 Welcome to the 20th meeting, 2014 of the Health and Sport Committee. As usual, at this point I would ask everyone in the room to switch off mobile phones and other wireless devices as they can sometimes interfere with the sounds of someone in disrupt the meeting. Mae oedd gennym ni oedd y cwmhinkwm a chyfwyrddio, ond mae'r newydd dissol iawn i disgybl cael wahanol i gael hyn ac yn arbennig, mae'r cyflawn i welig samur, oedd mae'r cyflawn i gael eich cwmhinkwm. Mae'r infeithio i gael iawn i gael i gael i gael i gael i pethau iawn. Iengledig i gael iawn i gael iechyd yma yn gyRahin. Ieimledig i gael iawn i gael i gael ymlaen i gael i gael i gael gwahanol i gael i gael i'r ac yn cael ei gwaith i'r ffordd i'r Ffraith Ffraith Bwgol 2015-16 o'r Ffainanth Cymru yn y Prif. Rwy'n cael ei gwaith i'r Ffraith Bwgol 5 yn y Prif. Rwy'n cael ei gwaith i'r Ffraith Bwgol 2, yn cyd-dweithio'r Ligisol, ac mae gennym ni'n wrth ei chael iawn, ond mae'r Gwyl пойw iddyn nhw'n gweithio rwy'n altref. Rwy'n meddwl i'r ffordd amser argymellur Cymru yng Nghymru, yr honno yw ddechrau Gwyl P �fatt' o'r trapeth o gyflares hefydol hefyd. Rwy'n meddwl i'w ddwyllai'r Gwyl Paifyddfaan, oherwydd i gael ei chwrs, o'i bod ni'n meddwl i'n meddwl i'r gwrs, Will any committee member make comments? No. Therefore, can I have agreement that committee has agreed to make no recommendations? Thank you for that. We now move to agenda item number three, which is to continue to take evidence at gan gyflusio. Felly, oe'r llawion fen conventions yng Nghymru, lle mae e'n gwneud o'r llwyddiol ar gyfer eich gwneud, o edrych yn ei ddechrau a'i ddim yn eich mwy oes i'r maeth o'r ysgol yn eich cyflusio chi gyda'r cyfar o'u jayfn dechrau'n eu dechrau i gynnwys. Mae'n defnyddio'n ei ddechrau i gydwg amddangos, ddigon i fynd i'r ddweud yw'r cwmũi, mae nhw'n dden i'r gwRAY, yng nghydfyn nhw'n ddweud i gydwys i gydwys i'r ymgolwch â'r Cymru, a oedd ymnod Gweithgrifennu Gwynhwch, a'r unrhyw o Gwynhwch a'r ymwyr. Ymgylcheddol i gynnwys Ymgrifennu Gwynhwch i'n unrhyw o'r Cymru i'r Gwyrdd, a oedd ymwyr i'n unrhyw. Pafydorus, ymgolwch â Glaszgul, ac yn piperbyr cyfeirio gyfnodaf y Cyrydd Milredd. I'm Tory Macaulay, I'm Trading Standards Partnership Manager for East Lothian Council and Midlothian Council. I'm Annette Millan, MSP for North East Scotland. Gil Paterson, Member for Clydebank and MoGuy. Arsgyrchanderson, President of the Association of Beans Spectres. Colin Kear, MSP Edinburgh Western constituency. Richard Lyleth, Central Region, MSP. I'm Colin Wallace, I'm the President of the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland. Rhoda Grant, Highlands and Islands MSP. Eileen McLeod, MSP for South Scotland. David Marston, Head of Policy and External Affairs at the Scottish Retail Consortium. Richard Simpson, MSP, Mid Scotland and Fife. Thank you all very much for that. We have just over an hour and ten minutes or so for the panel. The main purpose of these panels is to hopefully that there's a dialogue between the various people here and the panel. So we'll always get the President in terms of speaking and answers. First of all, we're going to call on Rhoda Grant to get us going. Can I ask what additional powers or responsibilities people think the new agency should have? Or indeed, if there are powers and responsibilities that they have been given that they shouldn't have? Can you take us for that? Mr Tony Macaulay. I can really speak in terms of feed enforcement rather than food. That which has historically been a trading standards enforcement aspect. In terms of one of the areas that the new food body could undertake, is there is a lack of capacity at local authorities on feed enforcement in terms of the official controls on feed enforcement. So I think it's possibly an area or a scope for the new food body to take some of that in centrally, or almost a regionalisation of feed enforcement and building capacity through neighbouring authorities joining up. So maybe a lead authority aspect, so one authority would do it for say the east of Scotland, maybe one for the northeast, one for the northwest, to build that capacity and to look at an economy of scale on enforcement because the capacity at a local level and expertise is gradually diminishing. So I think that is something that the new food body could take a lead on and give it that momentum to actually drive up compliance with feed hygiene and feed enforcement. Anyone else? Colin Wallace. The Institute are very supportive of the proposals in relation to compliance notices and fixed penalty notices. Environmental health officers and other associated food safety professionals do a lot of assistance and support and help to fuel enforcement issues too. However we feel as a gap at the moment in relation to really heavy enforcement as opposed to lighter enforcement and what we feel is that there's some technical offences that could be dealt with much better and much easily without criminalising a food business operator in relation to things like not registering their business or other minor lower matters that are not necessarily linked to public safety or food safety. They're still important and they still need to be dealt with. I can instance for example the prohibition of spoken public places, fixed penalty notices were used very well in that. They weren't used that often but they were used when they were required and it doesn't criminalise people in terms of trying to do what they're doing and there's maybe poor intentions rather than trying to mislead the public. When also on the enforcement angle or indeed any broader issues, you'll take others and come back to you. Just like us. An additional point that Tony made in feeds inspections. The government has inspectors out on farm from the Rural Pairments and Inspection Department and I think we should with someone should have a look at that whole inspection process on farms so they're not sending out different inspectors to inspect different things and try and join things up a little bit and Scottish government did have a very good programme, a while ago called Sears and that was a joining up approach but I think in this specific area of feeds inspection there's scope for some kind of streamlining on the number of inspectors that go to farms and how that can be done with a bit more joined up within the government departments. Just hearing you saying that, just to maybe get some of the others, and what prevents you from developing the strategies that you have suggested or indeed Colin Wallace has suggested currently at present? Why do we need the food bill to do these things? I've taken Colin's point on the fixed penalty notice and again we've historically in trading standards been doing the fixed penalties for quite a while now in terms of underage sales of tobacco, home report legislation, energy performance certificates etc. There's been a fixed penalty regime which has worked successfully so I can see that idea of not decriminalising but having a lesser penalty being more advantageous so again I would support Colin's point on that in terms of moving that forward. I think in terms of feed enforcement it's at a very very low level within local authorities at present. There is such a dichot me between local authorities in Scotland for instance Edinburgh and Glasgow hardly do any feed inspections because they don't have that many farms. Where as Inverness, Aberdeenshire and the more rural authorities have gotten those feed and food businesses so they have driven up some standards internally but across the board in trading standards and to a certain extent in environmental health that capacity and resources diminishing as councils themselves reduce the head count of staff and it's actually maximising the staff that we've got so some form of joined up approach be it on a regional basis, inter-authority basis I would hope would drive up those standards and drive up those competencies but I think following on from that in terms of scripted and animal health there has to be a more joined up approach of passing intelligence and information to each other in terms of who's been inspected, when they've been inspected so that there's no duplication. I think that's extremely important. We do have diminishing resources so we need to use them effectively. I suppose the question I was trying to get at was what prevents you doing that now? There's no legal impediment. I mean I can see the food standards agency being a driver for such a that but is there anything that prevents you actually working closer together now and using those limited resources to a better effect? Is there anything that prevents you doing that now? I think there's some stumbling blocks over Scottish Government and local authorities in terms of data protection and data sharing. I think there are some obstacles with that. I don't think there are obviously no insurmountable but I think that's one of the main reasons which I'm aware of, that there have been data protection issues of us passing information on our database to scripted, to Scottish Government and to animal health agency. You want to back in? Just an ancillary point on that. I think it's as simple as the iBean syndrome. It's iBean that way and that's the way it works and I think the new food standards Scotland gives us an opportunity to act as a catalyst to actually review all these areas and take a view on it and do it with a more sensible approach for the betterment of food safety in Scotland. Rhoda, I know Bob wants to ask another question but do you want to follow up on that? I suppose what I'm asking is, given that and I understand it, are you suggesting that because the inspection regime currently falls to local government that they would work with Scottish Government departments who are going out doing farm inspections, head counts and the like and would that involve a degree of training for inspectors because they're going out doing one piece of work if they're going to then go and check something else? How much training would that be? I could see that would be a barrier given costs and knowledge and the like. Any responses? I think that there would really need to be some form of scoping exercise to see exactly what you wanted the Scottish Government enforcement staff to do. It may well be that you could look at our partnership approach between local authority staff and Scottish Government staff in the very early stages to build that capacity and build that expertise and the transferable skills from local authority staff on to Scottish Government staff. So it could be a two-stage approach in terms of looking at the actual problem in the beginning and working together on it and then if there's a necessary capacity within Scottish Government staff that they would get that through training through local authority staff. Yes, go on. Do you want me to respond to that? There's another point in the general area of where we need to have this legislation is covering and it's the area of food labelling and we feel in Quality Meets Scotland that not enough weight is given to protected food names. An example of protected food name is Scotch beef, Scotch lamb. Those are the two that Quality Meets Scotland operates on behalf of the industry but other examples are of both Smookies and the PGI, the protected geographical indication. So we feel that we should make sure with the new food body there is a good robust approach to these protected food names which are given that status because of the quality and these products usually have a premium in the market and we need to ensure that there's no scope for food fraud i.e. passing off other less, more inferior products, passing them off for example beef from another place, for example Ireland or Argentina or wherever which is cheaper which is passed off as Scotch beef. So we need to make sure that the labelling regime is taking account of the protected food names. Okay, I'm sure we'll come back to the labelling because there's been some issues there as well. Bob, did you want to address some of the earlier issues? It's just on Mr Wallace's comment which was interesting. It's just the nuts and bolts of the bill I suppose. So I just want to make sure I understood it correctly so that the idea of fixed penalty notices, your supportive of, the fine scale your supportive of but you're going to be querying whether or not it would be focused on the idea of food safety and food fraud rather than administrative bureaucratic breaches which you said could be dealt with much more in a streamlined fashion. I think it's what you said, I don't want to put words into your mouth. I was trying to be clear in what specifically you were saying in relation to that. Well, there are enforcement provisions available just now but they can end up in the court referral to procurator fiscal and that's maybe a sledgehammer to crack a nut in a lot of regards. We're looking at slightly lower level offences here. I know that the convener has said that we're moving on to labelling issues. I mean currently there are powers available in relation to labelling of unsafe food but there aren't any powers in relation to dealing with food that is incorrectly labelled and it has a food standards issue. So there are enough powers out there to deal with food that's potentially unsafe and environmental health professionals can actually deal with that but food of a lower safety level and it doesn't mean to say that food is incorrectly labelled couldn't ultimately turn out to have a food safety implication or a food safety issue. That could be much better dealt with using these lower level issues. Okay, maybe I misunderstood Mr Wallace because I thought I was looking at the bill as you were talking and it seems as if this will be dealt with in regulation so the idea of a relevant offence will be specified in relation to regulations as laid by Scottish ministers. Did you just want to make sure that that was as broad as possible to minimise the amount of unnecessary enforcement matters having to get through a judicial process where fixed penalty notices could be used? Sorry, is that? Yeah, you're quite correct. The bill gives that breadth and flexibility to introduce that legislation. That wouldn't necessarily be enshrined in the bill but supplementary legislation could come from that, yeah. That's held because I'd thought from the initial comments that maybe some things wouldn't be covered by fixed penalty notices but that's, that's, it's myest, myest, myest misunderstanding I think you just want to be clear on that so you're not suggesting that you think something won't be covered by a fixed penalty notice because this would be a good opportunity to put that on the record if you think there's a gap there in relation to the future use of fixed penalty notices. Nothing, okay. Well can I ask about food labelling then? Convener, is that okay? David Martinon, he was going to respond to some of your earlier stuff and I'll ask for a response to the debate because I think we heard some evidence about how seriously courts were taking some of these and a lot of the issues that could be resolved by fixed penalty is actually, will be a penalty whereas a lot of previous issues were falling by default because the expense, the length of time and indeed how serious the courts took them so it seems to be unbalanced to be on everybody's support so Mr Martin Yeah, thank you. I think from our perspective obviously we're looking at the fixed penalty notices from a different direction so we're the regulated rather than the regulator and from our perspective I suppose we're a little bit more skeptical about fixed penalty notices we do understand some of the rationale