Scottish housing associations look like being next to offer all their workers the real living wage of £8.75 per hour after the Director of Angus Housing Association called for all housing associations to lose public subsidies unless they commit to achieving Living Wage accreditation.

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/19209/housing-associations-pay-living-wage-risk-losing-public-subsidy/

It seems likely the Scottish Government will be sympathetic to the call as it already has a policy to pay all public-sector workers the living wage. Similarly, NHS Scotland will pay the living wage to all its employees. See these earlier reports for more detail:

With 1 in 4 living wage employers already in Scotland, the Scottish Government aims to make this a ‘Living Wage Nation’

80 000 lowest paid workers in NHS England still on poverty wages as NHS Scotland follows Scottish Government policy to pay a living wage to all public-sector employees

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

The UK Government living wage is only £7.50 per hour and payable only to over-25s. The report in Scottish Housing News does not make clear the starting point for the Living Wage but I understand from other sources it will be 21.

http://slw.povertyalliance.org/about

Another small but important step to becoming a ‘better nation?’

Scotland continues to have more GPs per head of population than any other part of the UK and the number of GPs has remained constant. The number of GPs in Scotland has remained at around 4 900 since 2008.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/Publications/2017-12-12/2017-12-12-GPWorkforce2017-Report.pdf?36372011900

The latest figures for the number of GPs in the UK are:

• 41 985 GPs in England – last published in Sept 2016
• 4 953 GPs in Scotland (does not include locums) – last published Jan 2017 (350 locums in 2015)
• 2 887 GPs in Wales (includes 634 locums) – last published 30 Mar 2016
• 1 274 GPs in Northern Ireland (does not include locums) – last published Oct 2015
  

The number of locums in Scotland in 2015 was 350.

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/Publications/2016-06-14/2016-06-14-PrimaryCareWorkforceSurveyScotland2015-Report.pdf

So, the ratio of GPs to overall population is:

• England 1 GP for every 1262 people
• Scotland 1 GP for every 999 people
• Wales 1 GP for every 1060 people
• N Ireland 1 GP for every 1421 people

The number of GP practices is:

• 7 613 in England – last published in Sept 2016
• 958 in Scotland – last published Jan 2017
• 454 in Wales – last published 30 Mar 2016
• 349 in Northern Ireland – last published Oct 2015

The number of practices is a less meaningful statistic than the number of GPs per capita as these vary in size considerably but the number, nevertheless, could give an indication of access in terms of geography.

The ratio of practices to overall population is:

• England 1 practice for every 6962 people
• Scotland 1 practice for every 5532 people
• Wales 1 practice for every 6746 people
• N Ireland 1 practice for every 5189 people

The relatively large number of practices in Northern Ireland, despite having the worst ratio of GPs to population might suggest a tendency only for smaller practices there. In contrast, Scotland having the best ratio of GPs to population along with a relatively high number of practices suggest better geographical access.

Above figures are from the BMA’s General practice in the UK – background briefing 2017

This information can, of course, be added to that suggesting that Scotland also has a significantly higher number of nurses per capita. See:

As the Herald attempts to worry us with 0.58% of nurses planning to work abroad, official statistics show NHS Scotland has many more nurses per head of population than crisis-ridden NHS England, after 10 years of SNP administration.

(c) churchofscotland.org.uk

First on banning tobacco in public places, first on minimum alcohol pricing, first on free care for the disabled, first to commit to really tackling poverty and homelessness, first to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses, first on baby boxes and free sanitary products, the Scottish Government looks like being first to give refugees the right to vote. Kind of different from Britain First, I’d say.

From the Independent (one of the few homes for good journalism left) yesterday:

‘The Scottish government is considering allowing refugees and non-EU citizens to vote in local and Scottish parliament elections. Holyrood was granted new powers over taxation and the running of elections by Westminster in 2016 and the SNP minority government is keen to make major changes that will set it apart from the rest of the UK. A public consultation launched last month suggested extending the voting franchise to “everyone legally resident in Scotland”. This would mean anyone granted asylum or a visa to live in Scotland would be able to vote in the country’s regional parliament and local council elections – including refugees and non-EU or non-Commonwealth citizens.’   

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/refugees-vote-scotland-elections-parliament-local-council-democracy-a8145496.html

The results of the consultation are not in yet but I’m optimistic about the support here for the civil rights of all who live in Scotland. It’s another example of the Scottish Government acting to make this the kind of country I want to live in.

