Seòmar agus comataidhean

The First Minister has visited the following secondary schools since May 2007:

Name of School	Location	Date
New Struan *	Alloa	5 March 2008
Mearns Castle High School	Newton Mearns	17 April 2008
Royal Blind School *	Edinburgh	2 September 2008
Donaldson''s School*	Edinburgh	17 September 2008

Note: *New Struan, Donaldson''s School and Royal Blind School are all through schools with both primary and secondary departments.

The First Minister has visited the following primary schools since May 2007:

Name of School	Location	Date
Parsons Green	Edinburgh	27 June 2007
St Margaret''s	Loanhead	2 November 2007
Windygoul	Tranent	14 November 2007
Calderwood Lodge	Newlands	5 December 2007
Bun“sgoil Ghaidhlig Inbhir Nis	Inverness	11 January 2008
New Struan *	Alloa	5 March 2008
Sleat	Skye	26 August 2008
Royal Blind School *	Edinburgh	2 September 2008
Donaldson''s School*	Edinburgh	17 September 2008

Note: *New Struan, Donaldson''s School and Royal Blind School are all through schools with both primary and secondary departments.

Scottish ministers have met with the following development agencies in Scotland. This excludes organisations which are not classed as development agencies such as higher and further education institutes but which are involved in development activity:

Minister	Date	Organisation	Information
Minister for Europe, External Affairs and Culture	19 June 2007	Oxfam	Introductory meeting with Judith Robertson & Shabnum Mustapha.
	20 June 2007	Scottish International Relief (SIR) (Mary''s Meals)	Meeting: Magnus McFarlane Barrow and Peter Mkata.
	26 June 2007	NIDOS Scotland-Malawi Partnership (SMP)	5th Meeting of the Scotland-Malawi High Level Group.
	9 July 2007	SCIAF	Darfur Emergency Response Operation Announcement.
	23 August 2007	NIDOS SMP	Joint Meeting with NIDOS and SMP.
	28 August 2007	Oxfam (Acting on Behalf of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum)	Meeting: Betsy Reid (Oxfam).
	25 September 2007	Christian Aid	Meeting: Representatives Christian Aid.
	6 October 2007	SCIAF	Key Note Speech to SCIAF Supporters Conference.
	11 October 2007	SCVO	Visit to SCVO to meet Ronald Mtonga Deputy Chief Executive of CONGOMA.
	15 October 2007	Oxfam	Photocall Oxfam Shop East Kilbride.
	24 October 2007	Oxfam	Attended Screening of film Black Gold an Oxfam-Sponsored Event.
	25 October 2007	Concern Worldwide	Attended book Launch: Poverty, Aids & Hunger: Breaking the Poverty Trap in Malawi. Concern Worldwide-Sponsored Event.
	1 November 2007	Imani Enterprise	Attended Trade Connections Event “ Glasgow.
	20 November 2007	NIDOSSMP	6th Meeting of Scotland-Malawi High Level Group.
	27 November 2007	Members of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC)	Photocall for DEC Bangladesh Cyclone Appeal.
	28 November 2007	Opportunity International (UK)	Attended Reception and Dinner Hosted by HRH the Princess Royal on Behalf of Opportunity International (UK).
	4 December 2007	NIDOS	Attended NIDOS reception.
	31 January 2008	Imani Enterprise	Meeting: Representatives from Imani Enterprises.
	26 February 2008	Scottish Relief International (SIR) (Mary''s Meals)	Meeting: Sir Tom Farmer and Magnus McFarlane-Barrow.
	28 February 2008	Scottish Fair Trade Forum	Meeting: Scottish Fair Trade Forum and Julius Ethanga (Tea Producer).
	26 March 2008	Tearfund	Meeting: Nelson Mkandawire, Chisomo Children''s Club “ Tearfund sponsored event.
	24 April 2008	Oxfam	Attended Oxfam Global Campaign for Education Schools Debate event.
	9 May 2008	Members of DEC	Attend DEC Burma Appeal Meeting.
	17 May 2008	Red Cross	Attended Red Cross Reception.
	26 June 2008	Church of Scotland	Meeting: Representatives of the Church of Scotland World Mission Council.
	16 July 2008	Scottish Fair Trade Forum	Meeting: Scottish Fair Trade Forum.
	3 September 2008	Islamic Relief	Attended Islamic Relief Reception.
First Minister	30 May 2007	SCIAF	Briefing on Situation in Darfur
	26 June 2008	Oxfam	Addressing Parliamentary reception.
	21 August 2008	SCIAF	Meeting with Paul Chitnis.

 

The Scottish Government has examined the borrowing options available and the associated costs. We have made clear that the newly formed Scottish Futures Trust will be looking further at a range of financial approaches to funding capital schemes, including bonds, to assess how to achieve maximum benefits for taxpayers and users of infrastructure. The costs of borrowing will be an important part of that assessment, and will depend on a number of factors including the nature of the project and the market conditions prevailing at the time.

Sir Angus Grossart''s role as Chair of the Scottish Futures Trust is not to decide on award of contracts but to oversee the development and direction of SFT to secure better value for our infrastructure investment than has been achieved with methods used by previous administrations. We do not therefore expect issues of conflict of interest to arise.

If a specific potential or actual conflict of interest were to arise, we would be absolutely certain that Sir Angus, as an experienced and professional company director of many years standing, would declare his interest and stand aside or withdraw from any further discussion on the issue in question.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-16309 on 24 September 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

Details of the remuneration of public appointees on the boards of non-departmental public bodies are on the Scottish Government website at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/directory.

The remuneration of board members of agencies is not held centrally. This information will be available in the annual reports of each agency which will be published on the internet.

