- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 20 January 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive on what basis the £13 million of accelerated capital spend for further and higher education in 2009-10 will be distributed and which capital projects will benefit.
Answer
The £13 million of accelerated capital spend for further and higher education will be used to benefit projects across Scotland in 2009-10, helping to accelerate investment which would not otherwise have taken place until 2010-11. Further details of the specific projects which will benefit will be made available once the Scottish Funding Council has determined the basis on which the funding will be distributed in 2009-10, in collaboration with the institutions which it funds.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how many further education students it estimates to have dependent children.
Answer
This information is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how many people in receipt of an Education Maintenance Allowance of (a) £10 and (b) £20 received the £150 bonus payment in each of the last three years.
Answer
The following table presents the number of school pupils and further education college students who were supported in the £10 and £20 categories of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme and who received bonus payments in academic years 2005-06 to 2007-08.
| Level of Payment | Academic Year |
| 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 |
| Number of Students |
| £10 | 3,065 | 2,945 | 2,920 |
| £20 | 2,975 | 3,200 | 3,385 |
| Total (£10 and £20) | 6,040 | 6,145 | 6,310 |
Notes:
1. Student numbers have been rounded up or down to the nearest five.
2. Numbers may not sum to totals due to rounding.
3. Direct comparisons between the figures 2007-08 and those for previous academic years cannot be made due to an improvement to the method of collating college data. This removed 75 duplicate cases from the total number of bonus recipients in the £10 and £20 categories in 2007-08.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how many people received a Get Ready for Work payment in the last three years, broken down by payment amount.
Answer
This information is not captured centrally.
The Scottish Government have however obtained the following from Skills Development Scotland on the programme costs and the number of individuals involved in the Get Ready for Work (GRfW) programme over the last three years.
Young people on full time provision receive £55 per week and those on part time provision receive £45 per week, depending on hours of participation.
Table 1 Get Ready for Work, Starts, Allowances and Spend by Financial Year
| Year | No. of Starts | Allowance Costs GRfW £ Million | Allowance Costs L/Skills (F-T) £ Million | Allowance Costs L/Skills (P-T) £ Million | Total Allowance Costs £ Million | Total Spend Including Programme costs £ Million |
| 2007-08 | 9,274 | 8.5 | 503,972 | 347,436 | 9.4 | 23.7 |
| 2006-07 | 8,847 | 7.9 | 435,285 | 300,612 | 8.7 | 21.5 |
| 2005-06 | 8,422 | 8.3 | 427,666 | 243,881 | 9.0 | 22.1 |
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of students entering higher education represents those from (a) low-participation neighbourhoods, (b) non-traditional backgrounds and (c) low socio-economic classification groups for each of the last five years and when updated statistics will be published.
Answer
The Higher Education Statistics Agency annually publishes higher education performance indicators for all higher education institutions in the UK, including participation rates of students from low participation neighbourhoods and from low socio-economic classification groups. The most recently published performance indicators relate to the academic year 2006-07.
HESA''s participation of under-represented groups performance indicators can be found at:
http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/content/view/1174/141/.
There is no clearly defined measure of students from non-traditional backgrounds, though these are usually assumed to mean students from low socio-economic groups.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive what the total amount was of interest accrued by Scotland domiciled and resident students in student loan debt in each of the last five years, broken down by interest accrued (a) while studying and (b) following graduation.
Answer
The following table shows the total amount of interest accrued by Scottish domiciled and resident students in student loan debt in each of the last five financial years broken down by interest accrued (a) while studying and (b) following graduation or withdrawal.
| Financial Year | Interest added Following Graduation or Withdrawal (£ Million) | Interest Added whilst Studying (£ Millions) | Total Interest Added (£ Millions) |
| 2003-04 | 9.70 | 14.01 | 23.70 |
| 2004-05 | 13.34 | 15.87 | 29.21 |
| 2005-06 | 20.39 | 15.98 | 36.37 |
| 2006-07 | 27.95 | 13.55 | 41.50 |
| 2007-08 | 25.51 | 17.73 | 43.24 |
| Total | 96.88 | 77.14 | 174.03 |
Source: Student Loans Company (SLC).
Notes:
Monetary amounts have been rounded to the nearest 10,000 and are quoted in millions.
Scotland domiciled and resident is taken as those who took out loans which are owed back to Scotland.
Interest accrued (a) while studying and (b) following graduation is interpreted as (a) before the Statutory Repayment Due Date (SRDD) and (b) after the SRDD.
The SLC does not apply interest to the accounts of income contingent loan borrowers who have entered repayment until they have received notice of the amounts of repayments collected from Her Majesty''s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). For most cases this occurs within one year of the tax year that the repayments relate to, interest is then applied retrospectively to the accounts.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how many people received an education maintenance allowance of (a) £10 and (b) £20 in each of the last three years.
Answer
The following table presents the number of school pupils and further education college students who received education maintenance allowance (EMA) support in the £10 and £20 categories in academic years 2005-06 to 2007-08.
| Level of Payment | Academic Year |
| 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 |
| Number of Students |
| £10 | 3,760 | 3,560 | 3,430 |
| £20 | 3,600 | 3,925 | 3,965 |
| Total | 7,360 | 7,485 | 7,395 |
Notes:
1. Student numbers have been rounded up or down to the nearest five.
2. Numbers may not sum to totals as a result of this rounding.
3. Direct comparisons between the figures 2007-08 and those for previous academic years cannot be made due to an improvement to the method of collating college data. This removed 175 duplicate cases from the total number of students supported in the £10 and £20 categories in 2007-08.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-20037 by Fiona Hyslop on 29 January 2009, how much would be saved by abolishing the £150 bonus payment for people in receipt of an Educational Maintenance Allowance of (a) £10 and (b) £20.
Answer
Assuming that the amounts paid out in bonus payments to those in the £10 and £20 categories in future years would be the same as in 2007-08, we estimate that the resources released by removing the bonus payments for students supported in these categories would be £0.7 million and £0.8 million respectively.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive whether modern apprenticeships would continue to be paid at up to £55 per week if the Get Ready for Work programme is replaced by an Educational Maintenance Allowance of £30.
Answer
The £55 per week training allowance, available to Get Ready for Work participants and non-employed Skillseekers, does not apply to the modern apprenticeship programme. The conclusions of the consultation will not therefore impact on the modern apprenticeship programme.
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2009
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 February 2009
To ask the Scottish Executive how many full-time higher education students it estimates have dependent children.
Answer
The Annual Population Survey (APS) collects information on household composition and qualifications being studied by people in the household. The estimated number of full-time students studying for qualifications at the higher education level who have dependent children was 14,000 for the year July 2007 to June 2008.
