Scottish Spending Review 2011 and Draft Budget 2012-13

Chapter 9 Education and Lifelong Learning

PORTFOLIO RESPONSIBILITIES

The Education and Lifelong Learning portfolio is responsible for government policy related to improving outcomes for children, young people and, in collaboration with Health and Social Care Directorates, users of social care. It covers all aspects of school education and national qualifications; university research and science; further and higher education; as well as community and adult learning and development, skills and training and Gaelic language and broadcasting. The majority of the budget is, however, contained within the local government settlement which provides for local authority delivery of school education.

SUPPORTING RECOVERY AND INCREASING SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH

Education and lifelong learning are key contributors to economic recovery and the long-term economic growth in which we want everyone across Scotland to share.

We are enabling people to support themselves and their families while making the maximum possible contribution to the success of Scotland's economy and society, and enriching our culture. These have been our guiding principles in making the tough choices demanded of us.

Our ongoing focus on the early years will provide a strong base for all our children, irrespective of background, to develop, learn and achieve their potential. It also delivers clear economic benefits in terms of making better and more effective use of resources and reducing the need in both the short term and the long term for more expensive, crisis intervention. Evidence shows us that this is where we can make the biggest impact, improving the life chances for our most vulnerable children.

Investment to support the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence will ensure that our young people will have the capacity to flourish in the labour market of the future. The Curriculum for Excellence will enhance the prospects of a generation of our young people, providing them with the skills and behaviours they will need in order to thrive as citizens in the economy of tomorrow.

Moving beyond school, through investment in training opportunities, colleges and universities, we will be helping young people to move from education, into work, supporting people of all ages and backgrounds to find jobs, and enabling people to acquire the higher level skills which lead to individual prosperity and which will underpin our future economic growth. The Opportunities for All initiative will offer all 16-19 year olds not already in learning or a job, a training or education opportunity appropriate to their needs. This supports our ambition to develop the skills of all of our young people to ensure they are equipped to make a successful move into the world of work. Our long term economic success depends on having highly skilled people who can capitalise confidently on opportunities, adapt to changing demands, create and develop new knowledge and harness the potential of technological advances.

The portfolio also supports a range of measures to promote Gaelic and Scots which have an important cultural and economic impact.

By working creatively with the Scottish education system, we can also help ensure that future generations will see the need to protect our environment as a means of achieving economic growth rather than as a constraint on prosperity. The portfolio supports our collective efforts across Government to advance Scotland's position as an environmental leader, and to ensure that we make the most of the economic opportunity that this provides. Over a thousand Scottish schools now have 'Green Flag' status, and the portfolio continues to support sustainability and environmental awareness across the whole school community. Similarly, the portfolio supports development of the specialist skills and research needed for our ambitions in renewable energy and supports our institutions as they develop world-leading energy technology partnerships.

NATIONAL OUTCOMES

The policies, activities and expenditure of the Education and Lifelong Learning portfolio contribute to a number of our national outcomes, especially the following:

• Our children have the best start in life and are ready to succeed.
• We have improved the life chances for children, young people and families at risk.
• We are better educated, more skilled and more successful, renowned for our research and innovation.
• Our young people are successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens.
• We realise our full economic potential with more and better employment opportunities for our people.
• We take pride in a strong, fair and inclusive national identity.
• We have tackled the significant inequalities in Scottish society.

In partnership with other portfolios, the portfolio works toward ensuring that ourchildren have the best start in life and are ready to succeed and supports our efforts to improve the life chances for children, young people and families at risk. It does this by working across government and with delivery partners to support the delivery of effective, child-centred services that prevent adverse outcomes and provide early and

effective support to children and their families. We also work in partnership with other portfolios in development of the workforce capacity and leadership needed to improve outcomes for users of social services.

The portfolio leads on ensuring that we are better educated, more skilled and moresuccessful, renowned for our research and innovation. By supporting students, funding Scotland's universities and colleges and investing in our research base, we will produce the highly skilled workforce of the future that is capable of creating new knowledge and exploiting the commercial benefits of our research.

