Questions and answers

Question reference: S4O-01229

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 September 2012

To ask the Scottish Government whether changes will be made to the arrangements for funding further education.

Question reference: S4W-08977

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 August 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 August 2012

To ask the Scottish Government on what date the 2012 Scottish Diabetes Survey will be published and what were the publication dates for the survey in each of the last four years.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey Monitoring Group aims to collate all survey data, quality assure these data, and finalise and publish the Scottish Diabetes Survey report within 12 months of the end of each calendar year.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey 2012 will therefore be published in 2013.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey 2011 was published on 20 August 2012. The report is available at: www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/Publications.aspx. It is understood that the 2011 survey is one of the most comprehensive and complete accounts of diabetes care available anywhere in the world. We expect that this survey, and future publications, will serve diabetes services as useful performance management tool.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey 2010 was published in August 2011.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey 2009 was published in March 2010 to coincide with a National Diabetes Conference.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey 2008 was published in July 2009.

Question reference: S4W-08979

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 August 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 August 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many people have Type 1 diabetes, and how many of them receive insulin pump therapy, broken down by NHS board.

This information is contained within the Scottish Diabetes Survey which was published on 20 August 2012 and is available at the following link: http://www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/Publications/SDS%202011.pdf.

The survey indicates that there are 28,272 people with type 1 diabetes in Scotland.

The survey also provides a breakdown of the number of people with type 1 diabetes who are on an insulin pump as of December 2011.

NHS Board	Type 1 Population	Number of Pumps	Percentage
Ayrshire and Arran	2,217	35	1.6%
Borders	621	51	8.2%
Dumfries and Galloway	900	23	2.6%
Fife	1,976	132	6.7%
Forth Valley	1,618	45	2.8%
Grampian	3,042	72	2.4%
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	6,195	95	1.5%
Highland	1,773	29	1.6%
Lanarkshire	3,533	56	1.6%
Lothian	4,184	208	5.0%
Orkney	120	5	4.2%
Shetland	123	2	1.6%
Tayside	1,866	130	7.0%
Western Isles	178	1	0.6%
Scotland	28,346	884	3.1%

Chief Executive Letter CEL 4 (2012) on Insulin Pump Therapy for People with Type 1 Diabetes, issued on 27 February, makes it clear that we expect all NHS boards to triple the number of insulin pumps for both adults and children with type 1 diabetes over the next three years.

The progress that all NHS boards are making with increasing insulin pump provision will continue to be published in the annual Scottish Diabetes Survey.

Question reference: S4W-08981

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 03 August 2012
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 August 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many people it estimates will have Type 1 diabetes on (a) 1 November 2012 and (b) 1 February 2013, and how many of them will receive insulin pump therapy, broken down by NHS board.

The information requested is not centrally held.

There are, however, around 960 people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in Scotland each year. We expect the numbers of people with type 1 diabetes to increase in line with previous years as recorded on page 12 of the 2011 Scottish Diabetes Survey. The survey is available at the following link:

http://www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/Publications/SDS%202011.pdf.

The Survey also provides a breakdown of the number of people with type 1 diabetes who are on an insulin pump as of December 2011.

NHS Board	Type 1 Population	Number of Pumps	Percentage
Ayrshire and Arran	2,217	35	1.6%
Borders	621	51	8.2%
Dumfries and Galloway	900	23	2.6%
Fife	1,976	132	6.7%
Forth Valley	1,618	45	2.8%
Grampian	3,042	72	2.4%
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	6,195	95	1.5%
Highland	1,773	29	1.6%
Lanarkshire	3,533	56	1.6%
Lothian	4,184	208	5.0%
Orkney	120	5	4.2%
Shetland	123	2	1.6%
Tayside	1,866	130	7.0%
Western Isles	178	1	0.6%
Scotland	28,346	884	3.1%

Chief Executive Letter CEL 4 (2012) on Insulin Pump Therapy for People with Type 1 Diabetes, issued on 27 February, makes it clear that we expect all NHS boards to triple the number of insulin pumps for both adults and children with type 1 diabetes over the next three years.

The progress that all NHS boards are making with increasing insulin pump provision will continue to be published in the annual Scottish Diabetes Survey.

Question reference: S4W-08930

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 30 July 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 16 August 2012

To ask the Scottish Government how many orders have been issued each year in Aberdeen under the Antisocial Behaviour (Scotland) Act 2004.

Aberdeen sheriff court granted 15 applications under the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004 in 2008-09, 38 applications in 2009-10 and 17 applications in 2010-11.

Data is not available before 2008-09. The Scottish Government suspended the publication of civil judicial statistics for the period 2003-07 due to a lack of precision in the definition of data items and consequently the way in which courts captured and recorded civil data. Extensive work was carried out to identify and rectify instances of inconsistent recording of data and the publication was resumed in December 2010.

