Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answerto question S2O-5932 on 24 March 2005 which is available on the Parliament’s website, the searchfacility for which can be found at:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/sch/search.

Our enterprise strategy, ASmart, Successful Scotland, makes it clear that action is required by a numberof agencies, including the Enterprise Networks, to tackle the barriers and specialcircumstances faced by disabled people, in becoming economically active.

We are discussing with the Enterprise networks,Jobcentre Plus and other agencies, how our proposed employability framework canhelp improve employment opportunities for those at a disadvantage in the labourmarket, including disabled people.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

This information is not collectedcentrally. The cost of checking manually all individual staff records would be disproportionate.

The number of sick absence daysin the Scottish Executive since 1999 is provided in table A. These figures representthe actual number of sickness absence days reported by staff.

Table B provides informationheld by the Scottish Executive about sickness absence in the public sector. However,the information has not been compiled on a comparable basis as that for the ScottishExecutive’s staff. The public sector sickness absence figure has been obtained fromthe Labour Force Survey, which is carried out by the Office for National Statistics.The survey is based on a one week period when respondents are asked to identifyany days when they were absent from work due to illness. The number of sicknessabsence days is then aggregated up to a yearly total and divided by the number ofemployees to provide an average number of sickness absence days per employee. Statisticsfor the Scottish public sector are only available for the period 2001-03.

Table A Sickness Absence – Scottish Executive

Calendar Year	Total Sick Days	Average Sick Days Per Person
1999	30,826	7.7
2000	29,036	7.1
2001	21,944	5.2
2002	36,581	8.3
2003	35,597	7.8
2004	35,418	7.7

 

Table B Sickness Absence –Scottish Public Sector

Calendar Year	Total Sick Days Per Year	Average Sick Days Per Employee Per Year
2001	2,758,000	4.3
2002	2,368,000	3.6
2003	3,381,000	5.1

 

The following table shows thenumber of permanent staff in Scottish Executive core departments in each of theyears 1999 to 2004, who previously worked in the Scottish Office.

Year (at 31 Dec)	Number of Staff
1999	3,761
2000	3,424
2001	3,136
2002	3,053
2003	2,965
2004	2,892