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The employing authority of individual professional members of the Scottish Cancer Group (SGC) was not taken into consideration when planning its restructuring. Nor was it the intention to have individual representation from each and all of the professions or disciplines involved in cancer care or from every geographic area. All SCG members are expected to communicate freely with their colleagues across cancer networks, the voluntary sector and among patients and to ensure appropriate feedback to the group.Full details of the membership of the Scottish Cancer Group have been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre. Membership is also available through Scottish Health on the Web at www.show.scot.nhs.uk.

The West of Scotland Regional Cancer Advisory Group involves Argyll & Clyde, Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley and Lanarkshire NHS Board areas as well as Greater Glasgow.I understand that the proposed structure and membership of the West of Scotland Regional Cancer Advisory Group is the subject of current discussions with these NHS Boards, trusts and health care professionals and other staff and that arrangements are expected to be finalised in the near future.Once fully established, membership details for all three Regional Cancer Advisory Groups in North, South East and West of Scotland will be placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre. Details will also be made available through the Scottish Health on the Web website (www.show.scot.nhs.uk).

The Executive has been represented at one of the five meetings held since being invited to attend as observers.

The Scottish Executive is committed to making substantial increases in health spending for the duration of this Parliament to deliver sustainable improvements for patients across Scotland. Significant resources totalling £5.9 billion are being invested in NHSScotland in 2001-02.Certain elements of revenue expenditure and most capital investment including PPP/PFI is used for the delivery of new modern facilities, modernisation of existing facilities, modernisation of working practices or the purchase of modern medical equipment.

None. I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-19757.

The answer given to question S1W-19747 provides information on the populations served by each of the five cancer centres. The number of linear accelerator and the number per million population served are as follows.

Centre	No. Linear accelerators	No. per m.pop
Aberdeen	2	3.5
Dundee	2	5.2
Edinburgh	5	3.8
Glasgow	7 (8 by December 2001)	2.8 (3.2)
Inverness	1	4.3

Cancer services in Scotland are delivered by clinicians working within three regional managed clinical networks. The whole-time equivalent (WTE) of oncologists working within a particular cancer centre area and the ratio of these to the local population is therefore not an indicator of the level of patient access to these highly specialised services.The following table shows the latest available WTE of consultant oncologists working within the areas covered by the three regional cancer networks. The table should be read in conjunction with the notes below.Consultant Medical and Clinical Oncologists Employed in NHSScotlandWhole-Time Equivalent and Rate per 1,000,000 Population: 30 September 2000^p

	Whole-Time Equivalent			per 1,000,000 Population
	Total	Medical Oncologists	Clinical Oncologists	Total	Medical Oncologists	Clinical Oncologists
Scotland	45.4	11.0	34.4	8.9	2.2	6.7
North1	12.8	3.2	9.6	10.8	2.7	8.1
West2	19.1	3.9	15.2	7.5	1.5	6.0
South East3	13.5	3.9	9.6	9.7	2.8	6.9

Source: Staff - Medical and Dental Census, ISD Scotland; Population Estimates - Registrar General for Scotland.p. The data shown is provisional and is the value on 30 September 2000. This may not necessarily represent average staffing levels throughout the year.Notes:1. The North of Scotland Cancer Network area covers the following NHS board areas: Grampian, Highland, Orkney, Shetland, Tayside and Western Isles. This area includes the cancer centres in Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness.2. The West of Scotland Cancer Network area covers the following NHS board areas: Argyll & Clyde, Ayrshire & Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow and Lanarkshire. This area includes the cancer centre in Glasgow.3. The South East Scotland Cancer Network area covers the following NHS board areas: Borders, Dumfries & Galloway, Fife and Lothian. This area includes the cancer centre in Edinburgh.There are likely to be some cross-boundary flows between network areas which have not been accounted for in this table.

The populations served and percentages for each of Scotland's five cancer centres are as follows.

Centre	Population	% of total
Aberdeen	565,320	11.1
Dundee	385,500	7.5
Edinburgh	1,386,700	27.1
Glasgow	2,541,300	49.7
Inverness	235,780	4.6

NHS management are responsible for planning services required to meet the assessed needs of their respective patient populations.From time to time professional bodies, such as the Royal Colleges, may make recommendations for the provision of services by their members within particular clinical specialties. Any such recommendations are expected to be taken into account by NHS Boards when planning local services.

Information is not available on a quarterly basis. The available information on the resource based Departmental Expenditure Limit at 2000-01 prices is as follows:

Year	Initial plans (£ million)	Final/current plans (£ million)	Outturn (£ million)
2000-01	5,317	5,506	5,362
2001-02	5,755	5,909

The current plans for 2001-02 include the resources allocated to the Scottish Health Budget following the Chancellor's Budget in March and the end year flexibility funding, which were announced by the Minister for Finance and Local Government on 28 June 2001 and 19 September 2001 respectively, and various other transfers which are subject to parliamentary approval in the Autumn Budget Amendment.Information on earlier years is not available on a resource basis due to the change from cash to resource based budgeting.