation ProjectBoard and will continue to measureboards’ progress towards modernisation of the service allowing us to identify regionalvariations in service delivery and standards.
Where waiting timesremain unacceptably high, the Scottish Government continues to work directly withthe boards involved to help improve the situation as a matter of urgency.