about trying to make justice more expedient and cost-effective etc but there are just some, if we are to pursue that sort of line I think that we would be quite keen to see that some sort of safeguards were built in around this because from our perspective and through our members' experiences we often find that FPNs can often just lead to a tick box approach to enforcement it doesn't really drive, in our experience it doesn't really drive sort of better performance or indeed compliance it deters retailers from coming forward for advice because they're obviously worried that there's more penalties for sort of minor infringements it makes it easier basically to place down a penalty there's an issue I suppose here as well around the burden of proof and I do note that in the explanatory notes that future regulation will look at whether it will be beyond reasonable doubt or not and obviously we would support that but I think moving into FPNs for us it does somewhat lower the bar and it makes businesses more hesitant about coming forward for that advice for speaking to the enforcement agencies about compliance etc because it's much easier to have something slapped on you for what is effectively a minor infringement and also from an unscrupulous retailer's perspective I suppose for some it's seen as just the cost of doing business it doesn't really have the same necessarily the same impact of being taken to court and pursuing a sort of criminal offence so that is why obviously in our written submission we had suggested that one of the things that we would like to see around the food regulation and in light of the FPNs is an acknowledgement of a lot of this being brought into scope with primary authority and obviously deals with a lot of what's being raised earlier by Tony and I know that previous witnesses to the committee have also given evidence on the advantages that they see of that obviously they asked you the Scottish Government to introduce this through the regulatory reform bill and we thought this was incredibly admirable move we supported it very much and we've been working with the Scottish Government on this to cover a whole range of areas but I think in terms of food regulation this is an area where it is most pertinent and I think for us it would provide that assurance it would provide that safeguard that if we were to move to having more infringements being dealt with by FPNs it would provide that safeguard for us that obviously we had the due diligence we could seek the advice without necessarily the punishment that we had that dialogue with the enforcement agency etc so for us I suppose if the FPN approaches to be pursued for us we'd like to see that going hand in hand with a lot of this being brought to scope of primary authority I would just note quickly on the labelling issue which links into the FPN point is there is already a group in England set up by the BRDO with retailers looking at how primary authority will deal with the FIR when it comes into force next year and obviously this is a very complicated piece of regulation which will change a lot of the law around labelling and to be honest the interpretation of that regulation is still very unclear both from the regulated but also from the regulator's perspective so it's good to have that sort of mechanism through which we can use that we can come to an agreed understanding of what is required because ultimately nobody here is wanting to break the law on the right side but they want to know that the safeguards are there that they can do this First of all I just need to sweep up on the fixed penalty that can have some response to the view of the retailers in this Colin? I understand Mr Martin's point of view from his member's perspective and I take that on board I'd like to reassure him in terms of environmental health ethos support and guidance to businesses with the ultimate aim of achieving compliance they're in there to help them enforcement is rarely the first resort it's mainly the last resort and it's always done to protect public safety and people spend an awful lot of time helping businesses we much rather see compliant businesses successful businesses contributing to local economy and it's only when there are people who are minded not to comply or minded to be obstructive and it's at the end of a particular process when these sanctions are actually applied it's not really at the start so it's just to offer a bit of comfort and advice David I'll see if there's any other views and then you can respond to them I would echo what Colin said the ethos of trade standards as well and councils now we are more focused in terms of a single outcome agreement with the Scottish Government in terms of individual service plans and business plans and being very business friendly and business support orientated to drive up compliance through advice through support we understand that with the complexity of trade standards and environmental health law businesses are more focused on their own operation than looking at in terms of trade standards of 100 different action regulations so we understand the complexities for business so we do offer that mechanism to support and advise them to drive up compliance and as Mr Wall has said it is a last resort prosecution in reports to the fiscal but there will be habitual offenders there are very very small negligible percent but there are persistent offenders who will break the law with impunity or try to break the law with impunity but it is about driving up compliance through support and business and making businesses successful and thriving at a local level and I think our ethos previously when we were in trade and standards we were called consumer protection which was a name I never liked we were very much enforcers and the first enforcement was written in reports to the fiscal we have now stepped back from that more light touch enforcement approach so I would echo Mr Wallace's point we are there to advise business and support them as opposed to the hammer to crack on up but sometimes it is necessary in terms of the reports maybe I have taken this out of previous reports to the fiscal prosecutions is that a consequence of taking a lighter approach or a realistic point of view that to make reports to the fiscal or to pursue prosecutions was very tankinsome and expensive and uncertain in its outcome and that has the fixed penalty in there is to be used so how many we have reduced the number I presume of reports to the fiscal and prosecutions how many fixed penalties would you expect to issue has there been any calculation of that in the analysis of the use of fixed penalties what makes an enforcement tool what creates a deterrent is the awareness that you are prepared to use it and indeed the level and then a year later politicians start asking why you are not using the fixed penalties so I figure to come back and give you an example on the underage sales of tobacco now trading standards have got the power to issue fixed penalties where a trader sells cigarettes to someone under 18 and it's a an escalator so if the first fixed penalty is again it's my staff to get involved in it rather than me so I'm not really, it's say £200 if there's a second offence it's £400 if there's a third offence it's an escalator it could be £600 but on the third offence we could then apply for a banning order to a sheriff that that person would be banned from selling tobacco products for a period of time set by the sheriff so there are these incremental fixed penalties so again mistakes do happen so if someone does sell cigarettes in the first instance given the fixed penalty then hopefully that conduct would then be driven up to compliance because of that fixed penalty incident and it's only then that the habitual trader which there are some will then break the law because of the financial aspect that he's making more money selling to underage school children than he is in paying fixed penalty notices so there is an escalator there to hopefully assist with driving up compliance and I don't have the figures here I think that these are good examples that's perfectly reasonable isn't it repeat offenders, warnings, help, assistance make them aware and an incremental approach to punish those people who are just ignoring the law is that not reasonable to some degree but I guess the point here is I would I would posit that the challenge for a trading standards officer to take a retailer to court over something compared to putting a fixed penalty notice on the retailer for something there is a difference there in terms of the burden of proof but also just how expedient that is to do and fine if we're going to go down an FPN route we can accept some of the arguments around the expedience of that but we want to make sure that they are handed out fairly and proportionately and that there is an ability to some degree as there would be through court to challenge some of these decisions I mean at the end of the day we have 32 local authorities and sometimes I regret to say they take 32 different decisions or interpret things differently and so from our perspective when it comes to national regulatory approach we don't want to see that regulation being interpreted in different ways but everyone is human that's what happens so we have to have the mechanisms built in place to ensure that where there is a difference of opinion for example there is that check, there is that safeguard that you don't just accept the fixed penalty notice because frankly that trading standards officer or that environmental health officer has decided that that's their local authority interpretation of for example what should be on a label or what shouldn't be on a label or what shouldn't be on a label there's still not really agreement yet between both obviously the enforcer and between the regulator around actually what a lot of this will mean and the fact is a lot of the regulation around food is incredibly complicated and I wouldn't say it's a criticism it certainly isn't a criticism of trading standards officers environmental health officers I am positive in what our members tell us is they do discharge their duties in a good way in Scotland actually but things do slip through the nets people do interpret legislation differently people don't all necessarily businesses and the regulator don't often read the same piece of regulation in the same way so you just want to make sure before it gets the point of an FPN that you're on the same page and that's where the primary authority kicks in previously if it was you were taking to court then you could prove well actually this is our interpretation that's their interpretation let's fight this out and see who's actually got the right interpretation but if we are just handing out FPNs there's not that ability to challenge I suppose the last point there I'd like to make is you know the reason the Scottish Government brought this in last year is because as my members have told them and as businesses that operate throughout the UK have told them frankly when it comes to this sort of issue the regulatory environment in England and Wales is better and it's better because we have a closer working relationship with the local authorities and training standards environmental well not in the case of England and we have that sort of safeguard and businesses are a lot clearer we have the due diligence, we have the advice we have the assured guidance that we don't have in Scotland the final point I suppose I'd make also on the FPN is if we are going to issue FPNs our plea would be that they would be issued not just to the store the store manager but they're also given to the HQ because our members want to know if a store is being perceived as not being compliant and if it's just handed to a store then obviously that that chain of command might not feed that all the way up to the top Fred, I can't agree with Mr Martin at all there in a lot of what he said I don't know whether the committee are aware of the Scottish Food Enforcement Liaison Committee I can understand which comprises enforcers, trade Scottish Government and trade bodies Scottish Food and Drinks on and so forth it's a multi agency body that have met regularly for a number of years goes back to previous administrations and previous incantations it provides excellent consistent advice to enforcers across Scotland they provide training advice to provide matrices for qualifications guides as to how industries should comply guides to how enforcers should apply legislation it's actually the model which is envied by England and Wales and the benefit of Scotland is the fact that we've got 32 authorities who can all get together very regularly in the one room and it works really really well so I feel that we're more than adequately covered in that regard just a very quick point in relation to the fixed penalty issue the code of practice for food visits means that if an officer finds a contravention they notify the food business operator the next time they go back if that contravention is still there it's repeated they've got to escalate that now you're then looking maybe in two or three visits serving an improvement notice that's ridiculous really to have to do something like that over a repeat contravention and again it's the time that you mentioned having to get to court etc etc so a fixed penalty notice in regards to a repeat contravention would be a means of actually dealing with this and not having it to go any further I think we've had I'm going to move on with the labelling because I think we've had given the fixed penalty and the issues there I think there's quite a good balance we'll get you in later on but Bob we don't need to resolve the issue we have obviously but the other aspects that are being mentioned by the labelling and IFIR and the current legislation that's working its way through I think I'll try and be brief in relation to this because some of it was mopped up a little bit there in evidence it's used to be clear I've asked this evidence session it does seem bizarre to myself that just now the courts of the power to officers of the power to seize destroy or dispose of unsafe food but not of fraudulent food so if it's a claim to be lamb and it's beef you have or whatever technically just now there's not the power for the courts to seize and destroy that it will become the case that that can happen now my understanding, I don't know if I get the understanding from happy witnesses to tell me what they think that the policy intent of the bill is not to look at minor labelling infringements but fairly blatant food fraud within the food chain and within the retail sector so our witnesses content that officers should have the power to seize and courts should have the power if need be to destroy fraudulent food for example it seems bizarre to myself that trading standards for example could seize if you like trainers that were not I did this or like it seize and destroy them when it's food they don't have that power so does that address that balance if they don't I can ensure it in measured way and more importantly I suppose I think it's the right thing to do anyway but is there any evidence of where food frauds been identified that has continued within the food chain because the powers aren't there so yes I think it's the right thing to do to people I agree but actually how to what extent do you believe there is actually a problem I suppose and once these respond we condemn food because it's unfit for human consumption and no one I think has any objection to that whatsoever but to condemn food that's fit for human consumption would seem very ridiculous someone's