Question reference: S4W-08389

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 June 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 23 July 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S4W-07769 by Kenny MacAskill on 26 June 2012, when it will lay before the Parliament the section 14 order, and for what reason this was not carried out on 25 June 2012, as had been indicated by Mr MacAskill in his letter of 24 May 2012 to the Convener of the Justice Committee.

The draft section 14 Order under the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 will be laid in the Parliament in September. In shaping our proposals, the Scottish Government recognise the value of contributions from a wide range of individuals and organisations. That is why, to build on engagement with stakeholders, we postponed laying the draft Parliamentary Order to September. This will not change the proposed period for the formal consultation which will run from September to the end of November.

Question reference: S4W-08539

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 July 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 18 July 2012

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S4W-07612 and S4W-07607 by Kenny MacAskill on 29 June 2012, for what reason the average expenditure on each intensive support package fell from £46,562 in 2009-10 to £9,342 in 2011-12.

Intensive Support Packages are, by their nature, highly individualised and tailored in nature and it is not a “standard” service. Therefore taking an “average” cost, is not really a reasonable way of comparing activity when you are looking at such a small group of individuals. To illustrate the small size of the client group involved, in the two years selected in the question the number of Intensive Support Packages was 26 and 13 respectively.

Professional social work advice helps determine what arrangements are appropriate for an Intensive Support Package, and arrangements will be different depending on their judgement of the risk involved.

Question reference: S4W-08072

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 3 July 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what penalties can be imposed on Scottish police forces that fail to meet the 14-day service level agreement for processing Disclosure Scotland applications for two consecutive months.

The service level agreement that Disclosure Scotland has with ACPOS (Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland) provides for the possibility of imposing penalties on Scottish police forces that fail to meet the service level target for force enquiries from the start of the financial year 2012-13, that is 1 April 2012.

Disclosure Scotland’s service level target with Scottish police forces is that forces should return 90% of force enquiries within 14 calendar days and 100% within 21 calendar days.

In cases of unsatisfactory performance lasting two months or more, Disclosure Scotland will write to the force concerned and request a performance recovery plan. Where that recovery plan is not being followed or being amended to greater effect, Disclosure Scotland may impose a variation in the rate of payment in proportion to the average rate of delay over those three months. The rate at which deductions can be made is set out in the table.

Performance Bands

Turn-around time (average, over all three months of trigger period)	Rate of reduction	Applied for/Review reduction after point
0-14 calendar days	None	None
15-21 calendar days (acceptable)	None - other measures will be in place, such as reporting and chase lists	None
22-28 calendar days (unacceptable)	10% of monthly total payment	Until 2 months of expected performance have been recorded
29-35 calendar days (unacceptable)	12.5% of monthly total payment	Until 2 months of expected performance have been recorded. Actual rates may be reviewed on a monthly basis to reflect gradual improvements in performance, based at any time on the previous 5 months.
36 and above calendar days (unacceptable)	15% of monthly total payment	As above

Question reference: S4W-08078

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 3 July 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how much the Scottish Prison Service has spent on sick pay for (a) absences and (b) stress-related illnesses in each year since 2007.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

The information requested in relation to point (a) is provided in the following table. The notional costs shown in the table have been calculated using the pay band maxima associated with each employee and no cognisance has been taken of employees who were in a reduced pay situation.

Notional Cost of Working Days Lost Due to Sickness Absence

Period	Notional Cost (£)
2007-08	4,606,435
2008-09	4,743,363
2009-10	4,268,631
2010-11	4,386,985
2011-12	4,350,533

Source: Quarterly Departmental Sickness Absence Returns.

Note: Periods are from 1 April to 31 March.

The information requested in relation to point (b) is provided in the following table. The notional costs shown in the table have been calculated using the pay band maxima associated with each employee and no cognisance has been taken of employees who were in a reduced pay situation.

Notional Cost of Working Days Lost Due to Sickness Absence Declared as Stress Related

Period	Notional Cost (£)
2007-08	878,813
2008-09	647,548
2009-10	574,039
2010-11	588,898
2011-12	518,523

Source: Quarterly Departmental Sickness Absence Returns.

Notes: Periods are from 1 April to 31 March.”

Question reference: S4W-08079

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 3 July 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken to assist the Scottish Prison Service in dealing with stress-related illnesses among staff in each year since 2007.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

Since the late nineties the SPS has funded (from its government allocation) an Employee well-being programme which provides 24/7 telephone support, advice and counselling. With regard to stress-related illnesses and mental health in particular staff can access an online therapy programme called Beating the Blues which has been available since 2007.

As part of the SPS Occupational Health strategy we have a policy entitled The Management of Stress at Work Policy and Procedure and Risk Assessment Process, which deals with stress and related matters. This was agreed in partnership with the recognised trades unions in 2006.

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