Chamber and committees

The Person-Centred Health and Care Collaborative was launched in November 2012. The first national learning session took place in that year. Costs for 2013-14 cover the whole year. Two national learning sessions took place in that year.

Details of non-pay costs in 2012-2013 are as follows:

Development of the Care Experience survey tool – £10,853 (1)

National learning session 1 costs and additional meeting costs – £135,779 (2)

Travel and subsistence including island NHS board travel costs to learning session - £2,846

Details of non-pay costs in 2013-2014 are as follows:

Development of the Care Experience survey tool £18,301 (1)

National learning sessions 2 and 3 and additional meetings costs – £303,849 (2)

Travel and subsistence including island NHS board travel costs to learning sessions £6,549

(1) The Care Experience survey tool is a customisable, web-based survey tool that allows local teams to focus on what matters to the people using their services and use this information to drive improvement.

(2) The Person-Centred Health and Care Collaborative national learning sessions bring NHS staff at all levels together to learn how they can use internationally recognised improvement science, which has already achieved demonstrable improvements to patient safety through the Scottish Patient Safety Programme, to reliably improve person-centred care.

Pensions are already affordable for Scotland. Total expenditure on social protection, which covers pensions and broader welfare spending has been lower in Scotland than the UK over the past five years.

As set out in Scotland’s Future, this government would pursue a broader growth-based approach to boost working age population, increase labour market participation and improve productivity.

Areas for action regarding LGBT equality will focus on policy issues identified as a priority by the LGBT community in Scotland.

In 2012-15, Scottish LGBT organisations were awarded over £2.3 million of funding for LGBT equality work by the Scottish Government. Longer term funding decisions aligned to the next spending round will be informed by the strategic approach developed.

Both diversity and unconscious bias training is available online to all Scottish Government employees through the Civil Service Learning portal. Although no diversity training for external selection panel members specific to this workstream has been delivered to date, plans are currently being considered jointly with the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland to develop suitable training. The Public Bodies and Corporate Diversity Programme Board and stakeholders will consider the content and timing of this training to ensure that any investment made delivers results.

Both diversity and unconscious bias training is available online to all Scottish Government employees through the Civil Service Learning portal. Although no diversity training for external selection panel members specific to this workstream has been delivered to date, plans are currently being considered jointly with the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland to develop suitable training. The Public Bodies and Corporate Diversity Programme Board and stakeholders will consider the content and timing of this training to ensure that any investment made delivers results.

Following Diversity Delivers it was felt appropriate to establish a Public Bodies and Corporate Diversity Programme Board, to give a renewed focus to the diversity agenda and to build on the work done to date. This work is centred around providing strong leadership and influence and on delivering diversity through practical change to the appointments process. Practical measures undertaken so far have involved the use of increased outreach activity, streamlining our application processes and guidance and the use of social media to highlight opportunities.

The Public Appointments Centre of Expertise uses a range of different evaluation methods to measure the impact of events. This is tailored to the type of event and its audience. This has included an increase in applications received following a particular event, increased interest from those with particular skills or experience, additional requests to be added to our mailing register for details of future opportunities and informal feedback from event attendees. Further work will be undertaken to ensure evaluation methods are robust and able to fully inform future action.

The four national LGBT organisations, Equality Network, LGBT Youth Scotland, Stonewall Scotland and the Scottish Transgender Alliance have participated in an initial scoping meeting to develop a strategic approach to LGBT equality work in Scotland. This work will be further developed through engagement with officials across key areas of the government where the action plan will impact. The plan will be launched in spring 2015.

Appointments to the boards of public bodies are the responsibility of Scottish Ministers and each minister will appoint the person he or she considers to be best qualified for the position, based on specific, published criteria. In making this decision, the minister adheres to the Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies in Scotland, issued by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland. The code sets out the principles on which all appointments are made: merit, integrity and diversity and equality. In addition, for many of those appointments regulated by the commissioner, a public appointments adviser, appointed by him, undertakes contemporaneous scrutiny of the appointment process to ensure these principles are upheld. Where the principles of the code are not upheld, the commissioner has the power to intervene. Depending on the circumstances, the commissioner may advise the appointing minister so that action can be taken to address the issue, or to report directly to the Scottish Parliament.