(c) Brian Monteith from https://twitter.com/thebluetrot

(Bluetrot?)

Under a headline and a mugshot, in today’s Scotsman, a right-wing extremist Tory writes:

‘Brian Monteith: SNP will be under fire for handling of NHS: This tactic of deflection has now worn thin and the evidence that Scotland’s NHS is in really serious trouble is growing. The reason for this is not just that the evidence shows it is true, but that the Conservative and Labour opposition are both using Freedom of Information requests and highly embarrassing Audit Scotland reports to bombard Scottish Health secretary Shona Robison with exposés of failures on the SNP’s watch.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/brian-monteith-snp-will-be-under-fire-for-handling-of-nhs-1-4655785

Monteith was a Tory MSP from 1999 to 2007. He used to work for the openly Thatcherite, Centre for Policy Studies. After that, he worked for Michael Forsyth Associates and even shared a flat with Forsyth. He then set up his PR company, Leith Communications which went bust in the 1990s owing more than £50 000 to its creditors.

He’s clearly a man, we’d walk miles to hear him talk about how he’s going to ……. go away?

Anyhow, back to the quote. The ‘tactic of deflection’ he’s talking about is those comparisons of NHS Scotland with NHS England that many of us use as a guide, if only partial, to the state of NHS Scotland. It’s called context and it’s a widely used tactic used by groups such as the Centre for Policy Studies. I have a feeling that if NHS England was demonstrably doing better than NHS Scotland, the tactic would be more than popular with the Tories in Scotland. The current tactic is ‘find anything, no matter how insignificant or how localised’ and make a crisis out of that.

I’ll let him have his way on this. He doesn’t like comparisons with NHS England, so here are a few which don’t have them and the first is from Audit Scotland and far from embarrassing:

Despite massive increases in demand, NHS Scotland maintains performance levels extremely close to the most rigorous of targets and patient satisfaction is at an all-time high. Audit Scotland say: ‘There were no significant weaknesses in the overall quality of care being provided.’

NHS Scotland has massively increased staffing of consultants and acute medicine specialists under SNP administration. Try telling the Daily Excess.

NHS Scotland continues improvements with 65.7% drop in young mental health patients treated in non-specialist wards, in one year

NHS Scotland research applauds major successes of Scottish Government’s pioneering tobacco strategy

As I looked through my archives, I can see why the comparisons with England are not popular with the Tories and why they had to think of a name to discredit them with. See this just from the beginning of the year. Many more could be added but I don’t want the tactic to look too thick and unworn:

1. We’ve had nothing you could call a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in NHS Scotland. Red Cross chief executive, Mike Adamson, said: ‘The British Red Cross is on the front line, responding to the humanitarian crisis in our hospital and ambulance services across the country [England].’ Indeed there is no evidence of anything like a system wide crisis in Scotland. Reporting Scotland have scrabbled around for something/anything as in their sad Twitter plea for pregnant mothers who have been inconvenienced which found five who had to travel an extra 7 miles for a bed. See: https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/01/14/have-you-been-affected-by-the-death-of-journalism-by-lazy-social-media-stalkers-let-us-know-your-story-bbc-reporting-scotlands-desperate-trawl-for-dirt-on-nhs-scotland/
2. We’ve had NO junior doctors’ strikes causing thousands of cancelled and delayed operations because the SNP unlike the UK Tories haven’t tried to bully them into new contracts. Thank goodness for BBC News at 6 telling us this because Reporting Scotland won’t touch the story with a disinfected endoscopic probe.
3. NHS Scotland has NOT been cancelling large numbers of urgent operations like NHS England (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/24/number-of-urgent-operations-cancelled-record-high-nhs-england). If they had, do you think Reporting Scotland would have neglected to tell us?
4. Scottish hospitals have NOT been told to put thousands of operations ‘on hold’ over Xmas and New Year to ‘free up beds.’ (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/16/hospitals-in-england-told-to-put-operations-on-hold-to-free-up-beds). Again, if they had, do you think Reporting Scotland would have neglected to tell us?
5. There is NO social care and bed-blocking crisis in Scotland because the Scottish Government has been integrating the two for years now (https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2016/dec/21/theresa-may-recognises-social-care-crisis-but-solution-seems-far-off)
6. Bed blocking by the elderly is down 12% in Scotland (http://www.scotsman.com/news/bed-blocking-in-scottish-hospitals-continues-to-fall-1-4160213) and up 80% in England for the same reason (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/10/tory-plans-making-social-care-worse?CMP=share_btn_tw)
7. There’s NO evidence of a crisis in Scottish Maternity wards despite a shamefully distorted Reporting Scotland story (https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2016/11/22/the-power-of-early-morning-nightmares-and-expectant-mothers-bbc-scotland-callously-undermines-the-morale-of-midwives-their-patients-expectant-mothers-and-their-relatives-with-highly-selective-and/)

