Chamber and committees

The application for Training Plus was processed through the normal Scottish Enterprise delegated authority process which requires projects of this size to be approved by Scottish Enterprise’s Single Approval Group.

A training plus grant is dependent on delivery of the training plan contained in the application and offer agreement. Funding cannot be paid out unless training activity has taken place and the company can provide supporting evidence of this and the costs associated with it. Currently, Vion is now not active on this project due to the 90 day consultation process and gave notice to Scottish Enterprise of this situation.

In the event that Vion had met the criteria to make an eligible claim (which it did for the first stage of the project), the conditions in the contract relating to the outcomes would have resulted in 100% clawback of any grant payment made. Therefore, Vion decided not to make a claim for the grant to which it was entitled.

Since 2007 Vion has been paid £223,875 in grants that relate to:

lean management for centrally processed meat: £131,600

management development: £30,650

developing a graduate scheme: £11,000

strategy: £50,625.

These grants relate to only a proportion of the actual expenditure incurred by Vion for these projects.

Vion was required to complete a Training Plus application form which included details of the plans for the project associated with the grant along with projections and anticipated outputs.

Modern apprenticeship starts are recorded by local authority area rather than constituency area. There were 894 modern apprenticeship starts in the West Lothian local authority area in 2011-12.

Scottish Government will be discussing arrangements for the 1+2 pilot programme with SCILT (Scotland’s National Centre for Languages), Education Scotland and local authorities over the summer.

Scottish Government will develop an engagement strategy for delivering the 1+2 languages commitment which will involve all key stakeholders. Education Scotland, in particular, will be involved in monitoring and evaluating progress over the period of the pilot project programme in 2012-13 and the wider implementation from 2013-14 onwards.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-07680 on 26 June 2012. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Scottish Government will consider with stakeholders, including COSLA and local authorities, the resource implications of the recommendations of the Languages Working Group Report, Language Learning in Scotland: A 1+2 Approach, published on 17 May 2012. Ministers will respond formally to the report in the Autumn.

Scottish Government funds British Council Scotland to administer the Foreign Language Programme in Scotland, including promoting the value of Foreign Language Assistants to local authorities who are responsible for employing assistants in their schools. As a result of the Council’s work there will be 73 Foreign Language Assistants in Scottish schools in 2012-13 compared with 59 in 2011-12.