Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer to the answers to questionsS1W-29052 given on 9 September 2002, S2W-2904 on 25 September 2003 and S2W-9345 on 25 June 2004 for information regarding the costs of overseas travelundertaken by ministers for the period from 1 July 1999 to31 March 2004. Costs of ministerial visits overseas for the financialyear 2004-05 will be published in the summer.

The information requested isnot held centrally for all staff.

This information is not held centrally. The Scottish Executive and NHSScotland are committed to offering equality of employment opportunity to all.

NHSScotland employers support applications from people with disabilities and strive to ensure that people can continue in meaningful employment. To increase awareness, I launched the diversity awareness poster campaign on 31 March. This campaign aims to introduce the workforce to equality and diversity in a positive way and also show NHSScotland as having an inclusive and welcoming working environment.

Between 30 September 1999and 30 September 2004, the whole-time equivalent numbers of staff in postin each staff group increased. In Scotland, qualified nurses rose from 35,596.5 to 38,906.5 (up9.3%), qualified physiotherapists from 1,737.1 to 1,997.9 (up 15.0%), qualifiedoccupational therapists from 1,088.2 to 1,364.5 (up 25.3%) and qualified speechtherapists from 708.1 to 814.0 (up 15.0%). Figures for individual years and NHSboards are published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under WorkforceStatistics at www.isdscotland.org/workforce.

Section A gives details ofqualified nurses broken down by NHS board. In particular, table A1 shows thewhole-time equivalent and table A2 shows headcount figures for each year since1994. Qualified physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech andlanguage therapists can be found in tables F1 and F2 of Section F.  Latest availablefigures are at 30 September 2004.

This information is not heldcentrally. NHS boards are required by the mandatory Staff Governance Standardto ensure that their staff are appropriately trained. There is no requirementfor NHS boards to return their figures to the Scottish Executive. The StaffGovernance Standard is monitored by the Scottish Partnership Forum and in thatway the performance of each NHS board is monitored.

Due to the large volume ofdata requested the information has been placed in the parliament referencecentre. (Bib. number 36221).

The Scottish Executiveprovided £85,000 for the 2004 and 2005 North Glasgow International Festivals,an initiative focussed specifically on awareness raising. The Scottish RefugeeCouncil receives funding to meet core costs and in 2005-06 is being providedwith £64,000 to run Refugee Week which aims to increase awareness of refugeeand asylum issues.In2002, the Scottish Executive also provided £9,500 to launch a resource entitled WelcomingNewcomers with the aim of supporting schools in sharing good practice inthe integration of asylum seekers and refugees http://www.antibullying.net/newcomers1.htm.Communities Scotland hasprovided almost £4 million since September 2001 through the Integration Fundfor Asylum Seekers to support a range of projects, which will contribute topromoting greater awareness of asylum seeker and refugee issues. In addition, the Scottish Executive has providedover £1million since 2003  to projects taking forward recommendations in the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum Action Plan http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/04/04142815/28180.

Many of these projects havean awareness raising element built into them.

The information sought is notheld centrally and such detailed information could only be obtained at disproportionatecost.

The overall number of consultationscarried out by the Scottish Executive is as follows:

Year	Number of Consultations
1999	92 (since devolution)
2000	140
2001	164
2002	164
2003	161
2004	178

 

It is only possible to providecentrally held information in relation to the cost of ministerial receptions. Thecentrally held information (which is the vast majority of information held on thissubject) is set out in the following table.

Financial Year	£000
July 1999-2000	17
2000-01	75
2001-02	64
2002-03	55
2003-04	48
To Dec 2004	75*

Note: *This included £13,000for the reception for the opening of the new Scottish Parliament building.