committing a fraud by selling lamb as pork or pork as lamb but to take the analogy you're suggesting of the trainers when people are seized trainers often they then send these trainers to charities now there's no reason to condemn a fraud of food by selling under a different name it's not a fraud of food it's not a condemnable thing that food should be then given to charities to use there but we're having a say don't condemn good food I think you make a reasonable point so destroy seas direct elsewhere I suppose the point I'm trying to make is whether it's put back in the same food chain and supply on retail or the offence to be perpetrated rather than seized by the courts and redeployed elsewhere but I think that point's well made Do you want to come back on that again or does anyone else say you know sort of yes David Martin I think a couple of points I would make about this is I mean our interpretation which of the way the bill is drafted right now is that without the necessary appropriate controls we could end up with some pretty disproportionate enforcement action and I think if we take that to its logical conclusion that's not to say that I don't necessarily agree with the principle of what you're trying to say but I think we have to make sure that what we've got in the bill actually doesn't result in some pretty calamitous outcomes which is what our reading this bill could end up doing I completely agree with Archie on the point that if a food is not condemnable and for example there might be a degree here about proportionality around this provision and also the consistency of interpretation of things like on labelling which is very complicated what we would like to see here is a sort of two stage approach built into this the first is that there should be a right to challenge the decision on whether the food should be sort of seized and destroyed and removed and that should be that the food shouldn't just be taken and destroyed and then you can appeal the decision and then you can have the monetary value made up because actually we've got some really important things at risk here we've got consumer confidence and how that is dented with regards to a product withdrawal we've also got the supplier and the producer so in our case if we are forced to withdraw a product let's say it's a small Scottish producer from the borders and we're forced to withdraw that product on misdemeanor on a label then there's no guarantee that that slot will then be filled again by that small indigenous Scottish producer it will be filled very quickly with something else so it's damaged to the producer as well as to the consumer confidence and of course there's damage to the retailer for something that might be deemed as disproportionate so it's not where it is an issue of food safety on that there's regulation it deals with that there's no question it has to be removed straight away immediately even in the case of horse meat where it wasn't an issue of food safety but there was an issue there of consumer confidence my members removed the product absolutely immediately there was no question it all came off the shelves but if it is an issue where it's not about safety if it is an issue about labelling we have an issue here about proportionality about is it just the case of a misspelled label or an ingredient's wrong or is the product misbranded or something around that because this is all this could also be considered there's also the issue about the consistency is our interpretation of the labelling regulations the same as the enforcers interpretation we need to so it might not be so we need that ability to appeal I would say this is another area because it will be governed from April that we can bring this on to our primary authority so we can have those checks and balances I think it's important that the legislation targets the right person I think to some extent the retailer is a soft target because he's there and he's available but as we know from the incident of the horse meat scandal that substitution of beef with horse meat occurred further down the chain when you look at the ready meals or the burgers and it wasn't actually committed in the UK it was in Ireland with the burgers it was in France with the background in the Netherlands so it was a complicated international food fraud and I think it's important that in our efforts to move forward in this and promote the integrity of Scottish food that we're making sure that supply chain that we're in at all levels of the supply chain so the work that Quality Meat Scotland does we're doing the work on farms and in abattoirs to underpin the integrity of our brands but actually there's a gap there which we've now started to look at since horse meat in terms of integrity of further manufacturers and what they're doing with products and how they're doing it and the audits that are required there so I guess I'm just suggesting that the committee should consider that we're targeting the right people here in terms of who's actually committing the fraud and I think it's also important that the penalties are proportionate to the amount of gain that the perpetrator has had so there must be some link with turnover or the degree of profit that that person has had for example horse meat costs £70 a kilo and beef at that time was about £3.20 a kilo so you can see what the adulteration factor of 25% can do in terms of generating additional margin and it's the unscrupulous people further back in the chain that we need to target the regulation up. Is a bill in its current form sufficient to assist you in that aim? Does it make the difference you would want it to make focus? I suppose it's the bill that we're looking at here. Does the bill do the job to help you ensure the outcome that you would want? Well I've read the bill and I don't feel I'm qualified to actually give you an answer on that because I'm not a lawyer. All I would say is I would push that back and say we need to make sure that the bill can achieve that aim. How do we make sure the bill achieves that aim? What does it need to say? Not in legal judgment but in general You need to be able to get further back in the chain. I guess the point I'm making is that it's not necessarily the retailer he's the guy that's sitting there with the product on his shelf but if he's been duped by the unscrupulous operator further back in the chain somewhere between the primary producer and the person who puts the product on the shelf that's the area that we need to make sure that we've got scope within this legislation to dig into and root out the habitual offenders and it's probably the same people that aren't paying their tax returns people who cheat across a wide range of areas and we need to be working across Government to identify where some of these using intelligence across Government to identify where some of these operators are. I've got a couple. Just very quickly to say that this isn't an option that would be used that often I don't think in other words the detention issue is to detain food for further investigation to get more information in regard to what's wrong and the implications and also there are certain compliance measures that some of the food business operators could take in terms of things like rewrapping or relabeling or reprocessing which would achieve the compliance so it would be inappropriate to use that tool in that case. All I'm saying is it's not as if this is going to happen every day and enforcers are going to be into businesses and issues, seizures and detention notices willy nilly. It's only where the mechanism that currently exists can't actually resolve the issue and there's concerns about potential food safety issues linked to the food standards issues. I suppose my perspective is what do we want to do here with the labelling provisions so there is an issue of food safety so if it's an allergen problem and the label is incorrect but then that would be food safety that wouldn't be a fraudulent label. The other thing is is it just an incorrect label? Is there something on it that's misspelled? Is there something on it that's been included? That shouldn't have been included and that's a different matter and then finally there's the issue of food fraud and I don't think that fraud is a criminal activity. This labelling provisions is not going to stop criminal activity and you'll is absolutely correct. This is a supply chain issue and you need to get it much early on in the supply chain. In the case of horse meat our members, this is not at all to belittle the seriousness of horse meat. My members took that incredibly serious. This was a very serious issue but at the end of the day these were retailers who went to their suppliers who gave them a schematic to give them a product, label that product and they would sell that product. What they asked for often was British beef and what they got was neither British nor beef. A lot of this stemmed from complex supply chains that were out with the UK. That's why since horse meat our members have had to be up the amount of random testing, auditing, sharing intelligence. There's a working group under the FSA where they now with other industry groups pull intelligence to target the testing at risk products and at supply chains. There's more auditing of supply chains including suppliers to suppliers and there's also more unannounced audits on suppliers, much the consternation of some of the suppliers. A lot of things are happening to try and route out fraud but it has to be targeted and it has to be evidence based. At the end of the day we tested over around 10,000 products of those products 0.1% revealed evidence of horse meat above the 1% threshold so that was 99% clear. That's not a statistic to little the seriousness of the incident but rather to say it shows how targeted we have to be in order to route out this fraud. So we need to deal with the supply chain it's about evidence sharing it's about approaching things from a risk based approach it's about making sure we get our resources in the right place. Is a label going to change all of that? I don't think it is. If you can defraud a product you can defraud a label. Job done. Are you working together as they suggested and sharing that information? Mr Macaulay. There is a lot of working together happening across the industry across supply chains we need to increase that I guess I would say that the retailer has a responsibility though so when retailers adopt a global sourcing policy and they're driving what they would say costs out of the system and taking tenders for product this price competitiveness in UK retailers is really the driver for why sometimes there's a race to the bottom and quality can get compromised and that was the driver in the horse meat scandal because there was someone out there who could supply a product at a cheaper price so you could get 10 burgers for 80 pence or whatever it was and the driver was that cost and okay we know all retailers have a premium offer and a standard offer and a value offer but really we have to the retailer also has to ensure that his supply chains that's necessary Mr Macaulay I'm not particularly qualified to speak on food issues but I suppose in the general kind of fraud environment that we work within and trading standards the horse meat for instance was an international fraud it was serious and organised criminals that were actually involved in this exercise and if that's the people who are involved in it they're going to seek an advantage where they can and it is about traceability it is about being more intelligence led and being able to pass intelligence between agencies to actually stop these frauds from happening and that be at European agencies international agencies and our own agencies in the UK so that that intelligence is passed to identify food fraud but as I say food isn't my locus so I'm not qualified to speak on that I think everybody will accept the horse meat scandal this bill is not going to deal with that but with the good intent of the Scottish Government you can't after a horse meat scandal not have that in your thoughts as you're bringing to try and protect the quality of the brand et cetera et cetera but we've heard in evidence that it's much more comedy food fraud is a sexy title but codder haddock so there's a perspective due here and I suppose that that's where this bill comes in it's not all international fraud it is about codden haddock in some cases or llama beef or what's in your curry on a Friday night so can this bill tackle these issues if anybody no I suppose you don't want to speak about a bill and not talk about horse meat rather than codder haddock yes David provoke someone I'm happy to jump in on that I think if we want to solve an issue whether it's codder haddock then having provisions around the threat of being able to withdraw a product on the basis of labelling or codder haddock issue it's a reaction after the event you need to deal with it much earlier on in the supply chain and we need to be sure that there's the integrity in the supply chain and that when for example if it's a product that contains for example it's not just the fish but it contains elements of that fish that when you give that specification as a retailer to the supplier that is exactly what you're getting in return now there is an onus and you'll is absolutely right there is an onus and one thing that horse meat has done is to make sure that there is a bigger pressure now on retailers not just to make sure that they are satisfied with the way that they're retailing the product but they are satisfied with their supply chain all the way right to the very end and the only way we're going to do that is through a lot of the measures we're already doing which is targeting our testing sharing our intelligence obviously auditing our supply chains more often we're taking the complexity out of the supply chains because that was an issue around horse meat it's shortening them doing things like unannounced audits on suppliers they don't like that it dries up their costs but it secures our supply chains these are the sort of steps but frankly the bill doesn't deal with any of that the bill deals with labelling recently a fish processor and they say that they are highly audited at least by them the local environmental people but by the supermarkets constantly but their issue with labelling and their worry about labelling given that they sell into a bigger sort of bigger UK market is that if labelling requirements became more prescriptive here in Scotland that would give them maybe a difficult job to cost and deal with the big supermarkets I don't know whether anyone wants to reflect on that balance from the manufacturer's point of view and evidence that we've had call them Wallace I don't think it's particularly that in a sense it's about misleading the consumer I think what we're requiring and we would like to see is accurate labels so that the consumer can make their own mind up in terms of what they're buying and they shouldn't be mislead had a whiting cod people should get what they ask for then there's also the issue in terms of meat substitution which can have a grave effect in certain religious sectors who would be outraised if they're reading something that they thought was something else so it's a case of misleading very often misleading happens by accident but sometimes it happens by design and I think it's about touch and the proportionality and how we actually deal with it and I feel that the bill sets out the provisions to be able to deal with all these issues there is an ambition though about health, nutrition and from a health committee's point of