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The Scottish Government has set out its position on the impact on devolved services of the UK Government’s Welfare Reform Bill in the Supplementary Legislative Consent Memorandum lodged on 1 November 2011.

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/Bills/25202.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-03684 on 14 November 2011. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Care Inspectorate does consider staffing levels at the point of registration and post registration regulation, including at inspections. The Care Inspectorate’s findings are published on their website: www.careinspectorate.com. In addition, each care home should display a staffing schedule alongside the certificate of registration.

From 1 April 2011 all care homes must keep a record of dependency levels of service users and these should be updated at a minimum of every four weeks. These dependency assessments should inform the numbers, skill mix and deployment of staffing in a service.

There is a statutory requirement on care service providers to ensure that at all times suitably qualified and competent persons are working in the care service, as are appropriate for the health and welfare of service users. The National Care Standards also require care home staff to have professional training and expertise which allows them to meet the needs of residents. Compliance with these requirements is part of the Care Inspectorate’s inspection process. The Care Inspectorate has a range of measures it can take to ensure that providers comply with requirements.

The Care Inspectorate has a responsibility to scrutinise local authorities to provide an objective, evidence-based assessment of how well people are being served by their social work services; make a constructive contribution towards the further improvement of these services; help safeguard the interests of people who use services and carers, and help local authorities to develop their own approach to improving services. The Care Inspectorate will publish the findings and recommendations for each local authority, and through the Public Services Reform (Act) 2010, local authorities are required to take account of inspection reports and recommendations.

Local authorities are also under a duty to demonstrate best value which requires them to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in performance and in doing so to have regard to economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equal opportunities requirements and to the achievement of sustainable development.

We believe this current balance of duties and responsibilities adequately covers the current landscape for delivery of social care services to older people. As we move towards greater integration of health and social care this balance may need to be revisited.

The skills mix of staffing for individual care homes is dependent on the assessed needs of its residents. There are therefore no plans to issue guidance setting out the percentage of care homes requiring the services of a registered nurse.

In addition, the Care Inspectorate has responsibilities in relation to staffing, and these are set out clearly in the answer to question S4W-03684 on 14 November 2011.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

As of 31 December 2010 there were 920 care homes for older people, of which 889 care homes had completed Annual Returns. Of these:

514 (58%) provide nursing care internally

257 (29%) use external nurses to provide nursing care (and have no internal provision)

118 (13%) do not provide nursing care.

Not all care homes for older people completed annual returns. Homes that did not complete an annual return are mainly services that are newly registered in the three months preceding the annual return date as they are not obliged to do so.

The police investigation is still ongoing and it is expected to continue into next year due to the wide ranging lines of enquiry.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-35975 on 23 September 2010, which stated that individual salary information for NHS staff is not held centrally. However, tables showing the numbers of staff earning £50,000 and over (in bands of £10,000) is available from health boards’ annual accounts which are published on health boards’ individual websites. The respective websites are listed at http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Over the four years of the Change Fund, the Scottish Government expects to see the proportion of funding allocated to preventative and anticipatory care increase.

Partnerships will be required to record this information in their Change Plans using Integrated Resource Framework mechanisms to analyse spend, activity and variation. Progress will be monitored over the course of the Change Fund lifecycle.

Subject to local agreement on appropriate financial governance arrangements consistent with their Change Plan objectives, it is open to all partnerships to augment their Change Fund allocations by using supplementary funding from other sources, including local authorities.