Chamber and committees

The latest available data for children living in a lone parent family comes from the Labour Force Survey household dataset for April to June 2011.

The number of children living in a lone parent family in Scotland during the period April to June 2011 was 211,000. During the period April to June 1999 in Scotland, the number of children living in a lone parent family was 217,000.

Source: Labour Force Survey household dataset (not seasonally adjusted)

Note:

1. Households including at least one person aged 16 to 64.

2. Estimates only include those households with at least one person aged 16 to 64.

3. Children refer to children under 16.

4. Estimates are rounded to the nearest thousand.

Amounts paid in discounted air fares under the Air Discount Scheme are as follows:

Scotland

April 2010 to March 2011 - £5.689 million

April 2011 to March 2012 - £4.610 million

Shetland

April 2010 to March 2011 - £2.092 million

April 2011 to March 2012 - £1.711 million

The estimated cost and savings of the additional mergers introduced at Stage 2 of the Public Service Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 (and therefore not included in the 2009 Update document), are set out in the Supplementary Financial Memorandum which accompanied the bill following stage 2 consideration, which is published on the Scottish Parliament website at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/Bills/16535.aspx.

The public body mergers since the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 are listed in the Simplification Tracker, which is published on the Scottish Government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-bodies/simplification-programme/SimplificationTracker.

I will write to you separately with details of the estimated costs and savings of these mergers.

I will also write to the member separately about what information might usefully be collected in respect of the final outturn costs for each of the public sector body mergers since 2007.

According to the statistics published by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the number of properties repossessed in the UK in 1999 was around 30,000.

Recent data published by the CML states that the total number of properties taken into possession by first-charge mortgage lenders in the UK in 2011 was 36,200. This was the lowest annual total since 2007.

We provided figures for 2010 and 2011 to offer some insight into the change in Air Discount Scheme expenditure following the application, in 2011, of terms and conditions which were an original component of the scheme agreed with the European Commission in 2006.

16.2 per cent of all pupils present on the annual school meal survey day in January 1999, took a free school meal. This compares to 15.7 per cent of all pupils present on the annual school meal survey day in February 2012.

The information requested concerning young people from the most deprived decile in Scotland is not readily available but is available for the most deprived quintile (20 per cent). The following information refers to the 20 per cent most deprived areas in Scotland. Furthermore, the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), which is used to identify the most deprived areas of Scotland, was introduced in 2001-02, so it is only possible to provide the information from 2001-02.

The Age Participation Index is a projection of future participation in higher education of 17-year-old Scots based on current first time participation rates of Scots under the age of 21. This measure excludes part-time study or those studying with the Open University.

Age Participation Index (API) for Scotland by deprivation status:

2001-02 to 2009-10

Sources: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the National Records of Scotland (NRS).

Note: Student numbers are rounded to the nearest five.

The Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR) replaced the API for the academic year 2010-11 to produce more accurate results which are more comparable with other countries and to allow the inclusion of part-time study and Open University students.

Education Initial Participation Rate for Scotland by deprivation status: 2006-07 to 2010-11.

Sources: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the National Records of Scotland (NRS).

Note: Student numbers are rounded to the nearest five.

Estimates are that between 40,000 to 60,000 children in Scotland may be affected by parental drug misuse, of whom 10,000 to 20,000 may be living with that parent.

These estimates are derived from Estimating the National and Local Prevalence of Problem Drug Misuse in Scotland published in 2009.

Data for May 1999 are not available.

The most recent available statistics from the Scottish House Conditions Survey (2010) show that around 658,000 (28%) Scottish households are fuel poor.

This data was not collected in 1999.

Data was collected in 1996 when 756,000 households were fuel poor (35.6%) in Scotland. However, the definition of fuel poverty has changed since 1996, so these figures are not directly comparable. The figure for 2002 which is based on the current methodology was 293,000.

The latest statistics show that at 31 July 2011 there were 16,171 children looked after by local authorities in Scotland.

Figures are not available for May 1999, but are available for 31 March 1999, when there were 11,191 children looked after by local authorities in Scotland.

These statistics are available in Table 1.1 in Children’s Social Work Statistics Scotland, No 1: 2012 Edition available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Children/PubChildrenSocialWork.