Chamber and committees

Information on working days lost due to staff illness in hospitals administered by the NHS is not centrally collected. However, information on hours lost due to sickness absence by NHS board is collected. Relevant details are presented in the following table:

Sickness Absence Hours Lost by Selected NHS Board: Year Ending 31 March

	Hours lost
	2007	2008	2009	2010
Borders	242259.9	251650.5	250586.1	244021.0
Dumfries and Galloway	322110.4	363970.8	325336.9	324456.6
Lothian	1792335.2	1797734.7	1700165.5	1689524.0
Ayrshire and Arran	951889.8	945862.6	958661.5	849519.4
Lanarkshire	1183500.5	1125863.0	975881.2	895184.5

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS)

Information about how many days lost were attributed to infections that resulted in the closure of wards is not held centrally.

In NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, three clinical nurse specialists provide 51 hours of specialist cleft lip and palate care per week. This represents 100% of their working week.

In NHS Lothian, two clinical nurse specialists provide 56.25 hours of specialist cleft lip and palate care per week. This represents 100% of their working week.

Clinical nurse specialists for cleft lip and palate care in NHS Lothian and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have not been withdrawn to cover general nursing duties.

Over the last six months the two clinical nurse specialists for cleft lip and palate care in NHS Lothian have worked a total of 12 hours in theatre recovery at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh. This time has been used to refresh their skills and, more importantly, to facilitate education for non-specialist staff on the post-operative care of children with cleft lip and palate conditions. This latter element is a key component of the role of the clinical nurse specialist and entirely in keeping with our plans for continuous improvement of the quality of care for all patients. In NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde the hours and working patterns of the clinical nurse specialists in the cleft lip and palate service remain unaltered.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3O-11646 on 7 October 2010 which is available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Throughout the revaluation process ministers and officials have taken a number of actions to communicate with the business community. This includes meeting, corresponding and listening to representations from a number of individual ratepayers and business organisations.

The information in respect to (a) is as shown in the following table, which shows Zero Waste Fund (ZWF) monies distributed to local authorities. In accordance with the concordat, neither capital or revenue funding is ring fenced, as it is each local authority''s responsibility to allocate funding as they see fit, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government''s key strategic objectives. For (b), the Scottish Government is unable to offer any commitment to funding until after the Spending Review on 20 October 2010.

(£ Million Rounded)

Council	Capital Share of ZWF 2010-11	Operating Share of ZWF 2010-11	Operating Share of Former SWF Top Up¹	Total Share of ZWF 2010-11
Aberdeen City	0.219	1.025		1.244
Aberdeenshire	0.228	1.080		1.308
Angus	0.107	0.505		0.612
Argyll and Bute	0.101	0.480	0.005	0.586
Clackmannanshire	0.047	0.224		0.271
Dumfries and Galloway	0.149	0.703	0.173	1.025
Dundee City	0.143	0.672		0.815
East Ayrshire	0.116	0.547	0.011	0.674
East Dunbartonshire	0.102	0.479	0.125	0.706
East Lothian	0.091	0.430		0.521
East Renfrewshire	0.086	0.406		0.492
Edinburgh (City of)	0.493	2.339		2.832
Eilean Siar	0.027	0.127	0.044	0.198
Falkirk	0.145	0.689	0.045	0.879
Fife	0.349	1.657		2.006
Glasgow City	0.609	2.872	0.056	3.537
Highland	0.235	1.112	0.027	1.374
Inverclyde	0.079	0.371		0.450
Midlothian	0.077	0.362		0.439
Moray	0.085	0.403		0.488
North Ayrshire	0.133	0.629		0.762
North Lanarkshire	0.313	1.479		1.792
Orkney Islands	0.020	0.097		0.117
Perth and Kinross	0.143	0.681	0.045	0.869
Renfrewshire	0.167	0.785		0.952
Scottish Borders	0.109	0.516		0.625
Shetland Islands	0.021	0.100		0.121
South Ayrshire	0.114	0.541		0.655
South Lanarkshire	0.298	1.412		1.710
Stirling	0.092	0.437		0.529
West Dunbartonshire	0.089	0.417		0.506
West Lothian	0.163	0.773	0.004	0.940
Scotland	5.150	24.350	0.535	30.035

Notes:

1. These sums are the former SWF projects that were in the pipeline and not concluded at the time of SR2007.

Zero Waste Fund apportioned on the basis of waste disposal formula as agreed with COSLA.

Discussions on sustainable public sector food and drink procurement have been undertaken with the following local authorities in 2010:

Tayside Contracts (as the Catering and Procurement provider for Perth and Kinross), City of Dundee and Angus Councils, Glasgow City Council (Cordia LLP), Scotland Excel (as the procurement organisation for food and drink for Scotland''s local authorities), Falkirk Council, Aberdeenshire Council and South Lanarkshire Council.

Discussions have also been held at the ASSIST conference attended by senior officers responsible for catering in Scotland''s 32 local authorities and at the Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE; the organisation that represents managers in Scotland''s local authorities).

Sustainable public sector procurement of food and drink has been discussed with a wide range of Local Authorities on 7 occasions in 2009 as well as a wide range of NHS boards and other bodies. These are summarised in the report Walking the Talk - Getting Government Right - Procurement of Food by Public Sector http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/11/12111724/0.

The Invasive Non-Native Species Strategy for Great Britain provides a comprehensive policy framework to guide management response to invasive non-native species. This is based on the approach advocated by the Convention on Biological Diversity, which prioritises prevention. Once invasive non-native species are well established, complete eradication is rarely viable.

Whilst the Scottish Government will continue to seek to prevent the spread of North American crayfish in Scotland, it has no current plans for central government action to eradicate established populations. The Minister for Environment will shortly be meeting representatives from Dumfries and Galloway Council and other local interests to discuss the situation in Loch Ken with regard to North American Signal Crayfish.

Discussions on sustainable public sector food and drink procurement have been held with a wide range of bodies during 2010, including:

APUC, Scotland Excel, Public Procurement Reform Board, European Commission, COSLA, NHS National Procurement, NHS Facilities Scotland, NHS Public Health and Well being, NFUS, Food Standards Agency Scotland, SAOS, Scotland Food and Drink, Scottish Food and Drink Federation, Sodexo, Brakes Foodservice, Campbell''s Meat, 2014 Commonwealth Games Business Gateway, QMS, Scottish Enterprise and the Cross Party Group on Food.