The portfolio ensures our young people are successful learners, confident individuals,effective contributors and responsible citizens. Recognising the crucial role of teachers in helping the achievement of these outcomes, the portfolio supports the development of the profession as well as national support and challenge through the newly established Education Scotland.

Covering all aspects of education and lifelong learning, including employability and skills, community learning and development and science, the portfolio supports our efforts to both r ealise our full economic potential with more and better employmentopportunities for our people and tackle the significant inequalities in Scottish society. This is particularly important at a time when we are continuing to secure sustainable economic recovery, and we will continue to focus policy on individuals and groups who are most at risk of being affected by the downturn and by pressure on public spending. By investing in education and skills, and promoting innovation in research, we are preparing individuals for the modern Scottish labour market, and using the talents and skills of all our people, which will help build solid foundations for longer term growth.

The portfolio supports and funds a range of Gaelic and Scots policies and programmes which make a significant contribution to a strong, fair and inclusive national identity. Our support for Gaelic through education, media and other sectors will seek to create a secure future for Gaelic in Scotland.

ACHIEVEMENTS

We have undertaken a range of national actions to support local implementation of the Early Years Framework to give every child the best start in life. This has included the appointment of former Scottish Health Minister Susan Deacon to lead a wide-ranging, national dialogue on how best to take action to improve children's early years, which culminated in her Joining the Dots report. We backed this with investment of £6.8 million in an Early Years Early Action Fund, supporting the third sector to help improve life chances and ensure our children get the best possible start in life. We are also:

• improving child protection practice through inspections of each of Scotland's 30 Child Protection Committees and the published new national guidance;
• implementing the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007, protecting both children and vulnerable adults;
• delivering legislation through Parliament to strengthen and modernise the Children's Hearings System;
• strengthening choice and decision-making for looked-after children;
• raising the minimum age of prosecution from 8 to 12 and investing in early intervention to reduce the number of young people subject to the criminal justice system.

To support delivery of these priority areas, we are continuing to roll out the business, systems and culture change approach of Getting it Right for Every Child.

The last parliamentary session saw Curriculum for Excellence introduced in all publicly funded schools, from August 2010. Evidence from Inspectors shows that schools up and down the country are making strong progress in implementation. Among other improvements, the development of literacy and numeracy skills is now clearly the responsibility of all teachers, with work underpinned by the first ever national Literacy Action Plan.

We have also successfully set up Education Scotland, our new quality and improvement agency, tasked with ensuring the best possible national support and challenge for educational professionals as we drive forward Curriculum for Excellence.

As well as ensuring that the learning opportunities that our children experience are of the highest quality, we have also been working in partnership with local government so that the education system provides the best possible environment and resources to support their learning:

• delivering all time low class sizes. The 2010 Schools Census shows that the average primary school class size is the lowest ever, at 23.1; and 21.6 per cent of P1P3 pupils are in classes of 18 or fewer;
• those smaller classes are being taught by increasingly high quality teachers. We have established a National Partnership Group to implement the recommendations in the Donaldson Review of Teacher Education in Scotland;
• 330 school building projects (12.5 per cent of all schools) were completed in the last Parliament. This helped to ensure that the number of pupils in good or satisfactory condition schools increased from 426,000 (61 per cent) in 2006-07 to 548,000 (82 per cent) in 2009-10;
• We have launched the Commission on Rural Education with COSLA to revitalise delivery of high quality education for young people in rural communities.

Parents' satisfaction with the education provided by their child's school remains very high; over 90 per cent of parents agree with the statement 'I am satisfied with the education provided by the school' in the Scottish Household Survey. We are committed to maintaining and improving these high standards.

We have continued to support the Gaelic language. We have supported the establishment of BBCALBA, to make an important contribution to the vitality of the Gaelic language.

We launched the Skills for Scotland strategy and refreshed it in response to the changing economic environment; established Skills Development Scotland ( SDS) to ensure Scotland has a focal point for the skills and training response to economic recovery; and reviewed and invested additional resources in vital Modern Apprenticeships.