view does this give us an opportunity to create a more healthier lifestyle in Scotland and promote healthy eating deal with some of the obesity issues which could come into that sphere as well very much so I mean that's something that we and Rhys are very keen to do at the moment it's all about compliance and clearly you have to actually take this forward slowly but we do a lot of work with our communities in relation to food and health courses we've got a course just now that we do which is elementary cooking skills now that might sound bizarre but it's amazing the number of people and young youngsters at schools and so forth who don't know how to cook a lot of their parents aren't aware of how to cook things properly, the nutritious way to cook food the way it likes and my mum used to do it and taught me and so forth so there's a lot of potential good work to be done there preventative work for the future Richard Lyle Thank you, convener basically I think most of the questions that I was going to ask have already been asked but I was quite interested in Mr Morton's point last week I actually devolved that I was a grocer for nearly 20 years so with the great respect to you Mr Morton I don't agree with your points in regards to environmental health the officer always found them quite amiable, quite reasonable and tried to help before they come along as you would suggest stuck the boot in so basically I would suggest that they are quite reasonable guys so can I now turn to the question that I can ask the point in regards to the size of the board I think there were various proposals made, three is too little with a chairman so can I ask the members around how many people should go on the board and also who you would suggest would be the type of people we would like on the board Certainly in our submission we suggested that three was too small in addition to the chairman and we feel it's important that the balance is struck between having a broad representation on the board of people who know the industry and how the industry works and we would say that FSA at the moment doesn't achieve that in the FSA national board because they don't appoint industry people because they say they're conflicted and I would take the opposite view that you need to get that balance between people who are independent but some independent members on the board and some people who have detailed industry knowledge of how supply chains work I think it's also important that you get that balance between having enough people to reach a consensual decision on any aspect under discussion but not having too many people that the committee is unwieldy so it's getting that figure between I don't know, 8 and 12 people might be the figure if you asked me as a lemon to give you a view on that Anyone else? David Alton I wouldn't necessarily put a number on it I think there's just some principles so the first is that the board has got to obviously be fully independent and free of any special interests whether that is industry or anyone else with an axe to grind and on that basis I would preclude the retail sector or industry from the board personally I mean, as long as there are people around the table the relevant expertise and understanding of the sectors with which they're dealing I think that would be satisfactory and that stops any sort of special interest bias around that I suppose the last part I'd make about that is that something I feel that the Scudomer review didn't manage to achieve actually it didn't have that expertise there that could deal with retail and could actually deal with anyone beyond the farm gate so I think from our perspective the board needs to be truly independent, free from being captured from special interests on the outside pressure from the outside but also on the inside it has to be free of that which is why I think that as long as there's the relevant expertise there's the industry knowledge that's necessarily suggest there should be actually people from industry around the table Archie Anderson I'd like to see one particular specialist group on the board and that is the consumer the consumer should be represented on the board I mean really that's that's the end product they're going to eat the stuff and have the stuff they should be represented fully Anyone else? Yes, please I would just come back to David's point where I'd say one man's bias is another man's detailed insight into a particular situation Yes, Colin Wallace Just one final point I think the balance is correct and it's obviously the skills the skillset that require the board members will be specified in other areas but in terms of public health I think maybe Mr Martin meant that he didn't think somebody from a sector sectoral public health should be on it but to me the bill is all about public health it's about improving the health of the public and providing the consumer with confidence and safety and that should be the overarching aspect for any board member and I'm sure it would be because I'm sure it's the same for yourself Mr Martin, can you tell us what you said? Yeah, I didn't mean that public health shouldn't be represented I just mean for example those who lobby on behalf of public health so lobbying organisations or other organisations that would perhaps be the equivalent of the SRC but on the public health side so absolutely there should be a public health input there if that's absolutely right but not necessarily the people who have a slightly more political agenda around public health I think we've heard quite a lot of evidence about pooling resources as well and the widest possible resources in respect to research and food study and drawing in all of the information we need to be more proactive rather than end up in prosecutions but actually have a bigger influence through research and knowledge you know I presume that people I'm presuming but maybe not but that's something that is to be valued and should continue no? I wasn't asking your opinion Richard I was trying to elicit some opinion from the I thought I would come back in on my question I will let you in Thank you as I always do Maybe sitting up here I'm not seeing enough Richard I'm trying to get elicit some response from the panellists if they've not got any response then that's fine but yes Colin Wallace he asked earlier on did we feel we had sufficient collaborative working arrangements to actually look at all the various information intelligence and put it together and I mentioned earlier on the Scottish Food Enforcement Liaison Committee just a run-through very much who's on the thing Society of Chief Officers Environmental Health Local Food Liaison Group reps Association of Public Analysts Scottish Microbiological Group Health Protection Scotland Consumer Focus Scotland ReHIS COSLA Food Standards Agency in Scotland British Hospitality Association Scottish Food and Drink Federation Scottish Retail Consortium Consultant in Public Health Medicine Group Scottish Food Advisory Committee National Farmers Union Scotland Scottish Government Rural Payments Inspections Directorate So it gives you an idea of how broad it is and there's a lot of information coming in and a lot of consultation going out there as to what should and shouldn't happen so I believe that we've got the building blocks to continue to take this forward Yeah, my question was I'd like to communicate what I was saying what is your influence in terms of the development of research do you get any influence on how that comes about about the issues that are permanent to Scotland we've heard evidence that E. coli strain what is it, Richard can you help 107 or 107 or whatever there are particular problems in this field well this gives us a better opportunity to focus some of that expertise with outcomes in terms of research to actually get to the heart of some of these issues David Martin I think before I answer that question if I may that the only sort of rebuttal I would offer that previous point about the committee in the group is that the committee in the group can't hand out assured guidance which is statutory backed which is if you follow and you obey then therefore you know you're within the confines of the law and you have nothing to worry about in terms of enforcement action if you've behaved yourself around the resources we as we've put in our written submission did have some concerns around everything across a single market which has affected what the UK is a very integrated UK market particularly from our perspective our members are probably the lion's share if not the only export market for Scottish producers throughout the rest of the UK so it's very integrated if you have a setup like that and you have one body dealing with this and then you move to two then there are questions, automatic questions about are resources going to be denuded et cetera having seen previous witnesses giving evidence and having discussed it with the Scottish Government, we are aware there's going to be memorandums of understanding there's going to be protocols around this I suppose our perspective is that that's all fine but we would probably appreciate a lot more detail on that now rather than let's pass the bill and let's hope that all of this falls into place later because frankly this is an area that is far far too important for us to take a chance on we have to be absolutely sure that once the body is set up that we have exactly the same resources not a penny less going to everything that we wanted to go to that we have consistent advice we have coordinated advice and we have the necessary access to the access and influence to the appropriate advisory committees so I guess our perspective is there is an element of taking this on faith we are slightly skeptical but we'd hope that at the end of this process that we have a very clear and transparent approach of how this is all going to this is all going to work around the public health issue here because obviously that's an additional piece of scope that this body might be asked to deal with I suppose our point is anything that is additional for the body to deal with it should be properly resourced you might be aware that the retail sector over the last three years has provided £95 million to the Scottish Government in the form of a public health supplement that was for public health that would be the sort of ideal funding source that could fund action on obesity on public health we are still clueless about how obviously that funding has been used to support public health but I would suggest that there's no clear audit trail on how that money has been used but there is money there that's coming in from us again this year specifically targeted for public health so there is money there for dealing with obesity I would just like to make a point about we've obviously discussed a lot about food safety and labelling and the enforcement thereof and I think one of the areas that the new body needs once to cover is the improvement to the national diet and we feel that the bill that is currently drafted doesn't provide enough provision for that in terms of how that's going to take place David's just mentioned obesity levels in Scotland you can add on to that the result of that in terms of heart disease and other health problems that we have and I know from speaking to ministers that there is a desire to create a healthier Scotland a better Scotland at the moment our citizens are making the wrong choices so I'd be interested to see how this committee can influence the bill as it's currently drafted to provide greater scope for the new food body to give us more leads and to do more educational work our own organisation Quality Meet Scotland does a lot of I've been there eight years and every year I've been there we've done more and more work in schools and there's a big desire for more and more information on how to eat a healthy and balanced diet and we need to really take this seriously and influence the citizens of tomorrow when they're at a stage where they'll take that learning on in the primary school and have that information to put into practice when they grow up and raise their own families and I agree with the earlier comment about cooking and the lack of cooking skills and we do a lot of work in that but we're a small body with a very limited budget we would like to see how the new food body can really take that on and we would be delighted to work with them to put our little bit together with their bigger bit and provide some change in this area Is there anyone else from the panel wanting to comment on the public health issues? We're coming to an end but... I think we need to make the distinction between what we traditionally realise as public health which is about safety and the dietary aspect, dietary and nutritional aspects of public health so when you mention public health to a group of professionals they're on the safety aspect but it needs to be wider than that Okay I think I thought it was going to give Richard Lyle the last question I'm quite happy to take that on board Bob Doris would you think you want the second last question Well two quick questions Bob can have the last question Bob can have the last question Richard Lyle First I can agree with Mr Morton that there was some on labelling there was quite an interesting meeting I had with Coca-Cola Did you know that Coca-Cola actually adjusts a formula in every country to meet the local requirements which I found quite interesting so I don't know where it is between UK and France or Luxembourg or whatever but the change of formula throughout the world which is quite interesting In regards to the point of who should sit on the board and I think Mr Martin is quite sceptic in one way but the situation is I would agree that it should be a possibly a bigger board where I'm sure there are many people out there who have the expertise to come on who won't be your ancestors or your warrisons or even your retail consortium guys it will be experts in the field and I'm sure that would be the case Thank you Last question to Bob Doris I'll try and fit a question there Of course first praise Mr Morton Mr Anderson because you're the only two witnesses that's ever said who should be on that board Everyone else has ducked the questions so thank you very much for doing that In relation to the public health levy it is worth putting on record that the reason it was called a public health levy because it targeted the largest retails it sold both alcohol and tobacco and I think that's important to put on the record that's why that was targeted but I'm kind of interested I'm not going to go back to the details of labelling although the reason I had asked the question convener was hopefully to give the reassurance that it's not going to be micro details on labelling it was more about food fraud and I think people would readily assume that if you're paying for a lamb and you're getting beef that's just wrong that's not a minor infringement on labelling that's just fraud likewise if you get a deal it's too good to be true because 170p a kilo and 130p a kilo there's a responsibility on the retailer and I think that was that line of questioning I take on board quite rightly how you have to follow that not just the retailer but right through the food chain and I'm sure the expertise is there to do that but the question convener I did want to mop some of that up I thought it was important to provide balance to it the question convener is in relation to how that all fits in with the duty to report so if a retailer or whoever within the food chain has a deal that's just too good to be true and you know it's iffy, you know it's dodgy I would expect