Chamber and committees

The Individual Learning Account Centre is located in Darlington, Co. Durham and officials are in contact with it on a daily basis.

The overall level of assistance with living costs available to Scottish domiciled students is the same whether they study in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK.Under the student support arrangements introduced in 2001-02, young Scottish domiciled students from low income backgrounds studying in Scotland can receive up to £2,050 of their student loan entitlement in the form of a bursary and additional loan support of up to £510. Students eligible to receive support under the new arrangements may also be liable to pay the new Graduate Endowment when they complete their studies. Income from the endowment is intended to help provide similar support for future generations of students. Because students who are not studying at a Scottish institution would not be liable to pay the Graduate Endowment, it was decided that they should not be entitled to the other elements of the new support package, including the Young Students' Bursary. It was, however, subsequently decided that such students should be entitled to the same level of spending power as their counterparts in Scotland. They will, therefore, from 2002-03 onwards, be entitled to bursaries of up to £510 in addition to their student loan entitlement.

Over 800 learning providers have been included in the exercise to validate claims submitted for payment. Until investigations are concluded into suspected fraudulent activity, the cost of the investigations and the amount of monies involved cannot be established.

Any application received by sportscotland from North Lanarkshire Council for financial assistance to replace any sports or recreational facilities lost as a result of any redevelopment at Croy Station will be considered in line with the criteria for the relevant funding programme.

The retrieval of information to rectify an underpayment of wages and allowances is a circumstance where all reasonable means would be taken to retrieve such information where it had been misplaced or where the timescales for holding the information had been exceeded.

The number of crimes recorded by the British Transport Police (BTP), as provided by them to the Scottish Executive, is shown in the following table.

	2000	2001	Percentage Change
Total recorded crimes in Scotland	3,381	4,014	19

Funding for the BTP is a matter for the British Transport Police Committee and Scottish ministers have no direct locus. A primary inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, published in March 2001, found evidence of strong relationships, good liaison and effective working between BTP Scottish Area and Scottish Police Forces.

The matter of pensions is in general reserved by virtue of section F3 of part II of schedule 5 to the Scotland Act. However, an exception is made in respect of employees of a Scottish public authority with mixed functions or no reserved functions and the Parliament may therefore legislate as to the pensions payable to such persons.

Where the right of an employee to transfer is provided by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981, it would be outwith the competence of the Scottish Parliament (by virtue of section H1 of part II of schedule 5 to the Scotland Act) to legislate so as to take away any rights to which the employee is entitled under those regulations. In general, it would be within the competence of the Parliament to legislate as to the terms of transfer of particular employees where the transfer is not one to which the 1981 regulations or any other employment legislation covered by section H1 applies.

The decision to classify the Queen's Golden Jubilee as a privilege holiday was in line with precedent e.g. the Millennium holiday.To identify the precise financial savings due to this decision cannot be done without incurring disproportionate costs. However, in general terms the cost to the Scottish Executive for staff required to work on a public holiday is, in addition to their basic pay, at the rate of plain time plus time off in lieu. When time off in lieu cannot be granted, an additional payment for the hours worked will be made at plain time rate. For the hours worked on a privilege holiday payment is made at plain time rate.

Further education colleges are autonomous bodies under the terms of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 1992. Local management and human resource issues at further education colleges are for colleges themselves to address.The Scottish Executive has received no recent representations on management or human resource issues at Motherwell College.