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Employment policy is reserved to the UK Government which takes the lead on funding and delivery of Welfare to Work programmes. In Scotland it does this in partnership with the Scottish Executive and contributing organisations.The New Deal for Lone Parents is available on a voluntary basis in the Dumbarton parliamentary constituency. Following a qualifying period of unemployment Jobcentre Plus clients are eligible to join the New Deal for Young People and the New Deal for the Long Term Unemployed. Both these programmes have targets to achieve parity of outcomes for those clients from Minority Ethnic Groups.Action Teams for Jobs, available in three Dumbarton wards - Dumbarton North, Dumbarton West and Dumbarton Central, is a programme which aims to increase employment rates amongst disadvantaged groups in employment deprived areas. This programme is available to lone parents and ethnic minorities. The action team has co-funded two One Plus Child Care training courses to help address child minding problems of lone parents returning to work. The action team is also able to provide additional funding to lone parents not available through mainstream provision.A number of disadvantaged groups have early access to the Training for Work programme (TfW). TfW offers a selection of work focused training opportunities and, in the Dunbartonshire area, is enhanced by the JOBlink project and by the Adult Recruitment and Training Credit that is available to employers recruiting unemployed TfW eligible clients.

The Scottish Further Education Funding Council has been responsible for allocating funds to further education colleges since 1 July 1999, when it took over that responsibility from the Scottish Office Education and Industry Department. The annual allocations to Clydebank College were as follows:

Year	£
1997-98	7,432,900
1998-99	8,346,450
1999-2000	8,386,494
2000-01	9,058,602
2001-02	13,078,008

(a) Dumbarton parliamentary constituency has one project: the East Dunbartonshire Multi-Agency Drug and Alcohol Forum, which works with drug misusers.(b) There are currently no New Futures Fund Projects in Argyle and Bute Council area.(c) The West Dunbartonshire Council area has one project; the West Dunbartonshire Partnership, which works with drug misusers.

Councils' expenditure on home care services is funded through the general local government settlement. Between 1997-98 and 2001-02, Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire Councils' net expenditure on home care services increased by 26% to £3.7million and by 28% to £3.0 million respectively. The following tables show the number of clients in receipt of care at home in each of these areas from 1997. Argyll and Bute Home Care Clients

Year	No. of Clients	No. of Clients over 65
1997	1,033	855
1998	1,007	906
1999	949	814
2000	972	829
2001	927	786
2002	957	827

Source: SEHD H1 Home Care Return.West Dunbartonshire Home Care Clients

Year	No. of Clients	No. of Clients over 65
1997	1,641	1,490
1998	1,699	1,449
1999	1,760	1,388
2000	1,767	1,387
2001	1,558	1,244
2002	1,647	1,300

Source: SEHD H1 Home Care Return.

Argyll and Bute Council was allocated £2.655 million for 1 July 2002 to 31 March 2003 and £3.547 million for 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004.West Dunbartonshire Council was allocated £1.591 million for 1 July 2002 to 31 March 2003 and £2.101 million for 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004.

Tuition fees have been abolished for Scottish domiciled and EU students studying full-time higher education courses in Scotland. This support is not repayable and is available to all eligible full-time students to undertake one first degree, or comparable course of higher education, provided they have not previously undertaken such a course with assistance from public funds. This support is paid irrespective of the students' family income.Scottish domiciled students who study full-time higher education (HE) courses elsewhere in the UK make an annual means tested contribution of up to £1,100 towards the cost of their tuition. Such students from low-income families will, therefore, have their tuition fees paid on their behalf by SAAS.In the current academic year there are 2,018 undergraduate students from Argyll and Bute and 1,808 undergraduate students from West Dunbartonshire local authority area who have had their tuition fees waived. Scottish domiciled students who study part-time HE courses in Scotland can apply to their institution to waive their fees if they have a disability, are claiming benefits or are from a low income family. Information on the number of part-time students who have their fees waived is not held centrally. Students studying at institutions overseas generally do not receive tuition fee support.

The Scottish Executive's drugs strategy, Tackling Drugs in Scotland: Action in Partnership, is backed by around £130 million in new resources for 2001-02 to 2003-04. All areas of Scotland have benefited from these additional resources in terms of new drug treatment and rehabilitation services, improved support for young people and families, improved treatment provision in prisons, more criminal justice interventions, strengthened enforcement activity, enhanced drugs education in schools and in the community and better improved information on drugs.However, the planning and delivery of local activities and initiatives is the responsibility of local drug action teams and partner agencies. drug action teams are required to report to the Scottish Executive on actions undertaken and planned in their annual corporate action plans. These can be found on the national drugs website at The plans show evidence of enhanced service provision in the areas requested, particularly in terms of services for vulnerable young people, the further development of integrated services, and the provision of training and employment opportunities for recovering drug users. A Drug Treatment and Testing Order has also recently come into operation in the Argyll and Clyde area.Information on drug-related expenditure is not held on a constituency basis. The main components of drugs specific expenditure allocated to NHS boards and local authorities in the areas requested is outlined in the following tables. The areas may also be benefiting from other resources which are not drug specific, but which impact on the problem. Drug Treatment

NHS Board	2001-02(£000)	2002-03(£000)	2003-04(£000)
Argyll and Clyde	1,111	1,338	1,338
Greater Glasgow	4,387	4,488	4,488

Rehabilitation

Council Area	2001-02(£000)	2002-03(£000)	2003-04(£000)
Argyll and Bute	119	119	119
West Dunbaronshire	126	126	126

Drugs Education in Schools

Council Area	2001-02(£000)	2002-03(£000)
Argyll and Bute	17.5	17.5
West Dunbaronshire	21	21

Changing Children's Services Fund (for work with young people and families)

Council Area	2001-02 to 2003-04(£000)
Argyll and Bute	259
West Dunbaronshire	510

The statutory scheme of drink-drive rehabilitation courses is a reserved matter. The Department for Transport, which administers the scheme, has commissioned research into the operation of these courses and their effectiveness in discouraging reoffending since the creation of a permanent scheme in January 2000. The research will cover Scotland and the Scottish Executive will have access to the results of that evaluation as soon as they are available. Monitoring of the pilot scheme, which ended in 1999, found that those offenders who had attended a course were between two and three times less likely to re-offend than those who had not.

Young Scottish students studying full-time higher education courses in Scotland from 2001-02 are entitled to an annual Young Students' Bursary (YSB) of up to £2,050, which replaces part of their loan support. Young Scottish students studying elsewhere in the UK for the first time from 2002-03 onwards are entitled to an annual Young Students' Outside Scotland Bursary (YSO) of up to £510, which is provided in addition to their student loan entitlement. Both bursaries are provided as an entitlement based on the level of parental income and eligibility is assessed as part of the overall assessment of eligibility for student support.In academic year 2001-02, there were 13,579 recipients of YSB. In the current academic year, to date, 21,384 YSB awards and 317 YSO awards have been made. The following table shows the percentage of recipients domiciled in each area since the bursaries were introduced.

Area	% in 2001-02	% in 2002-03
(a) Argyll and Bute	1.80	1.86
(b) West Dunbartonshire	1.97	2.07
(c) Dumbarton	1.45	1.76

Constituency statistics are only available for the New Deals for young people aged 18 to 24, for the long-term unemployed aged 25 and over and for lone parents. These statistics indicate that across these three New Deals, to the end of September 2002, a total of 1,489 people had gone into jobs within the Dumbarton constituency.