Chamber and committees

The operation of Dungavel isa matter for the Home Office. Social work assessments of children at Dungavel arecarried out by South Lanarkshire Council. The Executive does not hold informationon the number of assessments undertaken in the specified period.

The operation of Dungavel isa matter for the Home Office. The Executive does not hold this information.

To attack orintimidate dedicated NHS staff or any other emergency worker who is trying tohelp people in need is abhorrent and totally unacceptable.

Any ScottishAmbulance Service member of staff who has a concern about working on their ownshould in the first instance raise this with their line manager. The ambulanceservice runs a number of committees designed to address staff governance issuessuch as this. These include local and national Health and Safety committees,local and national Partnership Forums, a working group to prevent violence tostaff and a consultative group.

The Scottish AmbulanceService takes seriously the health, safety and welfare of its staff. It recognisesthat some staff are required to work by themselves for significant periods of timewithout close or direct supervision in the community or in isolated work areas.The ambulance service has developed a Lone Worker Policy and a Violence Risk Assessmentdesigned to enable the service to meet its obligation to protect such staff “sofar as is reasonably practicable” from the risks of lone working. The policy ismade available to all staff who may find themselves working in this way.

The informationis not collected centrally in the form requested.

The ScottishAmbulance Service began capturing information on the numbers of incidents ofviolence and aggression towards staff in August 2004 when it issued guidance tostaff about the need to report such incidents. It does not disaggregate thenumbers by the NHS board area in which the incident occurred, nor does itdifferentiate between emergency and non-emergency service staff groups and nordoes it identify whether the staff member was operating on their own or as partof a crew. There were 265 incidents reported in 2005 and 299 in 2006.

I refer themember to the answer to question S3W-1140 on 27 June 2007. Allanswers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’swebsite, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

As set out in the Scottish Ambulance Service’s lone worker policy, on arrival at the scene of theincident, the member of staff is required to conduct a dynamic risk assessment.If having completed this assessment they feel the risk is too great forwhatever reason, they will inform ambulance control who will take the necessarysteps to assist, such as calling the police, the fire brigade or sending a back-upambulance crew.

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

Glasgow Housing Association(GHA) is an independent housing association and charity. As an independent organisationit is expected to obtain and act on its own legal advice in relation to issues suchas the length of time it should allow home owners for repayment of the costs ofimprovement work. I understand that GHA has taken legal advice relating to the periodof time it can allow without breaching its charitable objects.

Communities Scotland is the lead regulator for registered social landlords.But neither it, nor any other official body, has the power to dictate to regulatedbodies on specific issues such as repayment times.

The current inspectionof Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) is due to report in September. If the reportidentifies concerns or areas for improvement, Communities Scotland has a range ofoptions open to it for dealing with such issues and will work with GHA to ensurethat any problems are addressed.

At this time we haveno plans to instigate a further investigation.

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

I refer the memberto the answer to question S2W-32268 on 16 March 2007, which stated that Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) is expected to seek and act on its own legal advicein relation to specific issues. I understand that GHA has done that in relationto the period of time it can allow owners to repay costs without jeopardising itscharitable status. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.