§ Mr. Gordon Brownasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many (a) health visitors and (b) home nurses were employed in the Scottish health service in each year since 1979.
608Wcomparisons of table 1 of "Public Expenditure to 1987–88: A Commentary on the Scottish Programme" are distorted by changes in functional and administrative arrangements, such as housing benefit, regional development grants and national insurance surcharge; and whether adjustments can be made to make the figures directly comparable.
§ Mr. YoungerThe only such change which makes direct year-on-year compound comparisons difficult is the transfer of responsibility for regional development grants in Scotland to me from the Department of Trade and Industry. Including regional development grants for all years, past and planned expenditure on industry, energy, trade and employment within the Scotland programme, and on total expenditure within my responsibility would be as in the table.
Commentary on the Scottish Programme," but expressed in (i) cost terms and (ii) volume terms, and showing percentage changes over 1978–79.
§ Mr. John MacKayDetailed records of past and planned expenditure by programme are no longer maintained in volume terms. The information requested about expenditure in cost terms is as follows, using GDP deflator factors consistent with those used for the analysis set out on page 131 of the 1985 Scottish Commentary. In the time available it has not been possible to provide figures in the detail shown in table 15.10.1 of the Commentary.
§ Mr. John MacKayThe numbers of health visitors and home nurses—now known as district nurses—(whole-time equivalent) employed in the Scottish Health Service each year since 1979 are as follows:
609W
Health visitors District nurses 1979 1,266.9 1,610.8 1980 1,344.1 1,724.1 1981 1,359.8 1,732.4 1982 1,368.8 1,789.8 1983 1,329.0 1,862.4 1984 1,255.1 1,880.9