Chamber and committees

Representative communities who engage with the developers will receive the level of benefit and direct investment agreed on their behalf by Forestry Commission Scotland with the developer for each lot. As such it will be entirely up to the properly constituted body to decide how to make use of such income going forward.

Bursary payments to Scottish students are paid out by Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) for full-time higher education (HE) students, and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) allocates further funds for further education (FE) students. The most recent year where data collection for bursary payments is complete is 2009-10, so this answer contains data for academic sessions 2005-06 to 2009-10.

In these academic sessions, full-time Scottish students studying at HE level in Scotland are eligible to apply for Young Students'' Bursary (YSB). The bursary is income assessed, and is paid out to students who were under 25 before the first day of the first academic year of your course and have not been supporting themselves through earnings for at least three years. YSB is paid out instead of part of the maintenance loan, so it reduces the amount of loan that these students will be entitled to. Table 1 therefore shows the average YSB payments to full-time students for each institution in Edinburgh and Lothians, for 2005-06 to 2009-10.

Table 1: Average Bursary Payments to Full-Time Higher Education Students Studying at Institutions in Edinburgh and Lothians, 2005-06 to 2009-10 (£)

Edinburgh Institutions	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Queen Margaret University	1,910	1,916	1,954	1,985	2,136
Edinburgh''s Telford College	1,863	1,970	1,935	2,014	2,079
Edinburgh College of Art	1,913	1,894	1,963	1,910	2,040
Stevenson College	1,957	1,908	1,986	2,109	2,105
Edinburgh University	1,775	1,814	1,854	1,885	1,923
Napier University	1,880	1,939	1,983	2,008	2,088
Heriot-Watt University	1,790	1,865	1,930	1,965	2,049
Lothians institutions
Oatridge Agricultural College	1,842	1,821	1,856	1,773	1,912
West Lothian College	1,901	2,068	2,074	1,914	2,036
Jewel and Esk Valley College	2,008	2,001	2,075	2,021	2,077

Source: SAAS Management Information.

The Scottish Funding Council allocate money to college institutions in respect of students who are studying at further education level. These funds can be accessed by full-time students or part-time students on the basis of study, travel, or special educational needs. However, because institutions distribute the money as they see fit, the total number of students that benefited from these allocations of money was not available so it was not possible to calculate an average payment. Therefore, table 2 shows the total amounts allocated to each college in the Edinburgh and Lothians regions.

Table 2: Total Bursary Amounts Allocated by Scottish Funding Council to Colleges in Edinburgh and Lothians, 2005-06 to 2009-10

Edinburgh Colleges	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Edinburgh''s Telford College	£2,441,659	£2,746,050	£2,687,411	£2,961,324	£3,552,944
Stevenson College	£1,864,943	£2,097,509	£2,164,474	£2,638,576	£2,911,232
Lothians Colleges
Jewel and Esk College	£1,043,917	£1,389,652	£1,165,197	£1,450,441	£1,773,488
West Lothian College	£977,562	£1,079,000	£1,139,508	£1,231,406	£1,302,431
Oatridge College	£356,698	£414,281	£413,188	£512,470	£572,242

Source: Scottish Funding Council.

In March 2010 I announced £100,000 in support of the Community Wellbeing Champions Initiative. So far the Initiative has been piloted in five areas across Scotland: Fife; Shetland; North Lanarkshire; South Lanarkshire, and Stirling.

Evaluation of these pilots is currently taking place, and a full report of the Initiative will be included in the second annual report to Parliament.

Due to the nature of the commercial process undergone, Forestry Commission Scotland could not specify requirements in this way however, each developer has stressed as part of their submission the importance they attach to local development and sustainability.

It will only be possible to say which communities will benefit once the developers have identified potential sites on the national forest estate. It is expected that this process will take up to eight month to complete.

It will be for the appointed development companies for the different lots to engage with and agree the details with communities based upon the template agreed with Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS). FCS will additionally publish guidance for communities on the options available and Community Energy Scotland has been contracted by the Scottish Government to provide advice to communities on these possibilities.

Marine Scotland has undertaken and issued regional locational guidance to help inform the future selection of sites. This guidance contains relevant information including, for example, information on environmental sensitivities, other marine users and the socio-economic structure of the area/region and sits within the wider marine planning structure being developed by Marine Scotland.

The regional locational guidance is informed by Marine Scotland''s on-going work including our programme of seabed mapping. This programme has acquired bathymetric data to get a more detailed understanding of the depth and shape of the surface of the seabed, as well as its character (i.e. rock, sand, mud, boulders etc.) than that previously available. This information has been made public in order to help inform the future selection of sites for offshore renewable energy developments.

The Scottish Government''s research programme and demonstration strategy will also provide information which can be used to inform regional locational guidance and the licensing process where appropriate.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-39697 on 14 March 2011. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Any development likely to have a significant effect on the marine environment must be subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as required by The Electricity Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2000. A range of EIA studies are undertaken by the developer to identify the current status of the marine environment. This considers the potential impacts related to a proposed development as well as the proposed mitigation and any residual effects. Environmental concerns identified include: benthic ecology, marine mammals, fish and shellfish, seabirds, water and sediment quality, terrestrial and intertidal ecology, landscape, seascape and noise.

Student debt includes loans which are extended by the Student Loans Company. Student loan entitlement is assessed by Student Awards Agency Scotland and the loans are extended by the Student Loans Company (SLC). The SLC do not hold information on students that have graduated, so the figures in Table 1 have been calculated by looking at those who have who have passed their statutory repayment due date in a given year, rather than graduation. This means that these figures may include some individuals who had Student loans extended to them, but they did not graduate.

Table 1: Average debt among individuals that accrued student loans from studying in Universities and Colleges in Edinburgh and Lothians regions, broken down by institution, 2006-2010 (£''s)

	Statutory Repayment Due Date
	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Edinburgh Institutions
Edinburgh College of Art	9,040	10,530	8,780	8,670	7,360
Edinburgh Napier University	7,600	7,470	6,790	6,760	6,620
Edinburgh School of Dental Hygiene @ Therapy	-	-	-	-	-
Edinburgh University	7,950	7,560	6,600	6,900	6,660
Free Church of Scotland College - Edinburgh	-	-	-	-	-
Heriot-Watt University	8,080	8,340	7,290	7,240	6,720
Queen Margaret  University	7,620	7,440	6,700	7,050	6,780
Stevenson College - Edinburgh	3,830	3,690	3,810	3,890	3,930
Telford College - Edinburgh	4,160	4,140	4,230	4,720	4,230
Lothians Institutions
JEWEL and ESK	3,470	3,430	3,810	3,830	3,950
Oatridge Agricultural College	3,100	3,450	2,780	3,450	3,520
West Lothian College	3,330	3,540	3,160	3,430	3,710

Source: Student Loans Company.

Notes:

The Statutory Repayment Due Date (SRDD) is the date when the debt is liable for repayment if the borrower earns above the earnings threshold.

The SRDD is the April in the year after the student graduates or otherwise withdraws from their course.

The figures include students who withdraw as well as those who graduate.

A student is shown against an Institution if they have had debt from study there even though they may have finished at a different institution. This is a slightly different approach to the one used in the answer toquestion S3W-25130 on 21 July 2009 (SLC ref 20090624-04) which was based on the last institution attended

The debt used in the average is the debt accrued for Income Contingent Loans, part of which may have been incurred at another institution

Between 2007 and 2008 the liability for the Graduate Endowment ceased. Some deferred Endowments were liable for repayment after that date.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.