Chamber and committees

The target for the growth of Scotland’s food and drink sector of £12.5 billion by 2017 is set by Scotland Food and Drink, with the support of the Scottish Government. Any decision to review that target is a matter for Scotland Food and Drink.

The Scottish Government is hopeful that the Food and Drink Industry will reach its target ahead of 2017. Should the target be met, the Scottish Government will work with Scotland Food and Drink to set and achieve a new target.

I intend to explore the scope to utilise EU funding to support the development of early learning and childcare in Scotland.

Monies for the current European Structural Fund programmes are largely committed for the period 2007-13. However, consideration around the main priorities for the 2014-2020 programme will begin shortly and we will consider early childhood education and care as a theme at that point.

This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I will ask the Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise to write to you with the information.

The Outline Business Case for the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme is predicated on a reduction in Scottish CO2 emissions of around 6,000 tonnes a year, which represents a decrease in Scottish rail emissions of approximately 4% despite increasing the number of train miles operated. Global emissions are reduced by around 40,000 tonnes a year. (Global emission reductions are higher because increased electricity emissions will be offset by reductions elsewhere within the EU Emission Trading Scheme which holds emissions from this sector constant.).

The collection of additional information in the student records of colleges would be considered if there was a policy need for this information. Such a decision would consider the additional burden this would place on colleges in the collection and processing of information and that placed on the Scottish Funding Council in validation and quality assurance of a new element of the data collection. If this information were to be collected it could not, due to the lead in times of the processes involved, be implemented until the collection of data relating to the academic year 2012-13 and the final data would not be received for analysis and dissemination until early 2014.

The information available from the current student collections, from both Scottish colleges and higher education institutions, that can be used to examine characteristics and outcomes of those from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds comes from linking student record information to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). This addresses Scottish Government policies in relation to social deprivation, in particular issues regarding widening access to higher education in Scotland and the monitoring of participation from such groups. Currently there are no policies which require information on National Statistics-Socio Economic Classification to be collected.

(a) No additional government funding has been allocated directly for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

(b) However, in March 2011, The Minister for Public Health and Sport, when providing evidence to the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, made a commitment to provide £10 million of funding, over the next three financial years, subject to the next Scottish Spending Review, to help implement the recommendations of the Scottish Autism Strategy.

A total of £2.6 million had been allocated in year 2011-12.

The Scottish Government encourages local authorities and regional transport partnerships to provide cycle facilities at major transport hubs, including rail stations and Park and Ride/ Choose sites. Provision of cycle facilities at bus stations is a matter for the owner of the bus station.

ScotRail has previously fulfilled its obligation to install secure cycle storage facilities at all stations and it continues to seek funding from external groups to install further facilities. Recently ScotRail funded new facilities at Haymarket and at some Strathclyde and east Lothian stations.

In addition all five new rail stations opened as part of the Airdrie- Bathgate project have covered, secure racks in place.

The Trunk Road Cycling Initiative requires that special consideration is given to cyclists in all new trunk road schemes and within improvements of existing trunk roads (including bridge and structural maintenance improvements). Guidance on where segregated cycle path provision is considered appropriate is set out in Cycling by Design which is published on Transport Scotland’s website at http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/strategy-and-research/publications-and-consultations/cycling-by-design.

Information identifying the National Statistics-Socio Economic Classification (NS-SEC) class of entrants to higher education is not available for all entrants included in the Age Participation Index (API), in particular this information is not available for entrants to Scottish Colleges. It is reasonable to expect that college entrants would be more likely, on average, to be classed at the lower end of the
NS-SEC (classes 4 to 7) and so analysis on only entrants to Scottish higher education institutions would be expected to be skewed towards higher classes in the NS-SEC (classes 1 to 3) and is therefore likely to misrepresent the true picture of participation among those from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds.

Analysis by entrants from deprived areas and analysis of entrants from NS-SEC classes are both commonly used as a measure of participation by those from relatively socially disadvantaged backgrounds. The most recent API (relating to academic year 2008-09) was calculated for those entrants from the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland, according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). The following table is an extract from the most recent update of the API, the full publication can be accessed at the following internet address, http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/08/25161104/0. The full publication includes additional analysis of entrants from deprived areas by local authority.

For more detail on the use SIMD in the calculation of the API can found in the methodological note within the publication, or accessed online at the following address,

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Lifelong-learning/APImethod.

The next update of the API will be released by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) on 28 July 2011, with updated time-series to included 2009-10 figures. This publication will be available from the SFC’s statistics website (http://www.sfc.ac.uk/statistics/statistics.aspx).

Deprived areas Age Participation Index for Scotland: 2001-02 to 2008-09

Sources: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS).

Note: The calculation of participation rates for deprived areas relies on a process of matching postcodes contained in student records to those in postcode directories and further matching of postcodes to datazones contained within the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).

Student records containing incomplete/invalid postcodes are excluded from this calculation, as are those with valid postcodes that cannot be matched to the SIMD.

The "total" figure from this deprived areas age participation index is therefore not an exact match to the figures shown in the Age Participation Index (API) for Scotland.

Overall this index is 0.2 percentage points lower than the API for Scotland for the same year.

In 2008-09, 99.6 per cent of entrant records were successfully matched to postcode directories, and to the SIMD, used for analysis by deprived areas.