- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21390 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, why information regarding further and higher educational establishments without disabled access and egress is not held centrally and whether it will, from now, collate this information centrally, detailing the reasons behind its decision.
Answer
Further and higher education institutions are autonomous bodies and are themselves responsible for the provision of appropriate facilities for students with special needs, in accordance with the relevant legislation. It would serve no useful purpose for the Scottish Executive to maintain details of the physical accessibility of college and university buildings, and there are no plans to do so.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-21381 and S1W-21382 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, whether it could be held legally or financially liable for any malpractice resulting from grievance and appeals procedures at further and higher education establishments.
Answer
This would ultimately be a matter for the courts to establish.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21391 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, why information regarding lecture halls in university and further education college buildings without loop systems to assist students with hearing difficulties is not held centrally and whether it will, from now, collate this information centrally, detailing the reasons behind its decision.
Answer
Further and higher education institutions are autonomous bodies and are themselves responsible for the provision of appropriate facilities for students with special needs in accordance with relevant legislation. It would serve no useful purpose for the Scottish Executive to maintain details of which college and university lecture halls have loop systems, and there are no plans to do so.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21393 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, why information on the funding of universities and further education colleges is a matter for the Scottish Funding Councils for Higher and Further Education only and is not held centrally and whether it will, from now, collate this information centrally, detailing the reasons behind its decision.
Answer
The department is responsible for allocating funding to the funding councils on an annual basis, and details of these allocations are collated and published each year in the
Annual Expenditure Report. This can be found on the Scottish Executive website at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library3/finance/aer-00.asp.It is properly the responsibility of the funding councils to allocate funds at the level of individual institutions. Consequently, it is the responsibility of the councils to collate and disseminate this information.Officials from the department would be happy to meet with you to discuss data collection and the information that is available.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21387 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, why the information requested regarding state entrants to university and further education colleges is not held centrally in the format requested nor is available to further education colleges and whether it will, from now, collate this information centrally, detailing the reasons behind its decision.
Answer
In deciding which statistics to collect on further education college students, the Scottish Further Educational Funding Council balances need, burden, cost and reliability. The does, for instance, collect information on students' previous qualifications but not on whether they attended a state school.In higher education, the data collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency and published by the UK Funding Council, referred to in the previous answer, provides information on the proportion of entrants from state schools at each institution. The additional information requested in the earlier question is not deducible from the data collected from institutions, insofar as whether an entrant has come directly from a state school, and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost for the other categories sought.Officials from the department would be happy to meet with you to discuss data collection and the information that is available.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-21381 and S1W-21382 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, on what date it advised further and higher education establishments to review their practices and procedures to ensure that they comply with the European Convention on Human Rights; whether it will place a copy of any such advice or instructions in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, and what action it has taken, or plans to take, to ensure that they undertake the review of practices and procedures in line with its advice.
Answer
Higher education institutions were issued with guidance in December 1999 advising them to review their practices and procedures to ensure that they comply with the convention. Copies are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 18845).All further education colleges received similar guidance and advice in November 2000 in the form of a legal briefing in the November 2000 issue of "Broadcast", the journal of the Scottish Further Education Unit. Copies of the guidance are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 18843).As autonomous bodies, further education colleges and higher education institutions are entirely responsible for deciding what action is necessary to ensure that their own procedures comply with any legal requirements.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21395 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, why information on full-time and part-time academic staff in universities with recognised teaching qualifications is not collected and whether it will, from now, collate this information centrally, detailing the reasons behind its decision.
Answer
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) does not collect this data as there is no standard teaching qualification for academic staff in higher education institutions.Officials from the department would be happy to meet with you to discuss data collection and the information that is available.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21389 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, why information on students who failed to complete their courses is not held centrally in the format requested and is not available to further education colleges and whether it will, from now, collate this information centrally, detailing the reasons behind its decision.
Answer
Publication of information on college student completion rates has been suspended because of concerns over the reliability of the source data. The Scottish Further Education Funding Council is currently developing a set of new performance indicators which will reflect, among other things, aspects of student achievement.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21394 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, why information regarding academic staffing is not collected in the format requested for further education colleges; what format the information is collected in for these establishments, and whether it will, from now, collate this information in this format centrally, detailing the reasons behind its decision.
Answer
The Scottish Executive does not directly collect statistics relating to further education colleges. This is the responsibility of the Scottish Further Education Funding Council, which already collects a range of academic staff data from further education colleges.Details are available on the following webpages:
www.sfefc.ac.uk/content/sfefc/festats/guidnote/0001/scr/webdoc.html.
http://www.sfefc.ac.uk/content/sfefc/festats/factsfig/9900/staffing/staffing.htm.The Scottish Executive has no plans to collate centrally the information requested.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2002
-
Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 7 February 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-21397 by Ms Wendy Alexander on 18 January 2002, why information on the number of students attending university or further education colleges who applied for a student loan, either through the Awards Agency for Scotland or the Students Loans Company Ltd, could only be obtained at disproportionate cost and whether the information could be provided were individual parliamentary questions on separate aspects of the subject lodged.
Answer
The answer given to question S1W-21397 set out the background to the various data sets collected by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland and the Student Loans Company. To answer the question on the number of loans applied for would require a complete crosscheck of the two organisation's records for the past five years, which could only be undertaken at disproportionate cost.The previous answer provided the information sought on numbers of loans made and the average amount paid.There are a variety of measures of the number of Scottish students, including or excluding post graduates, part-time students, Scottish domiciled students studying in Scotland or elsewhere, non-Scottish domiciled students studying in Scotland and so on. In the absence of a specific definition in the question, percentage figures were not provided.Officials from the department would be happy to meet with you to discuss data collection and the information that is available.
