Chamber and committees

Nursery teachers are paid on the same scale as other teachers employed in local authorities. The salary scale ranges from £16,644 to £26,670. The starting salary for probationer teachers from 1 August 2002 will be £16,644 rising to £17,726 from 1 January 2003.

As previously outlined in the answer given to question S1O-4974 on 28 March 2002, nursery teachers are paid on the same scale as other teachers employed by local authorities. Their salaries are reviewed and negotiated by the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers.

The following table shows the number and full time equivalent of teachers employed in pre-school education centres as at September 1999.

	Number of Teachers	Teachers Full Time Equivalent
Scotland	1,940	1,566
Aberdeen City	136	114.1
Aberdeenshire	95	77.3
Angus	55	34.7
Argyll and Bute	21	8.4
Clackmannanshire	19	18.0
Dumfries and Galloway	45	35.5
Dundee City	62	58.4
East Ayrshire	29	27.5
East Dunbartonshire	29	24.8
East Lothian	57	44.7
East Renfrewshire	28	23.9
Edinburgh, City of	228	179.8
Eilean Siar	7	3.8
Falkirk	47	40.3
Fife	132	110.3
Glasgow City	195	178.4
Highland	94	50.9
Inverclyde	20	17.1
Midlothian	40	34.1
Moray	34	23.9
North Ayrshire	42	36.3
North Lanarkshire	80	72.7
Orkney Islands	18	9.9
Perth and Kinross	64	49.7
Renfrewshire	32	28.5
Scottish Borders	58	39.4
Shetland Islands	22	13.2
South Ayrshire	39	32.0
South Lanarkshire	84	71.2
Stirling	45	36.3
West Dunbartonshire	22	19.6
West Lothian	61	51.5

The information requested is not held centrally. COSLA's advisory Scheme of Salaries and Conditions of Service for Nursery Staffs recommends a salary range of £10,679 to £13,664 for a nursery nurse class 1 (qualified) employed by a local authority. This salary range applies on entering the profession.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:The Estates Review document did not refer to the 2000-01 report by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (HMCIP) because the purpose of the review was to identify the likely pressures on the Scottish Prison Service estate over the long term and to generate a series of options for meeting them, rather than to look back at specific aspects of the performance of existing prisons such as Kilmarnock.The review's conclusion that private build, private operate prisons have proved themselves capable of providing good, effective custodial services was based on experience of such prisons in a number of jurisdictions. In the case of Kilmarnock, account was taken of all the detailed information available in forming the view that it operates effectively. That information came from a range of sources, primarily the monitoring of the prison on a continuous basis by Scottish Prison Service staff and the results of prisoner surveys but also including HMCIP reports.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-24436 on 16 May 2002.

I understand that City of Edinburgh Council has no such policy in Trinity Academy primary school. Similarly, there is no such policy in Trinity Academy secondary school, although practical classes will be limited to a maximum of 20 by national agreements on teachers' terms and conditions.

The proportion of children living in low-income households in Scotland was 30% in 2000-01. This is our headline measure, based on 60% of median GB income (after housing costs) for the relative year. In order to have a detailed understanding of children in low-income families we track a number of measurements, as outlined in our Social Justice Annual Report.There has been considerable progress in improving the position for families on the lowest incomes. The proportion of children in severe income poverty (below 50% of median income) has fallen markedly from 21% in 1996-97 to 16% in 2000-01. There has also been a substantial improvement in income levels for low income families generally, as shown by the 13 percentage point drop in the number of children living in low-income households in absolute terms, from 34% in our baseline year of 1996-97 to 21% in 2000-01. These figures demonstrate that poor children in Scotland have been benefiting from our policies of supporting parents into training and work, underpinned by the modernisation of the tax and benefit system by the UK Government.We remain committed to defeating child poverty in a generation.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-24436.

The Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Bill was introduced on 7 May 2002. The bill introduces a radical new approach to debt management which puts money advice and information at the forefront to enable debt problems to be tackled before court and enforcement action become a possibility. It implements the central recommendations of the independent Working Group's report Striking the Balance: a new approach to debt management, published on 6 July 2001, which were the subject of extensive public consultation and which received widespread support. In particular, it establishes the framework for a nation-wide debt arrangement scheme to allow managed repayment of multiple debt by negotiated instalment. In doing so, it fulfils the Executive's commitment to bring forward an humane and workable alternative to the existing system in response to the request of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee expressed in its Stage 1 Report on the Abolition of Poindings and Warrant Sales Bill (SP Paper 82, paragraph 48).