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For the purposes of the concordat commitment in relation to the additional 10,000 respite weeks, the Scottish Government, COSLA and ADSW agreed that local authorities would use the Audit Scotland definition of respite. This covers overnight respite in a care home, other overnight respite not in a care home, day centre respite and other daytime respite, by categories of children 0-17 with disabilities, adults aged 18 to 64 and older people aged 65+.

The Guidance on Short Breaks (Respite) issued jointly by the Scottish Government and COSLA provides a broad definition of short breaks (respite) including befriending schemes where volunteers provide short breaks.

Our Long Term Conditions Action Plan, published in June this year, asks NHS boards and the Long Term Conditions Alliance Scotland to review the structure of each managed clinical network to ensure that people with long-term conditions, their carers and the voluntary sector are enabled to participate in the planning, delivery and evaluation of services, drawing on experience from the Hearty Voices and similar programmes.

The action is intended to underpin one of the core principles of all managed clinical networks: that they should include strong patient and voluntary sector participation. This represents a practical way of implementing our aim that improvements in the quality of healthcare services should draw directly on people''s own experience of service provision.

The Voices Scotland programme, run by Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland and its third sector partners, provides training and support to lay people with heart disease, stroke, diabetes and respiratory conditions who wish to participate effectively in the work of their local managed clinical networks, as well as in wider initiatives relating to the NHS.

In addition to the concordat funding, as part of the overall local government settlement, the Scottish Government allocated an additional £1.37 million in 2009-10 and a further £2.82 million in 2010-11 to enable local authorities to deliver an extra 10,000 respite weeks by March 2011.

There are no planned changes to the current arrangements. NHS boards will continue to plan on the basis of ensuring appropriate lay representation at every level.

The Scottish Health Council is committed to developing and improving its volunteer and public participation structures and, following the independent review of its organisational functions and structure, is now in the process of reviewing these elements. The review, which is being led by the chairman of the Scottish Health Council, involves a wide range of stakeholders and individuals, including local advisory council members and will enable the Scottish Health Council to develop a new strategy for public involvement within the restructured organisation.

In response to the recent questionnaire from Infertility Network Scotland, the following NHS boards consider they are partially complying with national guidance on IVF treatment and are continuing to work towards full compliance:

NHS Fife,

NHS Forth Valley,

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde,

NHS Lothian and

NHS Tayside.

The remainder of boards consider they are fully compliant with national guidance.

The Carers Strategy for Scotland (including a lift-out section on young carers) is being developed in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA). As such, and in line with the principles of our concordat with local government, it needs to be approved by COSLA. This should help ensure implementation at local level, as COSLA needs to be satisfied that it will be implementable. There is also representation from some health boards on the steering groups, helping to inform development of the strategy. The strategy will include high-level messages about the benefits of carer support, supported by evidence and set within the context of outcomes.

It is not the purpose of single outcome agreements (SOAs) to provide a comprehensive list of outcomes across all services. The SOAs reflect the priorities and agreed outcomes for each Community Planning Partnership, and include relevant supporting indicators and targets. Copies of all 32 SOAs, which were agreed with Community Planning Partnerships on 1 June 2009, can be obtained via the Improvement Service website by following this link:

http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/single-outcome-agreements/.

The issue of charging for non-personal care services is addressed in legislation. Under Section 87 (1A) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, a local authority may charge for certain adult non-residential and domiciliary services it provides. Therefore, this was also the case under the previous administration. It is for local authorities to decide their charging policies for these non-personal care services, in keeping with local accountability. However, the legislation requires that any charges levied must be reasonable and should not be more than appears to be reasonably practicable for the recipient to pay, taking account of his or her other financial commitments. Guidance issued by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) in April 2009 recommends a consistent framework for charging and encourages councils to demonstrate that they are following best practice.

A Short Breaks Working Group with representation from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA), local authorities and carers'' organisations is considering this issue.

The Carers Strategy for Scotland, to be published in the first half of 2010, will include a chapter on short breaks.