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Core participants can already be represented at fatal accident inquiries (FAI) and bereaved families may receive legal aid if they cannot afford to pay for that representation.

The purpose of a fatal accident inquiry is to investigate the circumstances of death in the public interest - to try to avoid similar incidents in future.

Procurators fiscal have a public duty to fulfil at the inquiry, including leading evidence to establish the cause of death. The fiscal will meet with the family to discuss the conduct of the FAI. They will inform the family as to the witnesses and evidence they intend to produce and what line of questioning they intend to pursue. Often the fiscal will ask the family if there are any particular questions or issues that they wish raised.

In some circumstances, however, the families may have questions that the fiscal does not feel it would be appropriate to ask in the public interest. Families may wish to ask questions intended to establish whether there are grounds for civil proceedings following the fatal accident inquiry. In such cases the families may instruct their own legal representative.

If the family cannot afford to pay for legal representation, they may be eligible to receive legal aid. The Scottish Legal Aid Board can make legal aid available where a person entitled to be represented at a fatal accident inquiry can show that they have concerns which the procurator fiscal is not going to raise at the Inquiry.

Any application for legal aid will be subject to the usual statutory tests of financial eligibility, probable cause and reasonableness, that is, whether it is reasonable in the particular circumstances of the case that legal aid should be provided.

Lord Cullen has recommended that relatives of the deceased should not have to justify the reasonableness of the granting of legal aid for their representation at the FAI and that Scottish Ministers should consider increasing the limit for legal aid in FAIs and the extent to which legal aid is available within that limit. Scottish Ministers will consider this proposal in conjunction with the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

Lord Cullen''s Report on his Review of the Fatal Accident Inquiry Legislation, including his recommendations, may be viewed at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/FAIreview. There are some 35 recommendations, many of which are in several parts.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-31678 on 3 March 2010. 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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Because so many of Lord Cullen''s recommendations have practical implications for the Scottish Court Service and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the Government is involved in discussions with these bodies in identifying how the recommendations should be implemented. It is not possible at this stage to provide a timescale for implementation.

Justice officials constructed a database in 2006 which recorded sheriffs'' recommendations from fatal accident inquiries (FAI), but not their entire determination (since to publish the details of the death may be distressing to relatives). The database recorded the cause of death, date of death and dates of when the inquiry started, even if there were no recommendations.

The database also identified the body or party to whom a recommendation had been directed by the sheriff, including their contact details. The purpose of the database was to assist interested parties to contact those to whom recommendations had been addressed to find out what action had been taken in relation to compliance with those recommendations.

The database was established because it was concluded that officials in justice and government generally have neither the resources nor the expertise to monitor whether recommendations have been complied with. Furthermore, it was considered that in many cases the recommendations from a particular FAI may have no general application, a point also noted by Lord Cullen.

Lord Cullen has not recommended that the Scottish Government should begin to formally monitor implementation of recommendations made at a fatal accident inquiry. He suggested that when a recommendation is made by a sheriff, the entity or body to whom it is directed should be under a duty to make a written response to an appropriate department of the Scottish Government, within a period set by the sheriff, stating whether and to what extent it has implemented, or intends to implement, the recommendations or, if not, for what reason or reasons. This replicates the new arrangements under the system of coroners'' inquests in England and Wales under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.

Lord Cullen further recommended that the relevant department should publish an annual report of the recommendations and the responses to them. It would not, however, be responsible for ensuring compliance.

The government is considering Lord Cullen''s recommendation in this regard.

Under the existing legislation, sheriffs'' recommendations are not binding on the parties or bodies to whom they are directed and Lord Cullen has not recommended in his report that they should become binding or that they should have general application.

Lord Cullen considered that to make it mandatory to comply with recommendations would carry significant disadvantages. He thought that it would introduce an adversarial element into the fatal accident inquiry (FAI), since a body which might be faced with a possible imposition of a duty would require notice and might well seek to contest it. Provision might have to be made for an appeal. These factors would make for an unwelcome addition to the length and complexity of the FAI. By the time that the sheriff came to the question of the imposition of a duty, circumstances might have so changed that an originally conceived duty was no longer appropriate.

Lord Cullen also commented that The imposition of a duty [to comply with a recommendation] would be pointless without some form of sanction for non-compliance, and it was not clear what sanction would be practicable.

The process to be followed is an operational matter for each NHS board concerned.

This information is not routinely collected or held centrally. It is for NHS boards to establish arrangements for the management and deployment of cleaning staff which best suit their needs. However, the Leading Better Care programme is key to ensuring that the senior charge nurse understands their role and works together with the domestic supervisor to ensure that high standards of cleanliness apply in our hospitals so that there is a clean and safe environment for staff, patients and visitors.

The Scottish Government plans to utilise the full value of the capital budget in the current financial year. For the next financial year the capital budget has been fully allocated in accordance with the 2010-11 Budget approved by Parliament. Capital budgets have not yet been set for 2011-12 since this is outwith the current Spending Review period.

The information requested is not held centrally. The level of budget for urgent repairs and replacement equipment in each hospital, and the proportion to be utilised by the senior charge nurses each year, is a matter for the NHS board concerned.