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Section two of the Alcohol etc (Scotland) Act 2010 will be commenced in full on 1 October 2011.

The Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 has been fully commenced.

Section six of the Alcohol etc (Scotland) Act 2010 will be commenced in full on 1 October 2011.

(a) NHS Ayrshire and Arran only became aware that the variation to the contract and the agreement to associated plans would be frustrated on 21 April 2011, the day the agreement was due to be signed with the Special Purpose Vehicle. The board were informed that the funding bank, the Ahli United Bank, wanted to change the terms of the original loan as a condition to contract variation approval. Without the consent of the bank, the contract variation could not be signed or the project progressed beyond the initial enabling work already carried out. With the agreement of the dental practitioners concerned NHS Ayrshire and Arran agreed to extend the deadline for agreement.

(b) NHS Ayrshire and Arran alerted Scottish Government officials to the difficulties being encountered after the meeting on 21 April. With the support of Scottish Futures Trust, the NHS board scheduled a meeting with BAM PPP and Ahli United Bank on 17 May 2011 to conclude the bank’s due diligence exercise but there was failure to agree a position. In total, fourteen meetings from 22 April 2011 to 8 August 2011 were held between the board and BAM PPP to resolve the matters in dispute.

(c) The Cabinet Secretary received briefings from Scottish Government officials in May and June on the action being taken by the board to facilitate agreement between the parties to the PFI contract and the efforts being made by the officials and Scottish Futures Trust to assist in the process.

The board concluded on 8 August 2011 that it should call a halt to any further negotiation. The key factor in the board’s decision was the inability to satisfactorily resolve the outstanding financial issues in dispute despite numerous extensions to the deadline for negotiations and with no prospect of reaching an agreed position in sight.

The Scottish Government's guidance on the Procurement of Care and Support Services explicitly states that, when procuring such services, greater emphasis should be placed on quality rather than cost. Compliance with this requirement should mean that decisions are never based on price alone.

Scottish Government is not aware of any capital projects, other than that at the East Ayrshire Community Hospital PFI, where BAM Construct UK’s has a contractual funding relationship with the Ahli United Bank.

A full account of the lessons learned between the parties concerned will be provided by NHS Ayrshire and Arran in papers going to the Board’s Audit Committee in early November 2011.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran’s prime concern is to ensure continuation of high quality healthcare service delivery at East Ayrshire Community Hospital. Discussions have commenced on a schedule of rectification work that will have minimal disruption to existing services and in the shortest possible timescale.

Plans for full reinstatement work require agreement with the Special Purpose Vehicle parent company, BAM PPP, and the funding bank, the Ahli United Bank. It is intended to secure all-party agreement to full re-instatement of the previous ward complement.

Through representation on the Safe and Sustainable review group we have had the opportunity to ensure that the views of Scottish Government and NHS Scotland are taken into account in the Department of Health’s consideration of the proposals for the future of paediatric cardiac surgery in England.

Whatever the outcome of that review, high quality, sustainable heart transplantation services will continue to be available for patients from Scotland.

The information requested has been provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service and has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 53208).