Chamber and committees

Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) sets out national planning policies for the protection and enhancement of the built environment. These promote the care and protection of the designated and non-designated historic environment whilst enabling positive change. Change should be sensitively managed to avoid or minimise adverse impacts on the fabric or setting of a historic environment asset and ensure that its special characteristics are protected, conserved or enhanced in development proposals.

The independent planning review panel recommended that a national infrastructure agency or working group with statutory powers should be established. In our response to the review, which we published on 11 July 2016, we committed to looking at the detail of this, and the other recommendations, in more detail over the coming months.

The Scottish Government will participate fully in the examination of the UK's record by the UN Committee. The Scottish Government provides a contribution to formal UK written submissions to United Nations Committees as part of the reporting cycle under international human rights treaties. Normal practice is for the UK delegation at the oral session in Geneva to be headed by a senior UK official and Scotland will be represented, by a Scottish Government official with appropriate policy knowledge and experience. In this instance the relevant official will be the Scottish Government's Head of Equality Strategy.

Scottish Historic Environment Policy 2011 (SHEP 2011) was replaced by a new policy statement from Historic Environment Scotland (HES) on 01 June 2016. The Historic Environment Scotland Policy Statement updates the operational policy that was set out in SHEP 2011 and reflects the legislative changes that were introduced by the Historic Environment Scotland Act 2014 and its attendant secondary legislation. This policy statement represents a strengthening of the operational policy and guidance framework which informs our collective management of the historic environment and complements the strategic framework and vision set out in Our Place in Time, Scotland’s historic environment strategy, which was published in March 2014.

The Scottish Government is committed to incorporating equality practices across its activities, both in developing policy and as an employer. The work of the Scottish Government is underpinned by the principle that no one should be denied opportunities because of their race or ethnicity, their disability, their gender or sexual orientation, their age or religion.

In May 2012, equality duties came into effect which mean the Scottish Government must equality impact assess its new or revised policies and practices and must also, within a reasonable period, publish the results of such assessments. An equality impact assessment should be an integral part of the policy making process, to shape and inform policy.

The programme for government illustrates the policies, actions and legislation that the Scottish Government will take forward to deliver its core purpose. It does not play a part in the development or implementation of policy or practices, therefore it will not be subject to an equality impact assessment. Instead, equality impact assessments will be undertaken by the accountable policy areas as part of the policy making process.

NHS Fife are currently in the process of developing a business case for the project, and the project will be funded by central funds when it is approved by the NHS Capital Investment Group.

This information is not held centrally.

Under the legal framework for service provision, NHS boards are responsible for ensuring the provision of primary medical services for their areas. NHS Fife works with GP practices to ensure that everyone in Fife has access to GP services. This includes appointments at the medical practice, care home visits, home visits, and extended opening hours to help those who are unable to make appointments during core hours.

As part of the £85 million the Scottish Government is investing in improving services through the Primary Care Fund, £6 million will be invested in developing digital services, including helping online appointment booking.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to service provision and health boards are expected to design and put in place those service models that best reflect their local circumstances.

We are working to increase the number of GPs in Scotland, and the First Minister recently announced that we are increasing training places for GPs by a third – from 300 to 400 a year. We are also transforming primary care, including developing new ways of working with multi-disciplinary teams that elevate the role of GPs as medical experts in the community.

NHS Fife continues to proactively recruit to available consultant posts, with a targeted media campaign resulting in the successful appointment of a number of permanent consultants.

Under this government, the number of consultants in NHS Fife has increased by 74.4 whole time equivalent (WTE), or 44.2 per cent between September 2010 and December 2015, while the establishment has increased by over 50 WTE during this period.

Any fluctuation in consultant vacancies is linked to our efforts to increase capacity by recruiting even more staff. Information on consultant vacancies in NHS Fife is published by Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland and is shown in Table 1:

Table 1. Whole time equivalent of NHS Fife consultant vacancies, staff in post and vacancies as a percentage of establishment as at 31 December 2015.

Sources: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System, ISD(M)36.

Notes:

1. In March 2014 the definition of a vacancy changed to: A vacancy is a post which has been cleared for advert after being through the redeployment process (internal or external advert) and remains a vacancy until an individual starts in the post. Prior to this, a vacancy stopped being classified as such at the point when the post was offered to someone and accepted. The impact of this change is a significant increase in the number of reported vacancies.

2. Establishment is calculated as number of staff in post plus total vacancies.