Chamber and committees

When assessing a donor’s eligibility the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) have to take into consideration more than 300 deferral criteria. The guidelines are constantly evolving, for example in calendar year 2014 SNBTS revised 13 of their donor selection rules and the deferral criteria for 32 countries. Changes in deferral criteria are often complex and sometimes need to be made quite rapidly, for example in response to changes in the pattern of infectious diseases in other parts of the world.

SNBTS procedures and policies support staff to make the correct decisions about donor eligibility. Regular reporting and review of donor deferrals aim to reduce variation in practice and highlight criteria to be reviewed at SNBTS or UK level.

SNBTS is represented on the Joint United Kingdom Blood Transfusion and Tissue Transplantation Services Professional Advisory Committee, the UK Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs and relevant subcommittees which maintain a watching brief on new and emergent issues relevant to donor selection and blood and tissue safety.

Definite or probable variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) cases in Scotland, where Scotland was the last residence before death, from 1 May 1995 - 31 December 2014, are shown in the following table.

No deaths were recorded for vCJD in the UK prior to 1995.

Please refer to the following table that shows the number of patients who received a blood transfusion in Scotland per calendar year. Data was obtained from the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service’s (SNBTS) Account for Blood (established in 2009). This data is not available prior to 2009:

Please note:

The data presented does not reflect full coverage of transfusions in Scotland. Due to changes in blood bank systems it has not been possible to get full consistent coverage. The following should be noted when interpreting this information:

The Western Infirmary blood bank data is not available for 2009 and approximately half of 2010. The addition of data from this blood bank in the latter half of 2010 most likely accounts for the apparent 2% increase in patients transfused in that year against a background of 2-4% decrease in other years.

Data from the Western Isles blood bank is only available from 2014.

Wishaw General, Caithness General and Belford blood bank information is not available.

Private hospital data are not available.

The number of patients transfused is a count of patients transfused with any blood component at any location. The same patient may be transfused with different blood component types in different locations.

The count of patients uses the patient Community Health Index (CHI). Where the CHI is unknown or unable to be derived a patient is identified through the local blood bank system identifier

SNBTS currently holds a record of individual units issued dating from 1999. Data on the number of patients transfused began to be formally recorded following the establishment of Account for Blood in 2009.

Scotland’s Future: Your Guide to an independent Scotland has been available to order at no cost to individuals in hard copy or digital formats since its launch in November 2013.

A total of 80,000 hard copies were produced in response to unprecedented demand, both from individuals and through the successful programme of public engagement by the Scottish Government.

The remaining copies are being managed in line with usual practice.

The Scottish Government fully supports the Living Wage Campaign and recognises the real difference the living wage can make to the people of Scotland. Although the Scottish Government is not able to set pay levels in the private sector, or indeed the private and wider public sector in Scotland where employees are not covered by our pay policy, we actively encourage all organisations to ensure all staff on lower incomes receive a fair level of pay.

In line with this, the Scottish Government has funded a pilot by the Poverty Alliance to increase the number of employers across all sectors in Scotland paying the living wage. And I am pleased to say these now number over 100.

We have also made a commitment in our Programme for Government that we will introduce a Scottish Business Pledge – making it clear that we want companies to commit amongst other things to pay the living wage and to fair work.

No two wind farm applications are the same. The Scottish Government will request submission of further information or seek further views of interested parties only where that is required to help ministers come to a properly informed decision.

The Energy Consents and Deployment Unit have an aspirational target of nine months from the point of application for ministers’ determination of wind farm applications where there is no public inquiry or the need for submission of further environmental information, i.e. addenda to the application. However, applications vary in complexity and some require considerably more time.

The Scottish Government’s policy for wind turbine developments on areas of wild land is primarily set out in the 2014 Scottish Planning Policy. Decisions will consider the up-to-date policy which is in place at the point of decision, not that which is in place at the point of submission.

Transport Scotland does not hold definitive data that indicates when Police Scotland have carried out a crime scene investigation.

The following table signifies a closure on the route concerned where police attendance was reported and which may or may not have involved a crime scene investigation. It should also be noted that Police Scotland do on occasion close roads for crime scene investigation without notifying Transport Scotland.

The average closure time does not necessarily reflect how long the police investigation and subsequent clear up takes. Some incidents involve detailed complex investigations while others can be fairly straightforward. In some cases road closures are maintained overnight to allow a more thorough examination in daylight hours. Crime scene investigation does not always relate to road traffic collisions. Vehicle recovery and infrastructure repair can also influence closure times.

The decision by Police Scotland to close a road is never taken lightly and only occurs when the incident itself requires closure to manage an ongoing incident, or where there is a need to protect those who might already have been injured and the emergency service staff who are dealing with the incident.

The impact on local communities and the wider economy is always at the forefront of investigators' minds, but there is a need to ensure that incidents are investigated thoroughly to ensure that families of those killed or seriously injured receive the support and information that they deserve and also to ensure that any safety issues are identified and addressed.

Data on students in colleges in Scotland are collected by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

The SFC Baseline Report for Academic Year 2013-14 shows that the number of funded full-time equivalent (FTE) students at college in 2013-14 increased by three per cent over the year to 119,636, again exceeding the 116,000 commitment.

Table 1 contains the number of students studying on STEM courses, expressed as headcount and FTE, for 2012-13 and 2013-14.

For the purposes of this answer the following superclass summary groups are counted as STEM:

C – Information technology and information

R – Science and mathematics

X – Engineering

Note that the Scottish Government is currently working with partners to develop a more detailed definition of STEM, as a focus on these subjects sits at the heart of the development of Scotland’s young workforce.

Table 1 – Number of students studying on STEM courses at colleges in Scotland, 2012-13 and 2013-14

Source: SFC

Notes:

*At some specialist colleges, general STEM subjects are not part of the core range of subject areas. However, these colleges do offer specialist courses in subjects which are classified as STEM (e.g. welding). Such courses are often very short in duration. For some colleges in the table above this gives rise to a relatively small headcount and an FTE between 1 and 0.

- Data not available