Who is next, Scotsman: Damien Green on the pornography crisis at Holyrood?

(c) age scotland

In 2016/17 there were 532,423 bed days occupied by people delayed in their discharge.

In NHS Scotland. Roughly 1 in 12 or 8.2% of beds were occupied by mostly those over 70 years of age awaiting care in the community or at home arrangements to be made.

This is a fall of 3% from the 2015/16 figure and the most recent figure for October 2017 was 10% lower than in October 2016.

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Health-and-Social-Community-Care/Publications/2017-12-05/2017-12-05-DelayedDischarges-Annual-Report.pdf?83099001647

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Health-and-Social-Community-Care/Publications/2017-12-05/2017-12-05-DelayedDischarges-Summary.pdf?83099001647

Rather than report the above the Scotsman used a Labour freedom of information request to report:

‘Figures show SNP pledge to end bed blocking in tatters. More than 1,000 Scots patients have died while waiting to be released from hospital since the SNP pledged to end bed blocking, new figures show.’

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/figures-show-snp-pledge-to-end-bed-blocking-in-tatters-1-4655171

Would the Scotsman prefer that these patients were turfed-out to die, perhaps even quicker, in their empty homes, in their children’s living rooms or jammed into overcrowded old folks’ homes?

Leaving aside the tabloid style, this is another example of the way the Scottish mainstream media operates largely as an uncritical (dirty) mouthpiece for the three main opposition parties.

A brilliant, devastating, account of this, leaving the reputation of them all in tatters can be found at Derek Bateman’s excellent blog. He begins:

‘The media has been positively bursting with bad news stories about the SNP government over the holiday period. Expose after expose has covered the front pages and filled the bulletins with a wearying persistence. You’d think the country was going to the dogs what with single-staffed ambulances, Scots missing out on tax credits and violence against shop workers on the rise – stories often based on Freedom of Information Requests and always contriving to make the SNP the culprit.

What has been striking is the repetitive nature of the day-by-day shock horror output, all written with similar phrases and all with the same simple narrative of SNP bad.

You’d almost think it was planned. Well, it was.

The Labour Party has been doing the media’s job for it by spending the summer preparing a long list of negative news stories to feed out daily to the journalists. In keeping with the cosy friendship they enjoy, it is called the ‘Scottish Labour Christmas Box – Stories for the many, not the few.’ Ha, ha. Merry Christmas, comrades.’

http://derekbateman.scot/2018/01/05/manipulating-the-media/

See also:

http://derekbateman.scot/2018/01/07/done-up-like-a-kipper/

Everyone should read and share these.

From Scottish Housing News today:

‘Additional capacity for night shelters and extra staff to help get more people into accommodation are among the actions being taken to tackle rough sleeping this winter. Recommendations to tackle the issue were made by the Scottish Government’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group in November, and immediately accepted by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.’

The money will be used for these:

• An increase to the Bethany Christian Trust night shelter capacity for the winter period in Edinburgh
• The Night Stop service, which already operates in Edinburgh, will start in Glasgow
• Flexible funding allocated to front-line teams to enable them to explore other options with people
• Outreach capacity expanded across the main cities, with additional staff to reach out to and support those sleeping rough
• Winter survival packs made available, as a last resort, to keep safe those people who do not take up other options

http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/19136/scottish-government-delivers-actions-tackle-rough-sleeping/

The SNP administration has already committed itself to end homelessness in Scotland and we have seen it fall here as it rises in England. See:

Could Scotland end homelessness?

