- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 January 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 29 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive which National Training Organisations are (a) based solely in Scotland and (b) have representative offices in Scotland, broken down by Local Enterprise Company area.
Answer
As UK-wide bodies, no National Training Organisation is based solely in Scotland. Seventy one National Training Organisations (NTOs) are currently recognised. Two have their Headquarters based in Scotland - the British Plumbing Employers Council (Edinburgh) and the Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation (Aberdeen). 43 other NTOs have representatives based in Scotland. The breakdown by Local Enterprise Company (LEC) area is as follows:
LEC Area | Number of NTOs with a Presence |
SE Ayrshire | 1 |
SE Borders | 1 |
SE Dumfries and Galloway | 2 |
SE Edinburgh and Lothian | 25 |
SE Fife | 4 |
SE Forth Valley | 1 |
SE Glasgow | 8 |
SE Grampian | 5 |
SE Lanarkshire | 2 |
SE Renfrewshire | 2 |
SE Tayside | 4 |
Argyll and Islands Enterprise | 1 |
Inverness and Nairn Enterprise | 3 |
Some NTOs have representatives based in more than one LEC area.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 January 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 29 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how many National Training Organisation employees are based in Scotland (a) in total and (b) broken down by (i) organisation (ii) Local Enterprise Company area and (iii) location.
Answer
National Training Organisations (NTOs) operate on a UK-wide basis and two have their Headquarters in Scotland. The Scottish Executive does not hold details of the numbers of NTO employees based in Scotland.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 January 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Nicol Stephen on 29 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will detail any directions it has given to any local authority to suspend its school capital repairs programme pending the outcome of its bid made under the Public Private Partnership/Private Finance Initiative and when any such directions were made.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has issued no such directions.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 January 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 29 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much financial support it has provided for Modern Apprenticeships in each year since 1994 in respect of each (a) Local Enterprise Company and (b) framework.
Answer
Support for Modern Apprenticeships is provided from within the block grant-in-aid to Scottish Enterprise and Highlands & Islands Enterprise. Decisions on more detailed expenditure are operational matters for those bodies.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 12 November 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 28 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what studies it has commissioned to date on rail or road freight flows and what information it has on (a) current rail and road flows and (b) projected flows for the remainder of this parliamentary session in (i) each parliamentary region and (ii) each parliamentary constituency.
Answer
In April 2001 the Scottish Executive commissioned consultants to carry out a study to take a strategic view of the potential for developing sustainable freight movements across the whole of Scotland. The study is expected to be completed and published early this year. The Scottish Executive does not hold information on current or projected rail and road flows in each parliamentary region and constituency. The information which is held by the Scottish Executive on rail and road freight is given in tables 3.1 to 3.8, 8.4 and 8.5 of Scottish Transport Statistics published by the Scottish Executive in 2001, copies of which are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 15770).
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 26 November 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 28 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive (a) why, under section 2.1 (iii) of Schedule 3, Part 4 of the Term Contract for Management and Maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network, Amey Highways Ltd and BEAR (Scotland) are prevented from responding to any "correspondence regarding matters of Scottish Executive policy or funding or matters where there shall be a possibility of political sensitivity" giving reasons for the position on each of these three categories, and (b) what it considers to be politically sensitive matters in this context.
Answer
This condition, which is no different to that in the previous contracts, was included to define areas of responsibility between the Scottish Executive and the Operating Companies in respect of dealings with particular types of correspondence.Politically sensitive matters in this context, are matters of political interest other than those connected with factual or routine operational issues.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 January 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 23 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-20257, S1W-20258 and S1W-20816 by Lewis Macdonald on 7 January 2002, what the legal barriers were, broken down by particular Act and section, that prevented it, as the author of the trunk roads maintenance contracts, from (a) requiring that the Statement of Practice guidelines associated with TUPE transfers be an obligation during the transfer of staff and (b) improving the contractual protection of the pension rights of local authority staff in its tender process in each case.
Answer
TUPE is the UK Regulation which transposes the EC Acquired Rights Directive. The application of TUPE is a matter of law. The Scottish Executive were unable to state that a Transfer of Undertaking would occur on the award of the new contracts. Regulation 3 of TUPE requires the occurrence of a relevant transfer as a precondition of the application of the regulations.Further to the answer given to question S1W-20816, the contracts are silent on the pensions position. There are no powers within the contract which would have allowed ministers to require the new operating companies to improve the levels of pension.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 21 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 22 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what assistance it can provide to students or internal welfare organisations who contact it directly requesting its intervention in concerns, complaints, alleged malpractices or grievances associated with courses or administration at any university or further education college.
Answer
All higher education institutions and further education colleges have complaints procedures in place, details of which are available to students and staff. Institutions and colleges are autonomous bodies and ministers have no locus to intervene in such matters.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 December 2001
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 22 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S1W-20441 and S1W-20439 by Lewis MacDonald on 11 December 2001 and given that it is "not usual to provide details of discussions between Ministers and third parties", how it decides what information will be disclosed when this circumstance arises.
Answer
Decisions on whether or not to disclose information, including details of discussions between ministers and third parties, are considered in the context of the Executive's policy of extending access to official information. This policy is supported by the Code of Practice on Access to Scottish Executive Information, which provides that information should be released except where disclosure would not be in the public interest, as specified in Part II of the code.
- Asked by: Andrew Wilson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 January 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 22 January 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how students involved in higher education should fill the #700 funding gap which they will experience every year, as identified by Universities Scotland, once its bursary proposals have been implemented.
Answer
In addition to the main student support entitlement, which for a young full-time student starting higher education in Scotland is worth up to £4,315, supplementary grants for students with children or other special needs are also available. These grants include Dependants' and Lone Parents' Grants, the School Meals Grant and the Disabled Students' Allowance. From this year, the Lone Parents Grant contains an additional element for childcare worth up to £1,000. The School Meals Grant is also new this year. Assistance may also be available in individual cases from the Hardship Funds and/or Hardship Loans, which are intended to enable institutions to assist students who face particular financial difficulties. Mature students may also apply for support from the Mature Students Bursary Fund, from which payments up to the value of £2,000 a year may be made.Actual levels of personal expenditure, and the methods by which these are financed, are, however, ultimately a matter for individuals.