that there should be a statutory obligation to raise that with the authorities rather than not so there's now a duty to report where they believe there could be infringement some views on that would be good but actually in praise of the retail sector and I want to know how widespread it is a representative from Tesco were here the other weekend they said since the horse meat scandal there's much more transparency in relation to the testing they do and reporting that testing and how they're working now in partnership with food standards experts and Dilar's retailers to have a more risk based targeted approach to testing cos there had been a feeling beforehand that sometimes you can test to validate what you think is safe or how you build in the risk element and target what is more appropriate to test so the two aspects to my question convener in terms of the duty to report we'll see that has been an important part within the bill in relation to everyone meeting their responsibilities and is that enough been done in relation to the transparency of testing of the large retailers is that better on a voluntary basis or should we looking in the future at having that on a statutory basis not really a brief end question but it does fit in well with previous questions That's the panellys bob if you would agree that we focus on the duty to report and the inspection a quick responses please David Martin Colin Wallace Can I just start with the duty it might just be our reading of the bill and therefore we don't maybe slightly misinterpreted this but I'm a bit of a loss as to why in principle no problem at all but a bit of a loss of why this has been included in the bill given that the FIR will make this a provision anyway in April 2015 so from our perspective it's obliged to report this the wording is food business operators which do not affect food information shall not supply food which they know or presume on the basis of the information in their possession as professionals to be non-compliant with applicable food information law so we will be compelled from April 2015 next year to do this anyway so in principle yes but don't understand why it's in the bill in terms of the transparency perspective absolutely Tim Smith from Tesco is absolutely right he's indicated across all of our members that transparency is key though we need to make sure that we get the transparency right so as I've said since the horse meet incident we've tested around 10,000 products we've shared all of that information publicly and we shared it all with the FSA on a voluntary basis but actually is the FSA interested in every single one of those 10,000 tests probably not, is that a good use of resource probably not are we better perhaps sharing trends and making that public on a targeted basis that's probably an easier way to make the information more relevant and digestible and pertinent for obviously enforcement reasons Thank you, Colin Wallace Very quickly yes, they should a lot of businesses do they work very closely with environmental health give us information about areas that they're skeptical about and concerned about because they know we're there to help and provide them with that, supporting advice and guidance and yes, the reason they should do it is because there's no reason to then turn around and say we weren't aware, we didn't think there was anything wrong we weren't aware about this and we didn't, if they know that it is a duty on them and that's what we would advise them and assist them in understanding their responsibilities so that would be yes in terms of transparency yes, I agree with Irvine that's been said as well local authorities, the one area of concern I have is that local authorities have consistently passed 10 years possibly reduced their sampling budget in terms of savings and that has caused difficulties in relation to properly targeting risk based approaches to local and national food sampling areas so local authorities want to do as much as they can Ironically, once the horse meat DNA scandal broke that's when all of a sudden there's a flurry of samples being taken in particular that area that might well have been brought up or found out earlier, had local authorities continued to sampling at the rate they had done previously but you mentioned I know I've been putting pressure on it but you mentioned earlier that part of your role is to inform and keep up your people informed about legislation, have you been briefing out of the responsibility of people in 2015 as David Martin has pointed out, this will be the law in 2015, do people know that and have you made them aware of that in your role? Well environmental health personnel will they'll be discussing with the people they meet on a day to day basis environmental health is much wider than just food safety it's an integral part of that but when they're dealing with other issues they're advising people of what may well be they can only say that this is on the horizon potentially this is what will happen I mean I didn't know that I'll put my hands up and confess I'm scrutinising this bill but I didn't know that that would be the law in 2015 I think it's important that people who are going to have to be applying these laws and living up to them should be well aware of them as part of an education programme I would have thought I think, was it Tony Macaulay was the next one I wanted to respond I think it was, actually it didn't and then you, and that's what's going on I would certainly concur with the duty in terms of the FIR it will come in in April next year if a retailer trader has guilty knowledge of a possible fraud they've got to pass that information on that duty has to be implied and I do agree with Mr Wallace's point on transparency that's what desperately needed is transparency but ultimately for the consumer it's the consumer who's built as the ultimate end person, has to have all the information and it's something even as simple as we get or still deal with is substitution of spirits the bottle of smirn off behind the bar which it's supermarket vodka that's in it, that's a very simplistic fraud but someone against paying a higher price for a branded vodka, whiskey, whatever and getting a substituted spirit environmentally health can take that as a food safety and defence, we in trade standards can take it as a trade standards offence under the consumer protection from unfair trading regulations so there is, we can be creative in terms of how we enforce the legislation but more transparency in the actual marketplace is desperately needed Gil? Well it sounds as if the duty to reports dealt with anyway, I've comment on the testing the testing should be proportionate otherwise we're wasting resources I would ask a more fundamental question though and that's why are we testing we're testing the product to see if it is what it says on the tin or the pack and one of the issues that the consumer faces is this too much confusing information on the pack so for example some of the information on the pack some of the logos and symbols currently being used don't actually mean anything they have no legal definition for example the scotch beef logo means that that the meat has come from an animal which has been born, reared and processed in Scotland the salt hire on a packet of beef means nothing it has no legal definition and I think in some way in the labelling aspect in terms of testing to ask the question why we testing we need to make sure that we're testing for the right reasons and therefore that the information is relevant to the consumer to allow the consumer to make a decision and that the enforcement authorities can actually enforce what needs to be enforced Can I on behalf of the committee express our appreciation for all the time you've given this morning the evidence that you've provided has made this quite an interesting session for us thank you very much indeed to suspend at this point to set up for the next item on the agenda thanks very much we now move to agenda item number four which is our continuing scrutiny of the NHS board budget and today we're hearing from the Scottish Government we welcome Paul Gray director general and social care and chief executive of NHS Scotland welcome Christine McLaughlin deputy director, finance, health and wellbeing and John Conaghan director for health, workforce and performance Scottish Government welcome to you all I believe that you wish to make an opening statement thank you Mr Gray thank you convener and I will be brief just wanted to thank the committee for this opportunity to discuss the budgets we start from a strong base in NHS Scotland budgets we plan for the long term and the short term and we have clear financial planning assumptions our base is built on the fact that boards have delivered services within financial plans for the last six years and continue to deliver efficiency savings at or above the targets set wanted to assure the committee that budgets are not developed in isolation but form part of boards planning for service delivery and workforce and our methods of funding are designed to provide equity as well as stability and incentivise the right behaviours in terms of efficiency and planning boards plans for 2014-15 will again deliver a balanced position but we also recognise that it's becoming increasingly challenging to do so and this will continue that's why we have such a strong focus on improvement and efficiency and also why we're taking forward the very important work on the integration of health and social care convener is there anything that the committee would like to know about that we don't have immediately to hand today I always give an undertaking to provide that as quickly as possible and I will do so again and I will make good use of my colleagues who are with me who have expertise in particular areas in which the committee may have an interest thank you for the short opening remarks we'll go directly to questions and the first questions from the net miller as a member representing the north east of Scotland it will probably come as no surprise to people in government that I have a particular concern about the NRAC formula given that at this point in time Grampian is 34.7 million below parity whereas NHS Glasgow and Clyde is more than that above parity I know that there's a name to make things more equal over the next three years or so but I would be interested to know if we can find the resources to bridge that gap and given the financial pressures on health boards how the alignment to parity will greater Glasgow and Clyde be expected to receive basically the reduction to get towards parity and Grampian that increase towards parity I'll ask Christine to say a little more about the detail but one of the reasons of course that we've set a trajectory close to parity within the next few years is to give them some foresight of what we plan to do so that we don't introduce a series of shocks into the system we do recognise the pressures faced by boards but we seek to support them through a number of measures including interventions that John Conacher and his team lead in order to ensure that when they face short-term pressures they are supported and will give you a slightly more detailed account of our approach to moving towards enrack parity The planning assumption within 2014-15 is that we're putting £47.5 million into bringing boards closer to enrack parity and over the next three years we've got planning assumptions on additional funding as part of our budget setting process so it's money that's put aside that goes closer to parity so that the trajectory based on current figures for grampain would show that the money that we're putting in over those next three years will bring them to within 1% so that's about a planning assumption over that period of time the thing about enrack obviously is that it's about relative shares and so we don't take money from any particular board so a board that's funded above parity but this is additional money that goes into boards that are further from parity so all territorial boards are receiving a real terms increase in 2014-15 and the plan is for that to continue in future years of 2015-16 so boards such as Greater Glasgow and Clyde will still receive a real terms increase in their funding what they wouldn't get is that additional top-up on enrack funding so that's how we manage the relative shares to bring everybody to boards is below 1% below parity if that answers your question how can the enrack formula guarantee that the allocator resources reflect the true needs of an area and not just based on the proportion of population and their age group which I think has been the case so I can give more information on the way that they do that if you'd like more detail to follow up but in general terms the formula takes account of population but it also takes consideration of morbidity and life circumstances as an adjustment within the formula we look at the number of hospital admissions in an area and the average length of stay so there is a mechanism within it to try to understand the relative need and the cost of that need within each population and there is a group that represents boards and has health economists on it which tries to always be refining the formula as a go so there is currently work being done on the acute morbidity and life circumstances over a two-year period they are looking at whether they have taken to account all of the relative factors to do that Thanks I wish to get back to the two board areas I mentioned clearly the Grampian area doesn't have the extent of deprivation that the Greater Glasgow and Clyde board would have to deal with rapidly ageing population places like Aberdeenshire and I think there are hidden pockets of deprivation that maybe don't always come to light so I think there is a real concern and you just need to get a bit more parity so that we can achieve what's best for the population as a whole Okay Just briefly then I mean I think one of the reasons as Christine McLaughlin has explained we seek to keep a very close watching brief on the formula is that of course populations do change and with population mobility we want to be sure that we reflect that I think no funding formula will be perfect because it can't change weekly or monthly it changes slowly over time to reflect changes in population and other factors we are for example looking to the impact of providing remote and rural services so the addition of an element which would reflect variation in the cost of providing out of ours GP services across urban and rural geographies and better reflecting the higher cost of providing services in the islands so we do try to keep the formula under close review and to ensure that if there are changes in circumstances these are reflected but you know given that the allocation process that we've got it will never be a perfect fit to every circumstance I've got a couple of speakers but I suppose you mentioned then you're opening the march and I think it's important to us who live in the Glasgow Clyde area with the represent constituencies where the populations can change usually in a declining direction leaving behind in good terms the old and the lame the sick that hasn't changed over that period of time the populations may change but they need and the disproportionate need grows and we've had evidence that while everyone accepts there's no perfect funding mechanism from both sides of that argument and evidence from senior people in these boards they both say that more work needs to be done to refine the system that we have and I think that was represented in evidence and I don't know if you've seen