Chamber and committees

Data on student debt other than student loans is not held centrally.

Retention rates in higher education institutions in Scotland are high by international standards. However, the Scottish Executive recognises that it is important to minimise non-completion, which is why my guidance letter of 10 December 2001 asked the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council to continue to work with institutions and with the department, to develop a better understanding of the factors affecting the variation in retention rates between institutions.

Tuition fees were abolished for eligible Scottish domiciled and EU students in further and higher education in Scotland from academic year 2000-01.

Tuition fees were abolished for eligible Scottish domiciled and EU students studying in Scotland from academic year 2000-01. I am not aware of any research into the impact of student contributions to fees in the period 1998-99 to 1999-2000.

I refer the member to the answer given to question on 18 January 2002.

Eligible Scottish domiciled and EU students studying in Scotland have not been required to contribute to the cost of their tuition since 2000-01. They are not required to repay tuition fees paid to institutions by the Executive on their behalf. Under the Income Contingent Repayment system, introduced for students starting in higher education from 1998, students are not required to repay their student loans until they leave their course, whether or not they complete it, and are earning more than the annual income threshold of £10,000, after which payments are made at the rate of 9% of income over £10,000. It is too early to judge whether there is any clear relationship between a student's completion of their course, and their long-term ability to repay loans made under the income-contingent scheme.

Since August 2001 young Scottish students from low-income homes starting full-time study in Scotland have been eligible for a Young Student Bursary of up to £2,000 each year towards their living costs.

The figures contained in the answer to question S1W-20044 were the official figures of Family Mediation Scotland (FMS). In the light of the information supplied in that answer, I caused further enquiries to be made. I understand a new monitoring system was introduced by FMS during 2000-01 in order to standardise the recording of referrals throughout their centres in Scotland. As a result, previous year's figures cannot be considered comparable. In addition, due to organisational change the figures from Grampian have not been included in those for 2000-01.Allowing for this, it appears the number of referrals in recent years have remained broadly similar and have not declined.

The Scottish labour market is dynamic. The monthly labour market statistics from the Office of National Statistics give employment changes from quarter to quarter. There are large shifts between employment, unemployment and inactivity each month/quarter. Any attempt to measure job loss figures is likely to be swamped by these large flows.The Labour Force Survey (run by the Office of National Statistics) provides data on a quarterly basis for redundancies. The information collected on redundancies relates to whether an individual was made redundant in the three months prior to the survey interview. The data, however, is not sufficiently large to disaggregate reliably below an all-Scotland level.Jobs are constantly being created and lost across the country as firms start-up, expand, contract, close or merge. It would be a substantial burden on business - and indeed all employers - to require notifications of all job changes.

Reviews of policy at various levels are carried out as appropriate on an on-going basis across the Executive. No central record is held of policies under review.