Chamber and committees

The National Performance Management Committee has met on the undernoted dates:

For the 2007-08 performance year:

25 February 2008;

2 May 2008;

28 July 2008;

8 August 2008;

29 August 2008;

26 September 2008;

27 October 2008;

27 November 2008.

For the 2008-09 performance year:

26 January 2009;

3 April 2009;

8 May 2009;

9 July 2009;

14 August 2009;

1 September 2009;

25 September 2009;

16 October 2009;

13 November 2009; 

7 January 2010.

For the 2009-10 performance year (to-date):

8 March 2010;

16 April 2010;

14 May 2010;

16 July 2010;

13 August 2010;

8 September 2010;

8 October 2010;

1 November 2010.

The performance management arrangements for staff in the Executive Cohort are set out in HDL (2007)15. Similar arrangements apply to the Senior Management Cohort, but responsibility for these rests with health board remuneration committees rather than the National Performance Management Committee. The system uses achievement scores which calibrate to performance ratings as set out in the circular.

The following table shows the percentage distribution for both cohorts across each of the performance ratings for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 performance years. The National Performance Management Committee has still to offer assurance to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing in respect of 2009-10 and therefore details for that performance year are not provided. Details for the 2010-11 performance year is not yet available.

Year	Unacceptable	Incomplete	Fully Acceptable	Superior	Outstanding
2007-08	0.00%	2.33%	79.87%	17.47%	0.33%
2008-09	0.25%	1.88%	80.62%	16.43%	0.82%

Information on the gender of staff in the Executive and Senior Management Cohorts is not held centrally.

The National Performance Management Committee is independently chaired by Mr Owen Clarke CBE. Mr Clarke, who was previously Head of the Inland Revenue Department for Scotland, was appointed as independent chair by Andy Kerr in 2006 and re-appointed in 2009 by me for a further three year period.

The other current members of the committee, who are chosen by their peers, are:

Ken Corsar, Chair, NHS Lanarkshire (membership from 2006);

Ian Kinniburgh, Chair, NHS Shetland (membership from July 2010);

James McGoldrick, Chair, NHS Fife (membership from July 2006 and to demit membership after the current cycle);

Allan Watson, Chair, NHS 24 (membership from April 2009);

Sandy Watson, Chair, NHS Tayside (shadowing and to replace James McGoldrick).

In order to ensure a smooth transition to the NHSScotland Resource Allocation Committee (NRAC) targets for NHS Scotland the Scottish Government committed to phasing in the target shares calculated by the NRAC formula by way of differential growth. Under this methodology, all boards continue to enjoy growth in their allocations year-on-year, with those below their target share receiving more growth than those above until the new distribution is achieved over time. In this way no board receives a cut in funding.

This approach to phasing in funding has been the practice under both the previous SHARE and Arbuthnott formulae. Despite the constraints of the current economic and financial climate, an additional £13 million has been provided to NHS boards below target in financial year 2010-11. The level of additional funding that NHS boards will receive in 2011-12 has yet to be determined.

As the target shares of NHS boards change on an annual basis to reflect changes in the relative need of their populations, it is not possible to provide a date when all NHS boards will reach their target share.

NHS inform is a NHSScotland service, hosted by NHS24.

NHS24 provides online information for people who are symptomatic and provides access to a self help guide which assists the public to be signposted to the most appropriate level of care. In addition, NHS24 provides corporate information and information on national campaigns (e.g. Be Ready for Winter and Know Who to Turn To).

In contrast, NHS inform is a single gateway to the provision of quality assured health and social care information across a range of health and wellbeing topics.

NHS inform makes use of the existing NHS24 national telephony and technology infrastructure and benefits from being hosted by an organisation already leading in health information management and patient care.

NHS Inform is a constantly evolving service and there are currently a number of strands of work in train, including information relating to carers, cancer, healthy lifestyles and mental health and wellbeing.

The original completion date was planned for the end of 2009. However, a range of service and operational pressures, including those associated with the H1N1 flu pandemic, led to the launch date being put back to August 2010.

A team manager in NHS 24 and its finance department were jointly responsible for monitoring project spend at operational level. I understand that current/projected spend is also monitored at programme board level.

An Advisory group and a programme board, following established governance and reporting structures, was put in place to manage the NHS inform project. In the latter stages, PRINCE 2 was deployed to monitor, direct and control the project.

The budget was managed jointly by a team manager within NHS24 and its Finance Department. Expenditure was reviewed on a monthly basis.

The NHS inform team has been working in partnership with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to integrate the Health Information Plus portal for all public facing health information material.

NES has recently taken a decision to redirect the public to NHS inform as the single national resource for quality assured health information. The Health Information Plus portal has not yet been fully integrated in the NHS inform website, but work to do so is ongoing.