Seòmar agus comataidhean

These matters have been brought to the Scottish Government's attention in Recommendation 3 of Moving Forward: Review of NHS Wheelchair and Seating Services in Scotland.

I have established a project board and have appointed a project manager to drive forward the modernisation and re-design of wheelchair and seating services. The project team will produce an action plan by December 2008, for my approval, identifying the recommendations of the review that best meet the needs of users and carers. Wheelchair provision that meets the particular needs of children, young people and adults, will be considered as part of that process.

Wheelchair service providers have been active in encouraging wheelchair manufacturers to develop lightweight models of wheelchairs at a reasonable cost to NHS Scotland. Those models are being used in wheelchair fleets throughout Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-10167 on 4 March 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The wheelchair national eligibility criteria are available on the Rehabilitation Technology Information System (ReTIS) website at http://www.retis.scot.nhs.uk/index.php.

This is under the heading: National Group Information and Minutes.

The project team are reviewing the national eligibility criteria in developing an action plan by December 2008, for my approval, for the modernisation and redesign of NHS wheelchairs and seating services.

Forwa

The Scottish Government will provide all the funding for the free school lunch trial, including any additional funding required to continue the trial until the end of the current academic year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-6744 on 3 December 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

No. The returns we will shortly be receiving from individual local authorities in respect of their share of the £6 million made available in 2007-08 through the National Priorities Action Fund for the employment of 300 additional teachers are designed to show the number of additional primary teachers employed and the numbers of schools benefiting from the funding. We expect this information to be available in March. The other £3 million was allocated for 2008-09 to complete the academic year. The total £9 million has been baselined as part of the local government finance settlement.

Improving outcomes for individuals and communities is at the core of The Same As You? and Changing Lives and is also central to the concordat with local government. Achievement of a significant number of the outcomes and indicators in the concordat will require substantial contribution from social work and social care services and adoption of the principles and aspirations of these reports. In addition, implementation of some of the key recommendations in The Same As You? will continue to be monitored through the collection of annual statistical returns.

The Scottish Government is also working closely with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to promote a community care outcomes framework. This offers a carefully designed suite of 16 measures which community care partnerships can use to evidence the improvement of outcomes for people who use community care services and their carers. There is a close alignment between these measures and the intentions of The Same As You? and the community care elements of Changing Lives.

Information for the 2007 census is due to be published on 26 February 2008. Data for the previous years are shown in the following table:

Percentage of P1-P3 Pupils in Fife Council Primary Schools, by Size of Class

	0-18	19-25	26-30	>30
2003	8	56	35	1
2004	8	54	38	0
2005	10	55	35	1
2006	10	50	40	1

Notes: *All percentages are rounded separately and breakdowns may consequently not sum up to 100 per cent.

The Scottish Budget: Spending Review 2007 said that: there will be over-riding obligations [on local government] to deliver value for money across all activities and to deliver the full range of quality services that can reasonably be expected by our citizens. Those obligations include statutory obligations and on-going accountability to their electorates for the delivery of local services. The outcomes and indicators in the concordat with COSLA neither take the place of, nor diminish, the importance of continued delivery of the statutory responsibilities placed on councils and their partners to care for all people in their communities.

Councils will also be able to demonstrate their commitment to improving care and support services through single outcome agreements (SOAs) with the Scottish Government. In the process of agreeing the SOAs, we would expect to have discussions with each council about their ambition for key policy areas including social care. The national outcome to live longer, healthier lives and the national indicator to increase the percentage of people aged 65 and over with high levels of care needs who are cared for at home are among those that will impact on social care services for adults.

More generally, the President of COSLA has said, in relation to concerns raised about funding for vulnerable groups, that: it is inconceivable that their needs, their aspirations and their required services will not impinge on the decision-making of local councils.

The latest available information on average class sizes by year group and local authority is set out in table 6.4 of the Statistical Bulletin Pupils in Scotland, 2006 which can be accessed using the following hyperlink:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/02/27083941/76.