Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of unpaid child-minders in Scotland, however findings from the Growing Up in Scotland study confirm that families rely on a mix of formal and informal care arrangements, including unpaid child-minders.

The Scottish Government is currently engaged with, and will continue to engage with, the Scottish Childminding Association to ensure that the views of childminders are reflected in the development of policy.

There are two main elements to childcare support for students at colleges and universities in Scotland.

The Discretionary Childcare Funds provide help with formal registered childcare cost. All eligible further and higher education student parents attending a college can apply for help with registered childcare costs from the College Childcare Fund. Full time eligible higher education students at university can apply for help with registered childcare costs from the University Childcare Fund.

The Lone Parents Childcare Grant provides a payment to all eligible further and higher education students who are lone parents and have formal registered childcare expenses while studying. This is an entitlement payment of up to £1,215 per year. Lone parent college students and full time lone parent university students can apply for additional help with registered childcare costs (over and above the Lone Parents Childcare Grant) from the discretionary childcare funds at their college or university.

Part time students at colleges or university must apply to the main Discretionary Fund for help with childcare costs. Students with unregistered childcare costs can also apply for help through the main Discretionary Funds.

In addition to this, students with children can receive support through Child Tax Credits. Students in receipt of child tax credits may also be eligible for free school meals.

The Scottish Government believes that the pay day lending industry needs to be subject to greater regulation so that we can protect those whose financial situation is desperate enough that they take out these short-term agreements and help them avoid the escalating debt problems.

The Scottish Government support a multi-pronged approach which would see interest rates and total costs of credit capped as they have been in other countries, restrictions placed on the rolling over of loans and tighter regulation of the industry particularly around advertising.

In view of this position, the Scottish Government would not support any proposal for a payday loan company to become a Games sponsor. Games organisers have made clear that there is no sponsorship category for payday loan companies and no intention to seek sponsorship from any company in that sector.

Ministers operate their Twitter accounts in a personal capacity.

Details of who has access to the First Ministers Twitter account are published on Twitter and can be found through the following link: twitter.com/AlexSalmond

The Post-16 Education (Scotland) Act 2013 provides that the chair of a regional college can be remunerated. This will come into force in March 2014. Beyond this, incorporated colleges will remain, as now, unable to remunerate individuals for their role as a member of their boards of management.

The governance arrangements of colleges differ depending on their legal status.

Further information about the different status and arrangements is set out in the draft summary guide College Reforms and the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Act 2013, available on the Scottish Government’s website.

All colleges should list their chair and board members on their website. However, a key part of our college reforms are new and more rigorous arrangements for making appointments to the position of regional college and regional board chairs. These posts are regulated public appointments. This appointment process is underway and should conclude next month.

A key aim of the Post 16 Education Reform Programme was to simplify the main student support system. Analysis of the impact of changes announced on 22 August 2012 was geared to ensuring maximum benefit for all undergraduate students.

Introduction of the new support package in 2013, means that undergraduate students benefit from access to increased financial support. An annual minimum income of £7,250 is now guaranteed for students with a family income of less than £17,000.

In 2012-13, 56% of Scottish-domiciled full-time undergraduate students supported by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland lived away from the parental home.

Half (50%) of young Scottish-domiciled full-time undergraduate students lived away from the parental home.

Over four-fifths (83%) of independent Scottish-domiciled full-time undergraduate students lived away from the parental home.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-19042 on 17 January 2014. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The new simplified student support package replaced a more complex system in operation prior to 2013. Under the previous system, a number of factors determined loan entitlement, these included: Household Income, the length of the course, where the student lived while studying, the year of the course (the final year loan was at a lower level) and if other members of the family were in higher or further education.

As a result, there was no typical amount of loan that young students from a household with an income of under £30,000 would be entitled to. For illustrative purposes, assuming a household income of £25,000 the amount of loan available to a young student for a standard 30 week course in 2012-13 would have been:

Living away from home: £940 the lowest loan and £3813 the highest loan.

At home: £620 lowest loan and £2828 highest loan.