Homelessness falls in Scotland as it rises in England, mainly driven by heartless Tory welfare reforms

Meanwhile from Windsor, we read:

‘Councillor Simon Dudley wrote to Thames Valley police this week, seeking action against what he describes as “aggressive begging and intimidation” and “bags and detritus” accumulating on the streets. He doesn’t want the VIPs attending Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s big day to have their experience spoilt by the sight of those at the sharp end of austerity.’

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/04/ending-homelessness-royal-wedding-windsor-council-rough-sleepers-harry-meghan

And, across England, we see:

‘Homelessness in England ‘a national crisis’, say MPs’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42421583

Once again, I ask the questions: ‘Are we a bit different and different enough to want to run things ourselves?’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

From the Scottish Business News Network, based on a Bank of Scotland survey at the end of last year:

‘An increasing number of Scottish adults can see themselves starting their own business, according to the latest How Scotland Lives research from Bank of Scotland. With the prospect of starting a business enabling Scots to create their own success and take on more responsibility, research from the Bank shows that almost equal numbers of men and women expect to start-up in business in the next year.  57% of men and 43% of women are looking to start their own business.’

https://sbnn.co.uk/2017/12/22/increasing-number-scots-planning-starting-new-business/

This is another example from numerous indicators of the increasingly robust nature of the Scottish economy, reported here. See, for example:

Business booms in Scotland under SNP-rule

77% of Scotland’s small and medium-sized businesses report success as Scottish Government reports record numbers exempt from rates and in the wake of figures revealing much greater signs of distress among rUK businesses.

£226 million given in relief to small businesses in 2017-18 as part of most generous scheme in the UK

40% increase in number of new Scottish businesses mainly under SNP government

If you need more, search the blog for ‘business’ or ‘expertise’ and you’ll find many more.

See this recently published response from the Scottish FOI office to an anonymous request:

________________________________________________________________________________________

FOI reference: FOI/17/03047
Date received: 29 November 2017
Date responded: 22 December 2017

Information requested

How many Freedom of Information Requests BBC Scotland submit to the Scottish Government &/or Parliament each year, for as many years as records are available & the overall or average cost associated with handling these requests.

Response

How many Freedom of Information Requests BBC Scotland submit to the Scottish Government each year.

The information you have requested is detailed in the table below. For the purposes of this request we have include FOI requests received from both BBC Scotland and BBC Scotland News:

Year	Number of FOI requests
2008	8
2009	3
2010	8
2011	2
2012	0
2013	1
2014	2
2015	13
2016	20
2017 (to 19 Dec)	11

Overall or average cost associated with handling these requests.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have asked for. This is because although requests are considered under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (FOISA), they are allocated to the policy area responsible for that topic, and answered accordingly by an appropriate official as part of their normal duties. Officials are not required to record what proportion of their time is spend handling requests for information and therefore we do not hold a figure for the overall or average cost associated with handling these requests.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

https://beta.gov.scot/publications/foi-17-03047/

University College London did some costing estimates and came up with an average cost of a request from survey data of £189 and a maximum of £3 033.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/countries/cost-of-foi.pdf

The BBC is exempt from FOI requests relating to ‘journalism, art or literature’ and tends to tell applicants:

‘The BBC is not required by the Act to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities.’

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/418460/response/1011080/attach/2/RFI20171026%20Response.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

So, what is clear is that BBC Scotland has significantly increased its FOI requests to the Scottish Government since 2014 and the risk of independence became more real to them. I could find no evidence of the BBC elsewhere in the UK making any FOI requests of the UK Government. Also, these figures do not include BBC Scotland’s FOI requests to health boards or to individual hospitals nor does it include those requests made by the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem parties in their attempts to dig dirt which they can use to attack the SNP or to undermine the case for independence. Regular readers will have seen two recent reports by STV based on Tory and Lib Dem FOI requests.

Today, the Heralds told us:

‘New figures show that 1,609 Scots-qualified nurses trained north of the Border have filled in verification requests from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) – which enables them to practise in other countries – over the past five years. It comes as vacancy rates for nurses and midwives reached a record high last year and left wards across the country struggling to plug the gaps.’

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15808810.Hundreds_of_Scottish_trained_nurses_planning_to_work_abroad/

So that’s just, on average, 323 nurses per year and no evidence of how many actually left or of wards struggling to plug the gaps, actually offered.