that evidence or not and what is your response to that well again I'll turn to Christine in a second but I think convener it's fair to say that senior people in most boards can advance quite compelling arguments about the local conditions that they face and I certainly don't in any way want to underestimate or undervalue the circumstances of multiple deprivation faced by individuals and communities served by the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board but that I suppose is why we do keep this under review and I think what I would want to avoid is and I don't think it does happen is NRAC turning into some sort of competition between or among boards I don't say this simply to make the point it's as fair as we can make it at any given time but changes will inevitably introduce elements of perceived unfairness and that's why we try to keep it under review but do you want to hear more from Christine? Yes please If you look at 1415 Greater Glasgow and Clyde is receiving an uplift so it's 2.6% uplift so there is just to clarify there is no reduction in that and that's with the current formula Glasgow receives a higher amount of funding than the formula would suggest based on the current assumptions but the work that I referred to earlier that's currently underway it started in February this year on a review of acute morbidity and life circumstances Glasgow were heavily involved in that health economy, public health representation around that group to look at whether there is anything else that should be done to change that formula but final point I would make is also that every board in Glasgow included will have our best estimates of what the funding on NRAC is likely to be over the next three to five years so that they also have some certainty on the financial planning over that period of time but if something changes in that formula to accept the recommendations of that group they make amendments to the formula it's good to hear given the efficiency saving target that Glasgow Clyde will be expected to meet and given that they will not receive currently they are share on what sort of what is the comparison of the money allocated now and how much will that reduce over the coming year if you play in the efficiency savings and the reduced share or zero share of NRAC are? So the boards who are above parity don't receive the additional NRAC funding but they receive their uplift so 2.6% uplift to Glasgow in 2014-15 the efficiency savings then that the Glasgow January are all retained locally so none of that is there is no cut to their so there is an increase in Glasgow's baseline with every other board so the question I think really is about the value of efficiency savings that the board has to generate in order to maintain its services and redesign services and deal with the cost pressures going forward so it's really about the efficiency savings value that they need to generate but all of that funds are retained within greater Glasgow and Clyde for reinvestment But if you take my basic point your disproportionate need to get it's not going to change over that three to four years Will they have more or less money to work with to meet that need over the next three or four years? Basically in times they will have more more money rather than less money In simple terms if they've got £100 now will they have £100 in four years time or will it be less or more? It will be more because they'll have an uplift every year I guess your point is what do they need to do with that money but in absolute terms they will have more money rather than less money In absolute terms but it will not increase proportionally inflation There'll be the real terms that the uplift to their baseline so 2.6% is the uplift to the baseline in Glasgow there's no cut to Glasgow's funding I'm just trying to figure out because you said in your opening remarks that they wouldn't get their element of then that funding They won't get the additional uplift that such as Grampian get How do they do the same money if they don't get the additional So everybody gets a baseline which I think is 2.5% Glasgow gets 2.6% reflecting different circumstances then on top of that Grampian will get an additional uplift to bring them closer to parity Glasgow is not needing to be given uplifts to bring them closer to parity but they are getting 2.6% as opposed to 2.5% recognising the circumstances that are prevailing So everybody's getting the 2.5% at least Glasgow gets 2.6% but in addition Grampian gets a bit more because it needs to be brought to in 1% I mean we could give you a table a genuinely first tell To make it simple if I can Glasgow will get 2.6% Grampian will get 4.6% of an uplift in 2014-15 So all boards get an uplift but there's different levels I think on the the funding element I think Rhoda Grant wants to come in Richard Simpson wants to come in Is there anyone else on that theme before we move to the next question led by Aileen McLeod No, okay A point of clarification to start with You say everyone gets an uplift in real terms so they get an increase in real terms Is that based on basic inflation or is that based on health inflation? It's just based on basic GDP deflator which is the core definition of real terms for the Government Okay, and in real terms if you were basing that on health inflation what would that mean? I don't have that comparator Could we get that? That would be useful Could we get that in writing? I don't think we actually have a definition of a What I can give you is the cost pressures and the inflation that boards identify as a cost within but I wouldn't have the equivalent of the GDP for health It used to be that there was a figure for health inflation What I can give you is the figures that boards quote as the inflationary factor for different pressures such as pay and prescribing if that would help I can give you something in writing on that and also if I can give you the table on the percentage uplifts for each board so that you can understand the difference between each board Okay, and I suppose the second part of my question just for clarification is the NRAC formula a bit of a blunt instrument? Is it responsive enough to changing circumstances? It seems even just taking Highland for an example they've been trying to cut budgets for so long and now they're suddenly underfunded It seems to me that changes happen but they're not reflected quickly enough within the formula I mean I think as said earlier NRAC is the best instrument we've got at the moment but it is not it is not an instrument that allows us to make significant in-year changes for example to reflect changing circumstances but were we to do so we would then be in a position of boards being in a position of great uncertainty about what their budgets would actually be so the combination of taking in the factors that affect the formula and giving boards current and future certainty is one that we have to balance it is it is an imperfect instrument but it is the best one we have is how I would describe it and it's replaced I think the Arbuthnot formula which preceded it and a lot of work went into producing NRAC to make it more flexible and more responsive so it's certainly it is certainly a flexible and responsive instrument but I don't think any such instrument in the world could be claimed to be perfect and I wouldn't do so Richard Of course we've been at this for a long long time in 1976 when the principal have had it, Robyn Smith did the original share system to try and redistribute funds so we've never quite got to the parity situation really slightly beyond that had two small questions one was given that Glasgow has had above its share under NRAC also that it is a blunt instrument what do you do in terms of holding them to account on the fact that health inequalities have not improved at all in Glasgow I mean it's all but NRAC, one of the two big things are age and deprivation I mean there's a thing about rurality as well but let's just stick to deprivation for the moment if deprivation is one of the main features of the distribution formula why levels of distribution should be applying those funds to tackling health inequalities how are you holding them to account to doing that well we hold them to account through the heat targets they have and I'll bring colleagues in a second I think without wanting to deflect your question Dr Simpson I would say that I would not hold a health board individually to account in relation to health inequalities I believe it's an issue that stretches across the range of public services and voluntary services that are commissioned in any area and one of the things we're doing for example through the early years collaborative is to try to recognise that the only way to tackle persistent health inequalities or persistent inequalities in general is to have cross sector working that delivers locally I think that some of the things we're doing around for example the child smile programme is an evidence of attempting to tackle health inequalities they're of long standing they're persistent and they're deep rooted and as the convener has said the risk that population shift means that the inequality has actually increased not decreased is one that we're very alert to I do know that the director of public health in greater Glasgow and Clyde takes this whole agenda very seriously and I don't know whether colleagues want to say more about the specifics John on health inequalities Can I just maybe amplify some of the comments that you made in relation to heat targets so over the years we've had a number of things for boards to pursue like for example increasing dental registrations reducing suicide rates delivery of smoking cessation targets drug and alcohol waiting times child and adolescent mental health infection rates etc some of these clearly related to deprivation and inequalities so we will want to see relatively better performance for boards that are actually below the norm in some of those areas and when you track heat performance over the years you will see that boards set individual trajectories that are part of LDP and local delivery planning sign-off on a non-ear basis so that's one of the ways that we can potentially hold boards to account for relative differences in performance Richard? Yes The other thing I wanted to ask about was really Paul Gray's already alluded to it and that is shifting the balance The Audit Scotland reports have been very clear and there's not a great deal of evidence of shifting the balance of care and we're hearing that we're getting an increasing campaign now from the general practitioners and I should declare an interest as a fellow of the Royal College of GPs and a member of the BMA but we are hearing a considerable clamour, I think it's becoming a clamour now from GPs and certainly my correspondence bag is really filling up with GPs feeling under massive pressure and yet their share proportionately of the budget has actually gone down as a share has gone down rather than up. Admittedly on a rising tide but their tide's been rising less than the others so my other question is related to NRAC how do you hold them to account for shifting the balance? Again I'll ask colleagues to say a bit about the local delivery plans and the trajectory that we're setting to health boards about the way in which they fund primary care in general but I'm very clear that primary care has a fundamental role to play in the integration of health and social care and when we get to the point of having the integrated joint boards fully established and the functions up and running completely I would expect that over time that will help us to shift care in the direction of out-of-hospital care and when we have said that our vision for the health service is that by 2020 more people will be living longer healthier lives in home or a homely setting and I mean that vision speaks for itself I'm using deliberately Dr Simpson the broader term primary care general practitioners make an enormous contribution but there is also a very valuable contribution from the wider primary care family and I mean I'm quite happy to say to this committee that I regard the utilization of primary care as a key component of the successful delivery of the integration of health and social care Thank you for that and I kindly accept that it's about speech and language therapy and physiotherapy and community nurses and school nurses and all these groups as well but I wonder is it possible for you to let us have the local delivery plans which I know encompass this idea which because you've made it a point are they now available are they public on the public domain and if not when could the committee get hold of them to have a look at what's actually planned in terms of shifting plans because local delivery plans are available on board websites so they're available right now and have been for some months I think what might be useful to draw the committee's attention to this is for us to also give you the guidance that we sent out to boards this year in terms of producing those plans because that I think might be useful for you to understand the context of how these plans were set I think also in the fill of the time the committee needs to be briefed on the health and wellbeing in terms of outcomes that we're currently consulting on as part of integration that consultation is currently under way but I think that's another important factor in terms of shifting the balance of care Thank you that's very helpful Bob Doris with an intervention yet very very brief supplementary in relation to this so in terms of the share of the budget that general practice gets maybe this is more of an accounting question but two things that are going on just now for example in the deep end projects in Glasgow there's link workers being based there and there's a cash cost to that but it alleviates pressures from GP's in those deep end practices because those link workers are dealing with matters that otherwise a GP would deal with I'm not sure whether that shows up in the GP's budget or another budget so that's an example of a spend that contributes towards general practice I'm not sure how that's accounted for so for example one of the first work streams is in relation to medications reviews and health boards being given money and I'm understanding that Glasgow doesn't work on this already and some of that money will go into health centres working beside general practices in relation to pharmacists getting in and doing some medications review again it's not money to GP's but it relieves pressures and burdens upon GP's does that money as an accountancy in term does that go towards share of spend in general practice or capturing all the public spend in general practice appropriately so that it might be a false share we're looking at maybe you might be right to us in relation to that but it's just where does that sit on the budget line Thanks Mr Doris we'd certainly be happy to do that and ensure that the funds provided are properly represented and I do want to take the opportunity since you mentioned the deep end practices to say I've had some experience through conversation of what they're doing and it's an extremely valuable piece of work that I think sits well with the approach that we are trying to take to tackling really very persistent inequalities so they're a really good example of a work in progress Thank you I actually wanted to come back to the health and social care integration agenda because obviously our health boards and local authorities will be required to put in place the local integrated arrangements by April next year with the full integration of