(Tuesday 20 January 2009)
MALCOLM BURNS is happy to report that health board direct elections are agreed.
MSPs have unanimously supported the principle of direct elections to health boards in Scotland in an important and perhaps even historic debate in the Holyrood parliament last Thursday.
Cabinet Secretary Nicola Sturgeon introduced the Health Boards (Membership and Elections) (Scotland) Bill on behalf of the government, which follows a similar private member's proposal by Labour MSP Bill Butler in the previous parliament.
"Many people in all parts of Scotland believe - rightly, I think - that there is a real democratic deficit in the operation of our health boards," Sturgeon argued.
"Too often, the public feel shut out of the big decisions that health boards take daily and which account for significant sums of public money."
She cited the attempted closure of the Ayr and Monklands A&E departments by unelected health boards, despite massive public opposition. The plans were eventually overturned by her ministerial decree.
"I believe strongly that having elected members on health boards will enhance and improve the quality of decision-making in the NHS," she said.
The new law will alter the composition of Scottish health boards to include directly elected members. It also provides a statutory basis for the presence of local councillors who already sit as health board members.
The Bill proposes that health board elections would be held every four years using a single transferrable vote proportional representation system, with a single ward covering each health board area. Two pilot elections will be held and independently evaluated before any further rollout is approved by parliament.
One interesting proposal in the Bill is that the voting age in health board elections will be lowered to 16. There was some concern expressed in the debate about the practicality of this, as MSPs focused on the potential child protection issues of having a public electoral register giving birth date information for people aged 15.
However, the Scottish government appears to be solid on this and it augurs well for the age of franchise to be lowered in future parliamentary and local government elections.
The current Bill has some weaknesses.
Primarily, it fails to provide for an outright majority of directly elected members, which was a key element of Butler's earlier Bill.
Under the current proposal, local authority representatives and those directly elected by the public will form a majority of health board members only when taken together. The remainder will be government appointees, as before.
The UNISON response to the Bill in the consultation period was forthright on the composition of boards, stating that it was "unclear from the Bill what the role of senior officials is under the new board constitution."
The union argued that "officials should be advisers, not voting members, of the health boards they are employed by."
Another deficiency identified by unions in consultation and members in the chamber is the provision for the cabinet secretary to remove elected board members from office.
Despite such reservations, there seemed to be a large amount harmony in the parliament on the health board elections issue.
Compliments were paid to the health and sport committee, which has considered representations on the Bill, and to its chairwoman, Scottish Nationalist MSP Christine Grahame.
MSPs of various parties praised each other for their wise contributions to the debate. Sturgeon and Grahame also praised unions UNISON and Unite for their constructive engagement in the consultation.
The Bill gained cross-party support. Even Tory MSPs backed it, despite previously voicing the medical establishment's concerns that mere mortals would be incapable of helping to run their own health service. Ah, the good old British Medical Association - still not quite come to terms with the NHS, having fought it tooth and nail in the 1940s.
But most plaudits in Holyrood on Thursday rightly accrued to Butler. His private member's Bill in 2006-7, though not passed then, forced the issue onto the manifestos of both Labour and the SNP in the 2007 election and it has undoubtedly paved the way for the measure of democratisation of the Scottish health boards which now looks likely.
Indeed, in closing the debate, Sturgeon paid him a cheeky compliment.
"Bill Butler did much to progress the case for direct elections and I can tell that he is delighted to have a government in place that backs his view on the issue."
For his part, Butler promised to table an amendment at the next stage of the Bill which would mean that the elected members alone, not including local council representatives, would be an outright majority on health boards.
Around Scotland raises its glass and proposes a Gaelic toast of good health to Butler. Slainte, a charaid.
New Bill aims to outlaw NHS car park charges
THE Scottish government capitalised on the unpopularity of hospital car parking charges last year by abolishing them.Well, that's what it claimed. However, not all facilities were included.
Numerous NHS car parks, the most significant being the private finance initiative sites at Glasgow and Edinburgh Royal Infirmaries and Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, continue to charge.
And the issue has become further inflamed by health board plans to restrict car parking times for staff.
Labour MSP Paul Martin's newly launched private member's Bill aims to tidy up that mess by outlawing all car parking charges at any NHS site in Scotland.
It's a simple, straightforward Bill which is supported strongly by unions. So that's good.
It would have been even better if all the Labour colleagues now lining up to support Martin's Bill had used their votes to oppose PFI in the NHS while Labour was busy with its privatisation agenda when in government. They might even still be in government.
Two Georges go head to head
I SHOULD expect that the gloves will come off fairly quickly in the Edinburgh University rectorial election, in which students will vote next month.This pitches my friend, comrade and fellow Star columnist George Galloway against m'Lord George Foulkes.
Now a Labour list MSP for Lothians, Foulkes is probably best known for having been a controversial chairman of Hearts FC. But he is also a former MP and junior minister in the Blair government and a notorious supporter of the illegal Iraq war.
Well, if I were an Edinburgh student, I'd be voting for George (Galloway of course).
But I think that the other nominated candidate, thoughtful Sunday Herald writer Iain McWhirter, may be a good bet to split the colourful Georges and actually win.
More work with less money?
GLASGOW Council's community service supervisers have been on indefinite strike since January 6.Their job involves supervising offenders who have been given community service as an alternative to prison, but the 21 UNISON members are facing pay cuts of over £1,000 caused by the council's 2007 single status equal pay review.
They are effectively being asked to do a more responsible job for less money.
Messages of support and donations can be sent to Glasgow City UNISON, 4th Floor, 18 Albion Street, Glasgow G1 1LH or unisonenquiries@glasgowcityunison.org.uk
Subscribe to the Morning Star online
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment