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In 1996-97, there were 332 paramedics working in the Scottish Ambulance Service. At 31 March 2002, this figure had increased to 750. This equates to an average of 83 technicians trained to paramedic level in each of the last five years.

At 31 March 2002, the Scottish Ambulance Service had 750 paramedics against a total accident and emergency establishment of 1,791. One of the service's objectives is to have a paramedic on every frontline accident and emergency ambulance by March 2005. The service has in place a paramedic training programme and is currently on course to achieve this objective.

The Scottish Executive has provided the Scottish Ambulance Service with an allocation of £108.783 million for 2002-03, an increase of 7.4% on last year. The indicative allocations for 2003-04 and 2004-05 provide for further uplifts of 7.4% in each year. These represent unprecedented levels of investment and reflect our support for the service's modernisation agenda. Across Scotland these increased resources will support the improvement of the service's operations rooms functions, the roll-out of priority based dispatch, the conversion of a number of part-time ambulance stations to full-time and the introduction of dedicated non-emergency transport services for renal dialysis patients. The service plans to employ around 200 additional staff over the next two years to support these developments.How these improvements are rolled-out across Scotland and how these additional staff are deployed are operational matters for the Scottish Ambulance Service and its divisions. For Lanarkshire, this means an additional 10 accident and emergency staff this financial year to help alleviate the problems of uncovered shifts. They will be fully trained and operational by mid-September. Over the next two years, the service will also be providing an additional 24 front-line paramedic vehicle crew staff for priority based dispatch. These two initiatives represent a 23% increase in current staff establishment. Another step which has been taken in Lanarkshire is the introduction of revised shift rotas to provide more effective cover. These rotas are constantly reviewed to ensure that resources match demand. The merger of the Glasgow and Motherwell operations (control) rooms (at Glasgow) in October will also allow for better deployment of emergency ambulances in the Lanarkshire area, since the merger will enable the operations rooms staff to know immediately where the emergency resources are across the area.The Scottish Executive monitors the performance of the Scottish Ambulance Service and holds the service to account through the Accountability Review process supported by the Performance Assessment Framework. The issues surrounding performance within the West Central Division, including Lanarkshire, were discussed at the Accountability Review meeting on Monday 5 August 2002. Response times performance across the six divisions of the service shall continue to be monitored by the department.

The Information requested is as follows:

	Scottish Executive			Scottish Office
	Head/Deputy Head of Department	AgencyChief Executive	Head/Deputy Headof Division	Head/Deputy Head of Department	AgencyChief Executive	Head/Deputy Headof Division
2001-02	1	1	26	-	-	-
2000-01	4	-	6	-	-	-
1999-2000	1	2	9	-	-	-
1998-99	-	-	-	-	-	5
1997-98	-	-	-	2	1	6

We do not hold records for NHS management posts. Anyone appointed to the Health Department will be included in the above figures.

The information requested is as follows:

Recruitment From:	2001-02	2000-01	1999-2000	1998-99	1997-98
Scottish Office	-	-	-	1	1
Scottish Executive	16	2	2	-	-
Elsewhere in the Civil Service	1	-	1	-	1
Public Sector	7	6	7	4	6
Private Sector	3	2	2	-	1
Unemployed	1	-	-	-	-

In addition to a number of major projects under construction in May 1999, building has begun on a further 11 new hospital developments in NHSScotland since the beginning of May 1999. Of these, four have been funded publicly and seven through PPP/PFI. Details of these projects are given in the following table:

Project Name	Construction Start Date	Capital Value(£ million)	Funding Route
Balivanich Hospital, Benbecula	May 1999	7.2	Public
New Craigs Psychiatry Unit, Inverness	May 1999	16.5	PPP/PFI
Geriatric Assessment Facility, Larkfield, Greenock	July 1999	10.0	PPP/PFI
Care of Elderly Services at Tippethill Hospital, West Lothian	July 1999	2.3	PPP/PFI
Geriatric Medicine and Assessment Facility, Southern General Hospital, Glasgow	September 1999	11.0	PPP/PFI
Carseview Psychiatric Services, Dundee	September 1999	10.0	PPP/PFI
Balfour Hospital, Orkney, Phase II	October 1999	5.0	Public
Day Surgery and Maternity Unit, Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary	May 2000	10.0	PPP/PFI
New Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital	August 2001	24.6	Public
Leith Community Treatment Centre, Edinburgh	August 2002	8.5	Public
North East Edinburgh Continuing Care (Findlay House)	August 2002	4.0	PPP/PFI

In 2001-02, 14 women (50%) were recruited to the senior civil service in the Scottish Executive. Prior to 2001-02 only a small number of (i) women (ii) ethnic minorities and (iii) disabled were recruited to the Senior Civil Service in the Scottish Executive. We are therefore unable to provide either figures or percentages to preserve confidentiality.

An extra £9 million will be available in 2003-04 in Revenue Support Grant to assist local authorities in preparing and implementing their accessibility strategies under the Education (Disability Strategies and Pupils' Educational Records) Act 2002. In addition, local authorities can use general revenue grant and other sources of funding to ensure their schools and nursery schools review their policies and make adjustments to ensure so that they comply with the new duties under Part IV of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Other funding sources include:

• Inclusion Programme funding under the National Priorities Action Fund - £20 million is available in both 2002-03 and 2003-04 (up from £14.3 million in 2001-02);

SEN Specific Grant for In-Service Training - £7.8 million is available in both 2002-03 and 2003-04 (up from £5.4 million in 2001-02).

There are at present two senior civil service vacancies which are in the process of being filled by open competition.

The recruitment procedures of the Scottish Executive are subject to audit by the Internal Audit Unit as part of the rolling programme of internal audits. An audit was carried out by the Internal Audit Unit in January 2002.