For OCPAS regulated appointments, conflicts of interest are fully explored at the interview stage, should an applicant get that far in the process.

When ministers are asked to decide on whether to appoint a candidate who has a conflict of interest, they do so fully aware of the facts surrounding the conflict of interest and of the selection panel''s view on the candidate''s suitability for appointment.

Appointment rounds that are not regulated by OCPAS are encouraged to follow exactly the same procedures in order to avoid the interference of conflicts of interest in the work of appointees.

As regards members who have been appointed to public bodies, there is clear guidance on the procedures to be followed. Guidance issued by the Standards Commission in April 2008 reminded public bodies of their duty to set up, maintain and make available for public inspection a register of the interests of their members. It also encouraged that the register of interests should be made available on their websites.

In accordance with the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Act 2000 most public bodies have a Code of Conduct which requires members interests to be registered. The Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Act 2000 (Register of Interests) Regulation 2003 requires all members to register their relevant interests not later than one month after the date of their appointment. The regulations further state that each devolved public body shall normally have a standards officer and that the standards officer will maintain that record in respect of any person for five years after the date that that person ceases to be member of the public body.

The Standards Commission is currently liaising with public bodies to ensure that a register of interests is published on the website of each public body.

The available information is given in the following table. None of those given a custodial sentence are still in custody.

Persons Convicted for Offences Under the Terrorism Act 2000¹, 2003-04 - 2006-07

Disposal	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Custody	4	6	23	9
Community sentence	-	-	2	-
Fine	3	5	10	7
Admonished	3	-	18	1
Hospital order with restriction	1	-	-	-
Total	11	11	53	17

Note: 1. Where main offence.

Supply and demand of staff in these professional groups is complex and many factors contribute to dynamic fluctuations in numbers. Measureable indicators, such as vacancy rates can be suggestive of either staff shortage or excess but alone can be misleading. Workforce planning arrangements (as asked in related question S3W-15835, answered on 24 September 2008) differ for each of these staff groups.

Teachers: Currently the supply and demand is of teachers by the annual teacher workforce planning exercise which is undertaken at a national level to ensure there are sufficient numbers of teachers in publicly funded schools. The exercise takes account of pupil projections and numbers of teachers leaving and entering the profession. The current aim is to maintain teacher numbers at approximately 53,000, bearing in mind currently 6,000 teachers per annum are expected to leave teaching each year for the next few years. A Teacher Employment Working Group has been established which will assess the teacher workforce planning process, as inherited by the previous administration. The group will report to Ministers in autumn 2008.

The Scottish Government carries out a teacher vacancy assessment each February. The latest survey in February 2008 shows that only 0.4% of the full complement of teaching posts was vacant over three months. Vacancies over three months are usually taken as an indicator of teacher shortage as it discounts the normal turnover of staff, this indicates there is no shortage at present.

Doctors and nurses: Workforce planning for doctors and nurses (and other health care professionals) is set out in the National Workforce Planning Framework which is available at the following link http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/08/30112522/25230.

Modelling for the doctor and nurse professions is currently underway however, as this will not be finalised until November it is not possible at this time to estimate the shortage or over-supply. Workforce details for NHSScotland are published on the Scottish health statistics website under Workforce Statistics at:

www.isdscotland.org/workforce.

Robust workforce planning arrangements are in place to ensure there are sufficient numbers of healthcare workers to meet health care demand. NHS boards work to an annual planning cycle, publishing new workforce plans in April of each year. Regional Workforce Plans are published each September. NHS board and Regional plans inform the National Workforce Plan published each December.

Dentists: The number of NHS dentists in Scotland has increased by over 25% between 1996 and 2007. Dental Workforce planning in Scotland is informed by work undertaken by the Dental Workforce Project, an on-going collaboration between NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and the Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland and supported by the Scottish Government''s National Workforce Planning Unit. The Project, which examines supply and demand forecasts for NHS dentists in Scotland, publishes its next report on 25 September 2008. It is expected to report good progress with respect to workforce targets.

Veterinary surgeons: The vet profession is a reserved area. The Scottish Government does not undertake workforce planning for the vet profession as this is principally a matter for the Royal College of Veterinary surgeons and the UK University funding councils. Whilst government pays a number of veterinarians the number of vets is principally a commercial matter.

Chiropodists/Podiatrists: There is no confirmed current over or under-supply of chiropodists/podiatrists. Vacancy rates are low at 1.6% for vacancies over three months, indicating adequate supply.

Physiotherapists: Current workforce statistics indicate a steady increase in the number of qualified physiotherapists in post in NHSScotland. Latest available NHS board workforce planning projects an 6.9% increased demand for physiotherapists over the next three years with possible over-supply of junior practitioners.

Training numbers however, for Allied Health Professions, such as chiropodists/podiatrists and physiotherapists are not controlled centrally (as for medical and nursing undergraduate places). In the non-controlled subjects there is a market place economy with Universities responding to demand from students for places rather than demand from employers. However, there is continuing dialogue with the Scottish Funding Council and higher education institutions to inform them of forecast demand. In addition, it is for NHS boards to decide the number and skill mix of staff needed to deliver services in their area.

Social workers: While there is no specific estimate of shortage or over-supply, the current vacancy rate for local authority social workers is a relatively high 7.4% (399 vacancies). Although vacancies have decreased from a high of 13% in 2003, this indicates a continuing demand for social workers. Social work student numbers are increasing however and will ensure a steady supply of new social workers coming into the profession. The Scottish Government continues to work with its partners to monitor and predict demand for social work services and also the supply of new social workers, as well as monitoring current employment and vacancy levels in the sector. The Scottish Government is currently working with COSLA to consider how the workforce planning function at employer level can be promoted.

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.