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The Welfare Reform Scrutiny Group was established in January 2011.

The group is made up of representatives from: Scottish Government, COSLA, One Parent Families Scotland, Child Poverty Action Group, Citizens Advice Scotland, Independent Living in Scotland, Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform/Poverty Alliance, The Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations, Rights Advice Scotland, Carers Scotland, Equality and Human Rights Commission and Professor Emeritus Adrian Sinfield of Edinburgh University.

The group has met on five occasions and meeting papers are published on the Welfare Reform discussion forum http://www.employabilityscotland.co.uk/forum/. Papers are not produced for every meeting.

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.

Change Funds should not be used as a substitute for revenue resource or to plug gaps in existing services, but to help rebalance local care, support and service provision towards anticipatory care and preventative services that will support older people to stay in their own homes.

Decisions on staff recruitment are a local matter for individual partnerships and this information is not centrally collected or monitored by the Scottish Government.

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.

The Scottish Government want childcare services in Scotland that are high quality, affordable, and flexible, supporting parents to remain in, or enter employment. We are committed to expanding the range, capacity and flexibility of early learning and childcare provision ensuring high quality provision that meets the needs of children and families.

We have created an Early Years Change Fund to lead the way on preventative spending and will take the work forward with local authorities, the National Health Service and third sector. The Early Years Task Force which met for the first time on 8 November, will oversee the early years activity on childcare, family centres, play, early learning experiences and supporting parents.

However, our position is that we need control over our tax and benefits system if we are to achieve significant improvements to provision for parents, children and employment support in Scotland.

The minimum qualification requirement for a manager is SVQ level 4 plus relevant management qualification (minimum of 60 credits and at SCQF level 8).

The qualification requirements for supervisors and support workers in care at home services has not yet been set. The Scottish Social Services Council has undertaken a consultation exercise with the sector on what qualifications will be acceptable and we await the outcome of that consultation.

Registration of managers commenced in January 2011 with an end date of January 2014. The planned date for commencement of registration of supervisors is 2014 with an end date in 2017 and for support workers commencement in 2017 with an end date of 2020.

Recommendation 4.1 of New Directions, A Report on the Review of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984 (“Millan Report”), was that “the provisions of the new Mental Health Act should apply where there is the presence of mental disorder,” whilst Recommendation 4.2 stated that “there should be three categories of mental disorder: mental illness, learning disability and personality disorder.”

Millan’s recommendations 4.6 and 4.7 were that Ministers should carry out a review of the provision relating to people with learning disabilities and autism, but pending any change continue to proceed with the legislation as it currently stands.

In terms of any reform of the 2003 act to remove the provisions in relation to persons with learning disability and autism, this would require careful consideration of all the relevant issues, and there are therefore no plans to reform the 2003 act in that way at this time before any such review has been undertaken.

Scottish Government guidance on the Reshaping Care for Older People Change Fund for 2011-12 was issued on 23 December 2010. Further guidance covering the Change Fund for 2012-13 will be issued to all 32 partnerships and other interested parties later in 2011.