Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive bears costs for providing student support that do not form part of the monies received by students under the Students Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) budget heading under the following budgets detailed in the table:

Budget Heading	£ million	2009-10 £ million
SAAS Administration Costs:
- Running costs	6.0
- Capital expenditure	0.4
- Capital Charges	1.2	7.6
Student Loans Company Administration		5.5
Cost of Providing Student Loan Advances(the RAB charge)		71.4
Unwinding of Discount on the write-off provision		12.0
Unwinding of Discount on the Debt Sale Subsidy for Loans sold to Banks		4.0
Student loans Debt Sale Subsidy to the banks		4.5

 

I will be announcing the publication of the report of the PACE Summit before the end of March. The report will contain a synopsis of the day and actions to take forward to enhance further the operation of PACE.

One area discussed during the summit was the need to raise awareness of PACE. We are taking immediate action on this by promoting the new helpline number and website to individuals and employers through a short sharp media campaign which will appear in the national press over the next few weeks.

The Scottish Government currently issues a forecast of forthcoming public appointment opportunities twice a year to people who have registered their interest in public appointments. This is in addition to publicising vacancies on the Scottish Government website as they occur.

The Scottish Government is planning to launch a new website dedicated to public appointments around mid April to replace its current website pages. The new website will contain a range of information on public appointments, including a forecast of public appointment vacancies expected to arise in the future. Members of the public will be able to register their interest in public appointments through the new website and will be advised when the forecast is updated.

Between 1 May 2007 and 31 December 2008 there were (a) 110,782 accident and emergency attendances at Monklands Hospital and (b) 69,613 accident and emergency attendances at Ayr Hospital.

These data are sourced from ISD Accident and Emergency data mart (June 2007 to December 2008) and WebLogic reporting system (May 2007).

The figures include new and unplanned return attendances at accident and emergency departments. Planned return attendances are excluded.

Further information on attendances at accident and emergency departments for these hospitals, including quarterly and monthly trends is published on the ISD website:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/4024.html.

A final report of the Scottish Adult Literacy and Numeracy Survey is scheduled for publication in January 2010, however, initial findings from the survey will be available before the end of 2009.

On taking office, the Scottish Government published a baseline list of 199 significant national public organisations for which it was responsible and could reform. It committed to reducing this by 25% by 2011 through its simplification programme. The published baseline expands on the previous administration''s focus on only those bodies formally classified as NDPBs.

The number of national public organisations has reduced to 165. This includes a reduction of 8 bodies from the Simplification Programme and 26 Justice of the Peace Advisory Committees announced by the previous administration but which did not come into effect until December 2007.

The Scottish Government is on track to deliver its 25% reduction in the number of significant national public organisations. Details on changes in the public bodies landscape can be found in the Simplification Programme Tracker at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/Simplification-Tracker.

Tertiary education institutions are autonomous organisations and, while it is ultimately their decision whether or not to engage with Chinese and Japanese cultural organisations, we do encourage our institutions to look more widely at engagement with other countries. There are many examples of established relationships between Japanese and Chinese cultural organisations and our colleges and universities. We provided funding to establish the Confucius Institute for Scotland in Edinburgh University. This is a national centre to promote educational, economic and cultural ties between Scotland and China. A number of tertiary education institutions are taking part in the Scottish Committee set up by the Japanese Consul General to take forward a series of events to mark the 150th anniversary of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce.

Ministerial visits abroad are also a considerable resource when building relationships between countries. I visited China last year to facilitate education and research partnerships between Scotland and China and I look forward to developing both existing and new Sino-Scottish links when I accompany the First Minister to China this April.

The Scottish Government has not had any discussions with the Scottish Funding Council on the teaching of the languages of China and Japan.

Subject provision in tertiary education is a matter for individual institutions as autonomous bodies.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-21323 on 6 March 2009. 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.