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A variety of additional powers have been devolved to the Parliament since May 1999. The details are contained in orders made under section 30 of the Scotland Act and in primary legislation passed by the UK Parliament.

The Scottish Parliament website lists Sewel Motions and Legislative Consent Motions arising in connection with UK primary legislation. The text of relevant Scotland Act Orders and UK Acts of Parliament can be found at .

Implementation of the Sustainable Procurement Action Plan is a matter for individual public bodies. The Scottish Government has a number of contracts which assist supported businesses. Capability St Judes was awarded a contract for laundry services 1 April 2009. Remploy are working as a sub-contractor on refurbishment of the Scottish Fire College premises and three business are engaged as sub-contractors on the Scottish Government’s Design Print Printing and Associated Services contract.

In 2010-11 Scottish public bodies spent £24.1 million with supported businesses. While the Scottish Government does not hold information regarding the number of jobs this spending secures, public sector spending with supported business clearly plays an important role in supporting the sector.

This is a matter for individual public bodies. To help make it easier for Scottish public bodies to award contracts to supported businesses the Scottish Government has worked with the British Association for Supported Employment (BASE) to publish guidance for buyers on working with Scottish supported businesses. We have also developed new functionality on the Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) portal which alerts public sector buyers to the possibility of buying from supported businesses whenever they create a notice on PCS for goods or services that a supported business could provide. We are also working with BASE to establish national framework agreements reserved for supported businesses, providing public bodies in Scotland with easy access to the wide range of high quality goods and services that supported businesses provide.

We intend to consider what further measures might be appropriate to assist supported businesses in Scotland as part of the Sustainable Procurement Bill which we have committed to introducing during the lifetime of this Parliament.

The government conducts an annual teacher workforce planning exercise to determine how many teachers to train to ensure sufficient availability of teachers, including supply teachers.

The recruitment and deployment of teachers is a matter for local authorities.

Despite UK funding cuts, local government’s share of the 2011-12 Scottish Budget was preserved at 2010-11 levels following year on year increases since 2007-08.

The Scottish Government has set a target to reduce CO₂ emissions from energy used in its buildings by at least 30% by 2020, with an interim target of reducing CO₂ emissions by 12.6% by March 2011.

The Scottish Government is planning to reduce the size of its office estate by 25% by 2016 and it is expected that this reduction will contribute towards achieving the 2020 target.

The Scottish Government is working with NHS Lothian to deliver a number of major projects including the reprovision of the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and Department of Clinical Neurosciences together with a range of services at the Astley Ainslie and Royal Edinburgh Hospitals. These projects together with on-going maintenance are expected to reduce identified backlog by £84 million.

The information requested contained in Table 1.

Figures on the number of students receiving bursary funds who are in receipt of Maintenance Allowance is also given in Table 2.

Table 1: Number of Students in receipt of bursaries at Colleges in Edinburgh and the Lothians (2005-06 to 2009-10)

Source: Scottish Funding Council.

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Table 2: Of the students in receipt of bursaries, the number in receipt of Maintenance Allowance¹ at Colleges in Edinburgh and the Lothians (2005-06 to 2009-10)

Source: Scottish Funding Council.

Note: Maintenance allowance accounts for over half of the assistance given from the bursary fund.

We have indicated to College Principals that funding for 2012-13 will enable colleges to maintain student numbers at this year’s baseline levels.

It is the responsibility of the Scottish Funding Council to allocate funding to individual colleges. The eventual number of students then enrolled, or given financial support, is then a matter for the college.

The guidance for the completion of disclosure checks is contained within the Safer Pre and Post Employment Checks Partnership Information (PIN) Policy. This PIN Policy describes the process that Boards must undertake in relation to disclosure checks and applies to all directly employed staff in NHSScotland, and to temporary, locum, and agency staff. This PIN policy is currently under review to reflect the changes in legislation in respect of Disclosure and Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) checks. The current PIN Policy can be found at:

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