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Item 5 is subordinate legislation. The first item will be the Education (Student Loans) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2000, for which we will be joined by Gillian Thompson. Before we discuss the two statutory instruments, the clerk will give us an update on the Subordinate Legislation Committee's deliberations.
The Subordinate Legislation Committee met yesterday and has not yet formally reported on the first instrument. However, it highlighted a couple of technical considerations, one of which is that the instrument breaks the rule about the timing between when an instrument is laid and when it comes into force. That issue is being raised with the Executive.
I ask Gillian Thompson whether there any points that she wants to make and to reflect on the points raised by the Subordinate Legislation Committee.
I saw those points this morning and can certainly comment on the amendment that was made in 1974, if the committee would find that helpful, although we will obviously also respond in the normal way.
Please go ahead.
The committee is correct in assuming that regulation 3 in the amended regulations is intended to take the position back to that set out in 1963, but as amended in 1974. I am sorry if that is not clear from the regulation.
Do members want to raise any points on the regulations?
Following the latter stages of the Education and Training (Scotland) Bill, ministers wrote again to you with a revision of the regulations in the light of the commitments made in the debate on the matter. Thereafter, we worked through a final version of the regulations—the one you now have here—which looks different from the previous illustrative draft. It is designed to carry out the commitments that were given. Most of the changes are stylistic and technical, but the instrument reflects the original legislative commitments.
The only other point that I would add is that, like Gillian Thompson before us, we understand that the Subordinate Legislation Committee examined these regulations yesterday. It raised a couple of points. Would you like a response on those at this stage?
I will invite the clerk to go through them, then I will come back to you.
The first point relates to regulation 7(4), which concerns the sub-delegation of some of the rules governing the introduction of individual learning accounts to the Scottish ministers. It is a question of to what extent sub-delegation is sensible. The second point relates to regulation 7(5), which restricts the number of grants that can be issued. The committee has raised an issue about the vires of that regulation.
We will make the formal reply on those points within the next day or two. On the point about regulation 7(4)—the minister's powers to determine additional grants—we understand that the power is to be found in section 1(2)(b) of the Education and Training (Scotland) Act 2000 where it states that ministers may determine the amount and how it is paid. That is the basis of that part of the regulation.
On the latter point, you are effectively saying that under the first section of the act, ministers have the power to determine that.
That is what we understand.
If ministers wish to exceed that as the scheme rolls out, what is the mechanism for doing so? Do ministers have to lay further regulations? If we reach 100,000 individual learning accounts, do ministers have to prepare a further set of regulations to approve the one hundred thousand and first account?
Yes. As there is specific reference in the regulation to 100,000, we would have to amend it if there were going to be 100,001.
Do the regulations state at which point that application would have to be made by the minister?
No. The policy intention all along—as published in the consultation documents and as discussed during its progress through Parliament—was that there would be 100,000 accounts. There is no intention to change that policy. If there were any intention to change it, the regulations would need to be amended. It would depend on the amount of time required to get that regulation through.
Henry McLeish's letter to the convener dated 4 July stated that the minister would shortly agree the arrangements for evaluating the two discretionary fund pilots and that a full report would be issued on the outcome. Can you tell us when we might be in receipt of the reports on the pilots?
We expect the report to be available round about June or July next year. The final arrangements for the evaluation have yet to be settled. We must ensure that the information is available in time for the review of the regulations, to which ministers are already committed. They have said that they will review the regulations within a year.
With regard to the 20 per cent and 80 per cent rules on further support, do you feel that problems of definition might thwart the full potential of implementation of the individual learning accounts scheme, because of the thresholds being somewhat arbitrary?
We must gain from our experience on this as time goes by. It has been clear from the beginning that it will be difficult to define which specific courses are in or out in certain areas. Some are clearly in and others are clearly out, but many will be in that shadowy area. Part of the overall monitoring will identify whether, if those occur regularly, something can be done about them quickly or whether we must tackle it again later on in the year.
You may be aware that I have written to the minister about this. Following a visit to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig this summer, it occurred to me, in discussions with senior personnel at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, that there is terrific opportunity for those involved in service and tourism—perhaps even Parliament staff—to benefit from short courses there. Communication is one of the criteria that entitles people to the 80 per cent assistance. Will you confirm that Gaelic courses would qualify for the full 80 per cent support at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig?
I would not expect Gaelic courses to qualify for the 80 per cent support. I would expect language courses of that type to qualify for the full 20 per cent, or indeed the £150, which in many cases will be higher. When the definitions of the 80 per cent were considered, they were in three main areas. One was basic information technology skills, another was basic literacy and the third was basic numeracy. We have worked on that basis and have identified that small list of half a dozen or so courses.
But not basic literacy in Gaelic.
That is correct.
Now that Mr Ewing has had his week of intensive Gaelic training at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, we are the wiser for it.
The minister's letter referred to local enterprise companies preparing local marketing strategies to reach those who might not otherwise be interested in the lifelong learning process. Is there a national marketing strategy that will drive the local enterprise companies' development of their local marketing strategies?
As was discussed during the progress of the bill, the Scottish University for Industry will take the lead on the national marketing of its own direct services and on awareness raising about individual learning accounts and local enterprise companies will do the local marketing. Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and SUFI have been working together on that national strategy. The individual local strategies have been discussed with the Scottish UFI to ensure that the two things fit together.
Is the national strategy yet to hand?
A national strategy has been prepared by SUFI for the local enterprise companies and SUFI to work to.
When will the marketing programme be rolled out? When do the regulations become operative? I thought that, after 1 September, people would be able to apply for individual learning accounts.
It has gone live from 1 September; people can apply for ILAs. Indeed, a number of people who were getting ILAs through the field testing process have already got their accounts. Several thousand accounts are therefore already in existence.
Much of the local marketing is already in hand, because we were able to roll out the field testing of ILAs throughout Scotland. That information has already gone out to LECs, employers and the main learning providers. Even in the few days that the programme has been going, the telephone line to SUFI has been extremely busy with inquiries. The message is clearly getting through, but we do not yet know whether it is getting through to the right people. We will find out about that through the monitoring that we are undertaking as part of our overall evaluation.
How and where is the telephone line advertised?
It is mainly advertised in a range of booklets and packs that have been made available. A number of posters have also been produced, which are being displayed in locations that the local marketing people consider appropriate. We have been talking to our colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment about what further promotion might be undertaken. It is possible, although we have not agreed the details yet, that there may be some limited radio marketing as well.
I am a wee bit surprised to hear about the sequence of events that you have described: the local marketing preceding the national marketing. Parliamentary debates left me with the impression that we had to get the bill through in such a hurry because everything was going live so quickly and the regulations would simply enforce what was going to happen. I am quite bewildered by the time scale that you are now talking about.
The time scale relates to the fact that the ILAs were going to go live in the rest of the UK at the same time. Tax relief for vocational training was going to end on 31 August, so the new system had to be ready for 1 September for those who would otherwise have been able to use that type of relief to be able to take advantage of ILAs. Those are the two reasons for the change.
Will there be a website for local and national marketing?
Yes. There is already a lot of information about ILAs on the Scottish University for Industry website. We are continually reviewing that information and it will be updated.
I think that we have exhausted that subject. There are no issues arising from the regulations that we need to draw to the attention of Parliament, although there are some technical issues that have been highlighted by the Subordinate Legislation Committee. We must wait for those issues to be formally resolved before we can sign off the regulations. However, as we have no issues to report to Parliament as a result of today's deliberations, we shall give the regulations the nod when the Subordinate Legislation Committee clears up its issues.
Meeting continued in private until 13:04.
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