How many nurses are there in Scotland? Well, in Nursing, excluding Midwifery, there were 56 468.2 FTE in September 2017 with 0.58%. thinking of leaving in any one year. You’ll recognise the basic propagandist technique of using the larger five-year figure rather than the more informative one-year figure.

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/data-tables2017.asp

I suppose if NHS Scotland is very tightly stretched in terms of nurse staffing, even a small number would matter. As I did yesterday with teacher numbers let’s have a look at NHS England nurse staffing as a comparison.

When I saw the figures, I found them hard to believe at first so I double checked them:

The Kings Fund state:

‘The number of nursing staff (nurses and health visitors) has increased by 1.8 per cent from 281,064 FTEs in 2010 to 286 020 FTEs in 2017.’

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-staffing-numbers

I checked again with the UK Government site to find confirmation:

‘There were 314,966 Nurses & health visitors, an increase of 2,790 (0.9%) since 2014. There were 281,474 FTE Nurses & health visitors, an increase of 2,494 (0.9%) since 2014.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/511519/nhs-staf-2015-over-rep.pdf

Can you see why I doubted the figures? They suggest that Scotland with only 10% of England’s population has 19% of the number of nurses or nearly twice as many per head of population. Now, I know we have more remote and underpopulated areas where you would expect to need more teachers, GPs or nurses, per head of population but that still looks like a very big difference which could, of course, be a factor in NHS Scotland’s superior performance.

Also, the number of nurses in Scotland is increasing. See this table:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2016-06-07/2016-06-07-Workforce-Report.pdf

That’s a 5.6% increase in only 4 years, in Scotland, as opposed to only a 1.8% increase over 7 years in England.

I stand ready to be corrected but I’ve searched and searched and can find no different figures or any reasons to question the ones I have.

This is all over the Scottish and UK media including the Times and the Telegraph.

NHS Lanarkshire asked its office staff to consider volunteering to help with cleaning duties as pressure on its frontline departments soared during the festive period.

There was a ‘tremendous’ response across the three affected hospitals including Wishaw General. I have family connections in Wishaw. So far, I’ve only read of what might be a great nephew arrested for firearms offences, so this helps to balance my impressions of the toon.

BBC Scotland, like most of the others, used the story as an excuse to quickly move to, and to spend more time on, reports that ‘some’ health boards were postponing elective operations and that A&E targets were being missed. Mind you, if you read nearly to the bottom you’d see that NHS Tayside actually surpassed the target with 96% seen in four hours or less.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-42557093

Most reports, with Scottish Tory, Labour and/or Lib Dem voices crying in the background, found a way to turn this into a failure of NHS Scotland to cope with soaring demand, desperately trying to associate Scotland with the all-too-real crisis in NHS England.

The Torygraph, not surprisingly turned this good news into evidence of a crisis with:

‘Office workers at Scottish health board redeployed to hospital cleaning amid NHS ‘meltdown’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/03/office-workers-scottish-health-board-redeployed-hospital-cleaning/

I suspect many Torygraph readers will have reacted with disgust at this headline while I, as many of you I think would have, felt a warm glow. As you know there has been no such thing as a ‘meltdown’ in NHS Scotland though it might be a reasonably accurate way of describing some parts of NHS England after years of Tory misrule. Does anyone really think we should staff hospitals, year-long, at the maximum level required for surges in demand of up to 40 or 50%? Also, is actually coping, as they did, somehow a failure because they asked the team to pull together in extreme times? It doesn’t seem like that to me. It seems a glowing success rich in human behaviour at its very best. Had NHS Lanarkshire turned patients away in droves or spent millions on temporary staff, would the media have treated them more kindly? I doubt it very much.

Finally, is this another wee indicator that we are just a bit different in how we do things and different enough to want to run our own show, foregrounding a different set of values? I searched but could find no comparable case in England. How would the office staff of Buckinghamshire have reacted? See these earlier pieces on this theme:

In a year of terrible events, we can still feel that this wee country is getting better as it drifts away from the callous, post-imperial, values of Tory Britain

Scots more likely to give to charities, to volunteer or to sponsor others

Scottish Government to fight alongside UN to defend disabled against Tory cuts.

Could Scotland end homelessness?

Scotland has lower poverty rates than England: JRF Excerpt 1

If you search the blog for the word ‘different’ you’ll get many more pieces of evidence for this idea.