Chamber and committees

Learning and training opportunities are available to unemployed graduates and non-graduates up to level 11 of the SCQF framework as part of the Scottish Executive's Training for Work (TfW) programme and part-time further education courses. Some New Deal programmes offer education and training up to SCQF Level 6. Outwith the SCQF, work experience placements with employers are available to graduates and non-graduates under both Local Enterprise Company and New Deal programmes.

The funding available to graduates to undertake further training will depend upon a number of factors including the level of qualification sought, the mode of study and the personal circumstances of the graduate.

In 1998 Security Branch management identified overpayments of overtime allowances to Security Force staff. The 1998 Audit of Security Branch confirmed that overpayments had been made. The significance of irregularities may be determined by their size and nature. In this case, the irregularities totalled approximately £342 and equated to approximately 0.03% of the Security Branch budget.In April 2002 Security Branch internal management controls identified possible irregularities with claims submitted in respect of travel related allowances. An investigation was initiated by Corporate Services Personnel Team which is on-going.

The reply given to question S1W-29610 referred to the White Paper Renewing Local Democracy: the Next Steps which sets out the Executive response to the issues of governance raised by McIntosh and Kerley. The paper was published for a four-month consultation period on 29 March in line with Executive's good practice guide on consultation.

Scottish domiciled higher education students will have their application for student support, including the student loan, assessed by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS). Information on individual students' loan eligibility is then passed to the Student Loans Company (SLC) which provides the appropriate level of loan and manages the individual students' accounts. Other aspects of the student support package are provided by SAAS and are not repayable unless an overpayment has occurred.Prior to 1999 eligibility for student loans was assessed by individual colleges and universities. Information on the loans taken out by students who started courses before that date will, therefore, be identified by SLC on the basis of their place of study and not their place of residence. The average level of debt will also be dependent upon a number of variable factors such as the fact that students do not always borrow the maximum amount available to them, sub-degree courses at HNC/HND level will attract student loan funding and that degree courses will be completed at different times of the year. Any average would be subject to frequent change dependent upon each individual student's behaviour and length of study at higher education level. To provide the information requested would, therefore, be time consuming and incur a disproportionate cost.

Institutions receive their allocation of the Mature Students' Bursary Fund in a single instalment at the beginning of the academic year; the amounts are, therefore, the same for both the financial and academic years.

Further Education Colleges	2001-02	2002-03
Aberdeen College of Further Education	176,050	210,492
Angus College	101,628	109,812
Anniesland College	35,206	48,635
Ayr College	126,728	161,946
Banff and Buchan College of Further Education	33,455	38,695
Barony College of Further Education	278	4,061
Borders College	35,045	26,710
Cardonald College	76,331	133,965
Central College of Commerce	83,355	121,599
Clackmannan College of Further Education	18,229	32,928
Clydebank College	118,889	150,124
Coatbridge College	143,846	152,611
Cumbernauld College	42,260	47,519
Dumfries and Galloway College	76,712	89,773
Dundee College	169,423	210,288
Edinburgh's Telford College	76,697	126,627
Elmwood College	31,036	44,808
Falkirk College of Technology	135,492	188,244
Fife College of Further and Higher Education	123,596	151,964
Glasgow College of Building and Printing	74,984	96,827
Glasgow College of Food Technology	29,517	47,466
Glasgow College of Nautical Studies	48,656	78,011
Glenrothes College	43,593	48,339
James Watt College of Further and Higher Education	268,917	393,790
Jewel and Esk Valley College	57,047	80,095
John Wheatley College	10,648	16,200
Kilmarnock College	110,602	100,277
Langside College	80,566	95,031
Lauder College	71,516	75,172
Motherwell College	184,215	225,052
Newbattle Abbey	0	0
North Glasgow College	59,472	67,641
Oatridge Agricultural College	6,428	9,445
Reid Kerr College	219,137	278,235
South Lanarkshire College	54,643	67,641
Stevenson College	46,660	89,382
Stow College	55,748	85,785
West Lothian College	47,106	72,102

Higher Education Institutions	2001-02	2002-03
Aberdeen University	88,243	169,584
Bell College of Technology	99,802	130,754
Dundee University	85,039	177,970
Edinburgh College of Art	2,746	18,090
Edinburgh University	88,767	176,782
Glasgow Caledonian University	83,610	283,128
Glasgow School of Art	11,583	16,934
Glasgow University	91,247	196,358
Heriot-Watt University	21,301	59,266
Napier University	62,879	110,342
Queen Margaret College	16,098	71,873
Robert Gordon University	41,853	115,596
Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama	2,885	5,358
Scottish Agricultural College	14,087	14,562
St Andrews University	18,730	32,754
Stirling University	56,583	101,150
Strathclyde University	97,621	305,445
University of Abertay Dundee	56,020	103,040
University of Paisley	66,873	238,649

UHI Millennium Institute	2001-02	2002-03
Highland Theological College	N/A	3,686
Inverness College	63,040	97,679
Lews Castle College	22,888	43,757
Moray College	78,981	110,147
North Atlantic Fisheries College	0	0
North Highland College	5,462	9,387
Orkney College	7,406	12,596
Perth College	71,980	106,144
Sabhal Mor Ostaig	1,497	1,861
Shetland College of Further Education	10,031	9,817
Total	4,340,962	6,700,000

The Independent Committee of Inquiry into Student Finance published its final report Student Finance: Fairness for the Future, the Consultation Process Report and Research Reports Volumes I and II, in December 1999. Copies of these reports are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. numbers 4126, 3939 and 3967 respectively).The final report and a summary of the oral evidence submitted to the committee is available on their website at: www.studentfinance.org.uk. The full archive of all the evidence submitted to the committee can be viewed at Saughton House in Edinburgh, by appointment, on telephone number 0131 244 8232.

The Executive will follow section 2 of The Education (Graduate Endowment and Student Support) (Scotland) Act 2001. Income arising from the graduate endowment will be accounted for in the Executive's resource accounts and applied for the purposes of student support.

Lone Parent students in higher education who incur formal child care costs were entitled to a grant up to £1,000 in 2001-02, in addition to their standard living cost support. This has been increased to up to £1,025 for each eligible student in 2002-03 in line with inflation.Discretionary bursary support, primarily towards the costs of child care, is also available to eligible mature students in higher education through the Mature Students Bursary Fund (MSBF) administered by colleges and universities. £4.3 million was distributed to institutions in respect of the MSBF at the start of academic year 2001-02 and £6.7 million at the start of 2002-03.£6 million is available in each academic year to further education students, through the Scottish Further Education Funding Council, for help towards child care costs.

The new student support arrangements, including eligibility for the Young Students' Bursary and liability for the Graduate Endowment, apply to Scottish domiciled students who started full-time higher education courses at a Scottish institution from 2001-02. Students who started a continuous programme of study (i.e. successive courses of study at Higher National Certificate level and above without a break of one year or more) before 2001-02 remain on the system of support which was in place when they commenced their studies.Students who started a course prior to 2001-02, and who voluntarily interrupted their studies for one year or more, are considered to have commenced a new continuous programme of study when they resume. Such students are, therefore, treated in the same way as new students and will be supported under the new arrangements which include eligibility for the Young Students' Bursary and liability for the Graduate Endowment.We have always recognised that it is important that, when students start a course of study, they know in advance what support will be available to them for the duration of their course. Whenever we have made changes to the student support system in the past we have, therefore, endeavoured to ensure that this is the case by specifying that students should always continue on the system of support which was in effect when they began their course until they complete or abandon it.