services by April the following year and obviously the key is going to be how we implement this on the ground so I know that the Scottish Government has been available an additional resource of £100 million for the integrated care fund so just to kind of ask Mr Gray for some more detail about what the actual criteria that will be used to determine the allocation and the distribution of that fund and how it will be implemented to make sure that there is real and genuine partnership and collaborative approaches between the different key stakeholders I'll turn to Christine in a second I think for me and we'll speak about the formal criteria in a second but for me the key criterion on the integration fund is that it's used to fund projects or implementations that make a real difference to the way that we deliver services for the benefit of people there'll be much more in terms of criteria but for my part the focus of the integration of health and social care is to ensure that we provide within the resources we have available the best possible services to individuals and that our approach to delivering service is focused on need rather than a provider centric approach so for my part a key element of what I would like to see delivered through the integration fund focus on individuals and communities but Christine can say more about the detail I guess just to put it in the context obviously in the year that we're looking at just now in 2014-15 we still have the final year of the change fund and the fund that you're referring to is 2015-16 for one year in addition to that we also have funding for partnerships for integration support transition funding £7 million has just been agreed to go out to partnerships so there are the three different components in terms of what you're talking about so the £100 million for partnerships we would expect it to be developed in partnership as the change fund has been so between NHS boards, local authorities and the third sector and we'll be giving the partners further guidance on that shortly so that they can develop their plans but it's very much about being an enabler to unlocking some of the improvement that we're looking to see so partnerships will already have a good sense of what they believe that money could be used for in preparation for integration but I think I would say it is that they will be able to make good use of the final year of the change fund in this financial year so it's not really about waiting until 15-16 to us to all partners is to be getting on with this now to be looking at that change fund money this year to be pump priming some of the things that we'd look to see and although there'll be a slightly different criteria for 15-16 those key themes about working together in partnership about keeping people out of hospital and having services in the community and people's home setting will be themes that will apply in 15-16 what the one difference for the 15-16 fund on integrating care is a recognition that this applies to the under-65s as well and people with complex needs that will be looking to see some impact on that age group within the fund in 15-16 and how will that link in with the strategic commissioning and with the national health and wellbeing outcomes themselves so the partners are already starting to work on draft strategic plans so they'll be able to look at what their plans are for using the change fund in 14-15 and using the integrating care fund in 2015-16 as some of their enablers to deliver against their ambitions for their plans so it does start now a number of partnerships already have draft strategic plans that they're building just now so they'll be looking to see what their plans were for the use of those non-recurring funds to try to kick start some of their initiatives. That's very helpful, thanks very much. Maybe that's something that can be shared with the committee just in terms of the integrated fund just so we can see where it sort of sits with everything else around health and social care. I think as a committee we would you know we first of all accept the principle that this is where the integration or where we're looking at collaboration I think we are at the stage not formally but we are at the stage that this is not simply the responsibility of health although health is a big part to play. I think we would we would be looking for now or even later about what lessons we learned from how the change funds previously were spent whether they we are confident that the third involuntary sector who complained bitterly is weren't having the sign off the hard and felt the poor relations at the wedding and all of that. I think these are important issues and I would be interested to know that we've got £100 million here for that integration what are others bringing to the party accepting that there are many issues here that will be an education budget a justice budget a social work budget where you're contributing £100 million what is the pot going to be like I suppose to ensure that these initiatives through integration and collaboration on these issues are getting the maximum buying from others. I think that's a fair point convener and we'll certainly bring forward some of the lessons we've learned already from the change funds. I think that one of the tests of all of this will be when we get to the 15-16 financial year and beyond seeking to be fully integrated by the end of that year one of the tests will be and it will apply equally to help as to every other portfolio the sense of real willingness to devote resource to making this happen and ensuring that there is a sense of equity and parity and I don't want to pass by your point about the third sector one of the things that I have been consistent in saying to senior colleagues in the health services we've got to make it as easy as possible for the third sector to make the contribution they make and not to over bureaucratise our approach to engaging with the third sector. Thanks for that. Could you give us an update about what's going on now with COSLA and your department in regards to one stage here we had an evidence here where we're top slicing your budget and handing it over and we know that there has been constructive discussion around these issues about who's funding what and whether funds can and will transfer if there has been ongoing discussions you've referred to what stage are those discussions at? Well I think the discussions are continuing and I think I understand that the Cabinet Secretary and Peter Johnston are about to issue a letter of guidance to the health board chief executives about the policy expectations so I wouldn't want to pre-empt that but my understanding is very short and I would want to make sure it was shared with the committee immediately I don't know whether Christine you want to say any more on the discussions with COSLA at this stage One thing that has been quite consistent is that there will be an identification of resources in relation to the total spend on adult social care and that needs to cover community hospital care in the community it needs to cover social care and it needs to cover care that relates to that population so all of that resource where partners are currently working on how they identify all of that resource and they use integrated resources framework and he had discussions with some of the territorial board directors finance about that integrated resource framework allows partners to identify the resources through the whole pathway and that will be the basis of the costs that are to inspired then for the partnerships going forward Can I return to Heat Targets but not in the way you may think that I'm going to talk about them Piracy Serving on the Rule Affairs Climate Change Committee a committee is interested in asking other committees to look at their contribution to reduction in climate change Scottish Government has an excellent programme but in some ways we haven't met it but what your department is doing to reduce energy consumption if we take the budget as a whole 12, 13 million approaching 13 million what's the current energy costs within that budget or overall all the boards I'm sure you'll have that figure that you can give me straight away but basically the situation is that you know you go into any health hospital you know the costs are basically staff etc but energy costs a tremendous cost in 365 days a year most lights are on what we're doing to reduce energy costs within the NHS Well, Mr Carnachan will give us something on that and Christine if you want to follow up I think what we need to do is just reflect on the question you've given us about the amount of money that's in here and what we're doing to reduce that and I'm afraid I don't have those figures to hand but we can send them to you but you did mention heat targets and we actually have heat targets to reduce energy-based carbon dioxide emissions and to continue a reduction in energy consumption to contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction target set in the Climate Change Scotland Act 2009 so we've got something specifically there for boards to chase and perhaps part of the submission that they give back to you we can give you an update on where boards are in delivering that You know annually we have the State of the NHS Scotland Assets and Facilities report and from that what we've identified is that energy consumption is reduced by 9.7% and that boards are continuing to reduce energy consumption and the estimate is it would have cost around £9 million higher if we hadn't had that reduction 12 months so basically taking active steps putting better reduce lighting, not reduce lighting but the better type of lamps that give the same light but reduce the energy cost Yes and the new hospital in Glasgow is being designed in line with the latest energy efficiency standard so when we're opening or developing new premises we're making sure that they conform but we can give more detail from individual boards as John Conachin has said but the overall reduction as Christine Llygothan has said has saved us £9 million and reduced carbon emissions so far through you convener certainly welcome the fact that actually in this building we've reduced substantially energy costs and I welcome the fact that the good news is that you've actually reduced your energy consumption too thank you I suppose I should declare an interest as Dr Simpson did I'm afraid I don't have any particular qualification that Mr Simpson did but I'm going to ask about workforce planning tools in relation to nursing and my wife is a nurse I suppose you put that on the record that I say to my wife who went for the NHS on a daily basis then she tells me what happens on her ward on a daily basis she lies in the middle somewhere but in relation to workforce planning tools there has been a lot of progress made in conjunction with the RC and other stakeholders to nail down in certain circumstances the size and the shape of the workforce and the workload that they're expected to do I've been interested in a little bit more about how that relates to future budget settlements because obviously workforce is the largest part of the NHS budget in terms of the headcounts a very politicised affair as well so some more information about how that workforce and workload management tools feeds into budget settlements would be quite helpful so not just for the current year we're scrutinising but going forward where would you sign posters to scrutinise in a way forward quite frankly in relation to that but also what the Scottish Government plans are to be developing that a bit bit further so we've got allied health professionals going to have an additional significant role particularly with health and social care integration we're going to have a lot of change in the workforce as it's a lot more community based so I'm delighted it's not a matter of just saying isn't it good to have a workforce planning tool that's a good thing but by its very nature it's going to have to develop and change quite radically in the years ahead so how will that be managed and I suppose what I'm asking how will the financial underpinning of that be fed into NHS budgets okay thanks for that I'll bring John and Christine in on that but I think the thing just to mention for the committee is that this year the use of these tools is now mandated so in the past it was optional we believe that it was right to move to making it mandatory I think already seen some improvements in the way that boards have been able to assign the resources currently available to them but John do you want to say a bit more about that Thank you Paul I think it was 2008-9 that we introduced the first workforce workload planning tools particularly for nursing in the NHS in Scotland and in 2010-11 the national RCN held up Scotland as an example of good practice in this area and commended that approach to the rest of the UK so I think you're right to say that Scotland did a little bit of path breaking on this one now those tools have developed over the past three or four years and our director general has intimated that we have now made these mandatory because we think they work they produce good results and in terms of how we relate to budgets we expect each board to produce an annual workforce plan we have guidance out on that on CEL 23 2011 that was issued where each board is required to produce an annual workforce plan and indeed the projection and to relate that to two other things first of all budgets but also relate that to service changes so workforce planning itself cannot take place in isolation it needs to have some degree of triangulation but also some degree of triangulation available with service changes and plans and all of those are subjected to the annual planning process but also boards are requested also to look further ahead such that they have some forecast of workforce planning requirements and all of that as I say is refreshed on an annual basis you mentioned the development of tools where most of the tools currently in practice are in for nursing we are considering how we can expand these we have opened some discussions around expanding the use of a workload planning tool into accident emergency departments which will cover not just nursing but also cover doctors and all ITL professionals but that's at a relatively early stage and I think certainly in full minister time we can come back to say to the committee how we're developing into other areas when we're a bit further down the track I suppose that's helpful but I suppose what I'm trying to do is link it to the budget scrutiny that's taking place and you're quite right to point out that you don't change staffing skills mixes overnight and there's a wider picture and health and social care integration is hopefully developing a pace at any point I mean I know across party there's a dramatic move away from ring fencing in terms of how that staff mix is funded by territorial health boards would that be part of an NRAC formula would that be just part of the normal uplift so greater Glasgow and Clyde got their 2.6% so they get real terms above inflation increase not a dramatic amount but you know an increase did that take into account the staffing mix when that was done or was it a case of health boards have to manage large budgets and redesign services themselves I suppose what I'm trying to ask is how much is this micromanaged from the top and how much is it for health boards to get on with using the mandatory planning tools and designing the service accordingly I think I made just a few other additional remarks on that but Christine will fill in some details I think I'm right