Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is not involved the recruitment process for staff at Edinburgh College and therefore it does not hold this information.

As the College will be in a position to answer your enquiry more fully, it is entirely appropriate to suggest you liaise with them directly.

The information you have requested regarding Ministerial engagements is available on the Scottish Government website, however the First Minister has met with Andrew Wilson/Charlotte Street Partners on 2 occasions within the timescale you have stated.

On 15 January 2015 the First Minister was invited to a dinner organised by Charlotte Street Partners. This was part of a series of events hosted by Charlotte Street Partners in which political figures from a range of parties took part in an after dinner Q&A with broadcaster Jim Naughtie.

On 16 June 2015 the First Minister met with Andrew Wilson. This was a private meeting which did not relate to Mr Wilson’s role with Charlotte Street Partners, we do not hold the details of the meeting.

The Scottish Government continue to provide support to the Executive Team and Board of Management at Edinburgh College who have alongside the Scottish Funding Council, developed a Business Transformation Plan tackling a wide range of strategic and operational issues, including a review of the College's curriculum and course frameworks.

The Scottish Government detailed previously that a key strand of the Business Transformation Plan is the recruitment and retention processes.

The Scottish Government is not involved the recruitment for staff at Edinburgh College and therefore it does not hold this information.

As the College will be in a position to answer your enquiry more fully, it is entirely appropriate to suggest you liaise with them directly.

The Scottish Government is committed to treating people fairly in the work place and encourages best practice among its public bodies as set out in the Fair Work Framework. This recognition is embedded in our public sector pay policy where each public body is required to make sure it has due regard to its obligations under the public sector equality duties and in terms of pay proposals, in addition public bodies are encouraged to carry out equal pay reviews and take steps to address any inequalities they have identified. The 2017-18 public sector pay policy provides the flexibility for employers to use paybill savings to consider meaningful restructuring of their pay and grading systems or to make changes to existing HR policies to address evidenced equality issues.

While public bodies are encouraged to undertake equal pay reviews this is not a mandatory requirement. However, under the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012, every public body with more than 150 employees is required to publish a report on the progress it has made to make the equality duty integral to the exercise of its functions so as to better perform that duty. Such public bodies are required to report every two years and the next deadline for the publication of Mainstreaming Equality reports is by the end of April 2017. As part of that report they are under a duty to provide information on gender, race and disability pay gaps and equal pay statements.

A table which sets out either the last time each public body carried out an equal pay review assessment or met its statutory requirement in regard of equality duties and where the results can be accessed for all bodies covered by Minister’s public sector pay policy is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 58728).

As set out in response to S5W-08517, Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland is a National Statistics publication, which means that it is independently assessed by the Office for Statistics Regulation, the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority. This assessment covers a number of areas including the quality of the statistics and their suitability to the needs of users.

The latest assessment report is available at the link below: https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/statistics-on-government-expenditure-and-revenue-scotland/

Chapter 5 reviews evidence relating to risk. The evidence on risk was considered together with the patient survey (chapter 3), the evidence from the routine data sources (chapter 4) and the clinicians views (chapter 6), in order that the Independent Review could reach its final conclusions. All the evidence considered is included in the Final Report.

The Independent Review was established due to wider concerns around mesh usage. It is the job of the MHRA to regulate medical devices across the UK, and it has not issued a Medical Device Alert regarding the implants concerned. The MHRA has found no evidence to indicate that polypropylene mesh implants are unsafe, and has not been required to initiate any enforcement action against Boston Scientific, or any other manufacturer in the UK. Under current arrangements, regulation is a reserved matter, and the MHRA will therefore continue to monitor and evaluate the safety and performance of these devices, and will inform the Scottish Government if circumstances change.

Chapter 6 is a clinicians' review of the evidence and experiences noted elsewhere in the Report. Based on that evidence, it concludes that:

• retropubic mesh tape is a valid option to be offered routinely to women considering surgical treatment for SUI;

• colposuspension and autologous fascial pubo-vaginal sling are both appropriate alternatives for women who wish to avoid the use of a permanent implant, provided they accept the increased associated short-term morbidities and longer recovery, and increased long-term risk of prolapse following colposuspension;

• women may wish to consider urethral injection therapy; they should be made aware that the efficacy is less than with other interventions, and decreases over time; hence the risk of re-admission for complications or re-operation for SUI is very much higher; and

• in the case of pelvic organ prolapse, vaginal wall repair using native tissue (anterior and posterior colporrhaphy) should be the procedure of choice for women seeking surgery for POP; the use of polypropylene mesh or biological graft should not be offered routinely but may be considered in complex conditions – only after discussion at an appropriately constituted multi-disciplinary team.

The Independent Review confirmed to me that it agreed, in considering the effectiveness of procedures, it would only use Cochrane Reviews as these are the international “gold standard” for systematic reviews. This was to avoid re-reviewing research data that was already reviewed in other documents and might therefore have introduced the potential for bias. This review fell outside of the scope as it is neither a formal Safety Agency Review, nor is it a Cochrane Review.