To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether redundancy arrangements for chief executives of primary care NHS trusts and strategic health authorities are published. (79680)

There are two documents covering these arrangements:

“Strategic health authority reorganisation: chief executive transitions, ensuring good human resource practice and value for money” is specifically aimed at strategic health authority (SHA) chief executives affected by “Commissioning A Patient-Led NHS” changes and was circulated by the Department to SHAs on 8 May 2006; and

“Standards for implementing good human resource practice and value for money when staff are affected by organisational change” covers all other staff including primary care trust chief executives. This guidance was published on the NHS Employers website on 15 June 2006.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether (a) primary care trusts, (b) NHS trusts and (c) strategic health authorities which make senior managers redundant are able to reclaim some of this cost from central resources. (79681)

There is no central fund to finance the cost of redundancy. National health service organisations have been asked to minimise the cost of severance, and where possible these should be financed from in-year management cost savings. The recurring savings will exceed one-off redundancy costs.