in saying that NHS boards simply have that broad NRAC allocation and then they need to determine how best to use that for their local population taking into account the mix of what they have available at local level in terms of expenditure on fixed cost and resources versus variable cost which is workforce because not all boards are obviously at the same place in terms of their investment plans around the bricks and mortar that they have available so there needs to be some degree of local flexibility the other thing I should have mentioned in relation to workforce and workload tools is that there is a significant element of discretion which is left to local practitioners local managers, local clinicians and senior nurses in terms of how they adjust what the workforce planning tool tells them for local circumstances for example a mix of patients that's perhaps more frail than the norm then they have the ability to adjust that workforce tool to provide for additional staff to cope with that requirement for flexibility it's very much in the boards discretion their baseline funding which is the majority of the funding for territorial health boards will comprise those nursing costs so it's for the board to look at their service redesign to look at their efficiency savings plan and to look at how they manage all of that while still taking account of how they achieve change so their turnover levels for instance would form part of that so we don't micromanage that process but we do look at how boards compare and what they're doing in the relative percentages and we would always look to understand why there are differences across boards but it's for the boards to decide how to use that baseline funding in the provision of services for their population I suppose the briefest of comments rather than another question hindsight is a wonderful thing we're trying to develop how we can best do board budget scrutiny and maybe there's a more detailed question we should have been asking of boards in relation to where do you see your nursing staff numbers in three years time, what are your budget assumptions around that in this particular year and how you move towards it and other pressures but I suppose that's not necessarily a question for yourselves but we're just trying to get a meaningful way of developing budget scrutiny around something as significant as nursing numbers in the workload Yes, thank you I mean the other thing of course that the committee I want to bear in mind is that NHS Education Scotland looks ahead on demand for training places for nurses and doctors and so forth so there is also a long-term planning horizon to ensure that we have the right as far as we can the right number of people available to come into the system in years to come so the committee's right to recognise that it's a complex environment but we certainly don't attempt from the centre to reach down to hospital and ward level and try to define dispositions there I think it was a very relevant line of question not just for the committee's scrutiny work but in terms of the future of the NHS because I think Mr Conahan presented figures here certainly from his department a couple of years ago that showed clearly there would be a reduction in nurses but a substantial increase in ally professionals and I presume that that fitted in with a an idea about where we're going the 2020 vision more people treat you at home then what my concern is in general about all of this that we've got a workforce planning tool that is focused in and around nurses we have some recent announcements about appointments to A&E and whatever I don't know if that was part of the long-term planning but going back to your triangle about the money available of course the service changes in plans and what was the other one and the resulting workforce and the resulting workforce and I don't know whether that's a triangle or whether that's a CISO in terms of the political pressures that we're all working on there maybe Bob's right there's a session that we need to do in workforce planning but are you confident that currently that we're planning the workforce of the future which is based on this is how we measure it now that we need to go out of this we measure it on the number of consultants the number of nurses the number of hospitals the number of procedures in hospitals you know and we don't get that focus about where the new workforce what the new workforce is going to look like we've recently done a fairly large piece of work that's been about a year a year and a half in preparation on what I would call the very highest levels of best practice and strategic level planning for the workforce and it might be useful if the kind of guidance that we're in the process of issuing to boards we give you a site of that it's a good piece of work and what that does is that helps boards look 5, 10 years in future that brings together all the evidence that we've been able to collect over the past year and a half in terms of what really happens but I can also make just another thought for the committee here and that is that we shouldn't set us all out that more staff in a particular area is perhaps the only way forward staff mix changes skill mix changes and services change so if I was going to say for example the introduction of one stop clinics in the past 10 years in Scotland has meant that the requirement for let's say half a dozen clinic staff by half a dozen sets of administrative staff have now reduced it's a better deal for patients but we've tended to put the savings and the changes that have been associated with that into let's say clinical staff so that's why I think when I'll scan down the NHS workforce I can see significant changes in staff groups and all of that against a plan that says this is how we're going to do it and refreshed annually by our boards so I'm quite happy to give you something I think on what you're telling me I think we'd appreciate that because I mean I just can't get this 2020 focus closer to your home, nearing your home and we are planning the clinicians of the future it's all a hospital based in our thinking I don't know what going back to the original point where this is not just an issue for health about whether we're planning the workforce in relationship to not just the clinical workforce but in terms of what we need in the community in terms of social work and to the parents of supporters the parents of their carers and given Aileen's issue earlier about commissioning of these services we need to know whether that workforce is going to come from so it's pretty important it's a very good point convener and I think one of the key tasks for the integrated joint boards will be to give foresight on workforce requirements because you're absolutely right to say that by no means all of the workforce that provides care will come from within health the one figure I would put in front of the committee and I'm deliberately taking it out of any political space by quoting starting in September 2009 there were 9,579 allied health professionals for example occupational therapy and all the others we mentioned and in March 2014 there were 11,194 and I simply make that point that if I look at that compared to the changes in other staffing ratios within the health service the most significant increase that I can see is in relation to the allied health professionals similarly personal and social care has gone up from 763 in September 2009 to 909 in March 2014 so I am deliberately making a comparison within one one government's term of office but just to show that trajectory is there on some of these relevant but of course we've been reminded here and committee hearings before that what we find difficult to do is change the existing services so we add on services but we don't necessarily tackle the others but anyway I think it is an interesting area that we would happily engage with the Scottish Government in exploring there's no doubt about that I suppose the other one that leads on too quickly is the other side of that argument but where there are concerns about the shifts when it be nursing care availability whatever is a whole question of quality and indeed some of the savings that are being proposed by the special boards are indeed in and around reducing the number of people that they employ so how do we do that safely in the process maintain that quality and achieve these changes in the workforce that we need to achieve I mean I think what we don't do is drop our quality standards I think also I mean I've had a number of interesting conversations for example with the ambulance service about the changes they've already made to the way that they deliver services which provide a much higher level of care to people before they reach any hospital based setting so I think the part of what we do in that is take advantage of new techniques and new technologies we're also benefiting from the implementation and spreading the implementation of telehealth and telecare which removes some of the need for home visits and I've seen that working very effectively in NHS Ayrshire and Arran and I'll only pick that as an example but I don't know Christine or John if you want to come in on the way in which we ensure quality in the delivery by special boards in particular against the resource pressures we've raised Some of the evidence that you heard people like Simon Belford from National Services Scotland was about the real focus on things like rationalising their estate and within their efficiency so in some ways I think there might be an exemplar to how to go about this type of review they've looked at what they could make more efficient with the way in which they provide services in their overall infrastructure and the staff savings that they've been able to make have been ones that they were able to make within their existing turnover levels a very successful programme of redeployment and retraining for staff in quite specialised areas so it would be able to do all that within the context for four special health boards that returned funding of £144 million over four years and doing all that within existing policies of no compulsory redundancy some of those examples that they gave you are areas that we'd like to see spread more in some cases across the board so special health boards have had a different set of circumstances of a different uplift in that time and we've set them some quite challenging savings targets whilst also looking for them to be the boards who can generate savings within the territorial health boards as well so I think it's quite a positive story from the special health boards Can I give you an example which perhaps more directly answers your question about the quality and cost balance and each each year we support across Scotland what we call a framework for quality efficiency and value and this is where we try to spread best practice and support lower cost better quality and here's one example it's called the productive general practice for practice nurses and this is a little project that we're currently running across Scotland where we outline what the benefits are to practice teams streamlining activity across the practice eliminating waste enabling practice nurses to add value and spend more time with patients so that's a practical example in productive general practice where we can see a lower cost base being achieved but a bit better outcomes in terms of quality and there are many examples in fact there's an annual report which is published which gives quite a number of examples across all health boards in Scotland that the committee might want to see in relation to that Thank you for that Is there any other questions from the committee? I mean the only there's a long list here but the whole question of preventable spend that the committee has been interested in and you know again maybe falling on from your recent contribution there is about how the Scottish Government is supporting boards in estimating preventable savings because what we got in response to the questions and the questionnaire and indeed and the whole question of preventable spend there were some people were saying well it's not possibly provide you with you know financially qualified you know savings et cetera and there seem to be if you look at the questionnaires whether they fully understand the question of outputs and outcomes you know the evidence there for you to see and I don't know how much work that you actually do in this area and whether you need to do more work in this area in terms of to bring about a situation where they can identify what they're doing they can identify what the preventive strategy is going to gain and they clearly understand you know the outputs from outcomes I mean you make a very fair point I think the first thing to say to the committee is I don't think there's ever going to be a line in any health board budget that says preventative spend in a very clearly encapsulated this is the percentage the difficulty is that quite a lot of what we do is preventative spend so for example the statyn therapy as part of the management strategy for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease for adults and there's an economic model that's been developed by the Department of Health in England which estimated that vascular checks in all those aged 40 to 74 years every five years was cost effective the reason I mention these two things is simply because there are preventative activities that are undertaken as part of a regular visit to a GP surgery there are preventative activities undertaken by NHS 24 when people phone up, they get advice they do something that prevents them from having to go to hospital there are preventative activities that we're doing around exercise and wellbeing and to try to encapsulate these down into into budget lines is virtually impossible however my point of outcomes is the place for us to look because what I'm really keen that we should do more on is understanding to put it very simply the value for money of intervention so that if we are in an age as we are of resource constraints every area is everybody in the public and private sector is then making sure that when we are making interventions they're the ones most likely to deliver positive outcomes for people and for communities part of that I think is about allowing involving people and communities in the discussions about what would work for them I think that a sort of top down imposition of solutions is not always effective so part of our programme in the integration of health and social care is to ensure that conversations happen in localities that actually are meaningful to them because I'm quite certain convener that what will work in your constituency might not work in one or two of the constituencies represented by other members of this committee and that's why it's important that we take our preventative spend agenda right into the communities and say well if this is the resource we've got these are the options we've got what's most likely to work for you now that's a long way of saying the focus and outcomes is where this will actually start to bite I think trying to strip out budget lines is probably not going to work we may just overuse the term preventative I think we all do but thanks for your attendance here today we appreciate it and we want to complete our report on that and we look forward to the information we offer during the session and we'll be happy to play a role as a committee in some of these the challenging issues that we have thank you very much indeed for your attendance we now go into private session as previously agreed correct thank you