To improve wealth creation and equity and make full use of people's skills, we abolished the graduate endowment fee in 2008. We also invested an additional £30 million in a new package of student support from academic year 2010-11, including a new grant for independent students of up to £1,000 and an extra £2 million for childcare support.

We have created a £10 million national life sciences institute in Dundee and supported universities in Scotland to undertake world-leading research. Partly as a result of this increased support, 15 per cent of our researchers were described as world-leading in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise. With 0.1 per cent of the world population, the impact of Scottish research represents a 1.8 per cent global share as measured by citations.

To respond to feedback from employers, we have introduced Flexible Training Opportunities in 2010-11, providing a further 7,000 places in 2010-11 to help employers with less than 150 employees continue to invest in staff development.

We have contributed to improving access to employment opportunities too. For example, our investment in training and skills support - we have invested £150 million to help thousands of individuals and hundreds of employers through the recession.

We continue to invest in Scotland's young people, giving them access to a wide range of opportunities and support to get the skills they need for employment, including:

• driving the modernisation of Scotland's career services, particularly SDS's My World of Work - the first tangible example of how an online service can complement the vital career Information Advice and Guidance ( IAG) support SDS's offers individuals;
• new and improved provision for vulnerable young people - investing £10 million in Activity Agreements pilots in 10 local authorities between 2009-11;
• investing £13.4 million over the period 2008-11 to support 22 Inspiring Scotland ventures across Scotland;
• providing places for over 21,000 new apprentices to start training in 2010-11 and creating 25,000 new Modern Apprenticeship opportunities for 2011-12. Most of these opportunities will be taken up by young people;
• putting in place support for 14,500 places to help all unemployed people access jobs; and
• maintaining the number of core university and college places for academic year 2011-12, and maintaining living costs support for students in higher education.

We are providing significant financial investment in 2011-2012 to ensure the opportunities and support for all our young people are available to enable them to progress into jobs:

• £2 billion investment in colleges, universities and national training programmes for a wide range of client groups. Young unemployed people and young people at risk of unemployment identified as a priority group in guidance to both the Scottish Funding Council and Skills Development Scotland;
• £31.6 million - continuing our support for Education Maintenance Allowances;
• £2.8 million - to support our More Choices More Chances strategy and to ensure delivery of 16+ Learning Choices as a universal offer to all young people (up to age 19) whenever they leave post-16 learning;
• £4 million - to local authorities as part of a national roll out to deliver Activity Agreements on the back of the successful pilots; and
• £4 million - to Inspiring Scotland's 14-19 Fund to support organisations delivering programmes for young people at risk of disengaging or who have disengaged from learning.

MANAGING PRESSURES AND CUTS IN PUBLIC EXPENDITURE

The scale of the total reduction in the Scottish Government's budget for this Spending Review has required tough decisions to be taken about expenditure across government and careful consideration of pressures and priorities in all portfolios. There will be a variety of demands on the portfolio's resources throughout the Spending Review period.

Taking these pressures into account, we have considered all areas of expenditure within the Education and Lifelong Learning portfolio, the scope for efficiencies and the contribution that spending programmes make to sustainable economic growth and the delivery of portfolio priorities. In order to reduce the level of spending across the portfolio, we have taken a number of difficult decisions.

This publication makes clear some substantial adjustments to the Scottish Funding Council's further education provision. We wil accommodate these through savings realised through our review of post-16 learning, Putting Learners at the Centre. This review will re-focus colleges towards supporting young people (and take account of the falling numbers of the 16-24 cohort in the years ahead) and those who need up-skilling to get a job. Additionally, we shall rationalise provision associated with qualifications that lack currency in the labour market and have had no testing against national standards for employer or vocational need; and we will tighten up funding arrangements in respect of those who leave their course early. Finally, we will generate efficiencies through a programme of collaboration and merger, predicated on a move towards regional commissioning.

In addition, we have made a modest reduction in Skills Development Scotland's allocation for 2012-13, but this reflects the fact that we expect SDS to continue its drive for greater efficiencies and continue to redesign the services it offers. We are committed to delivering 46,500 new training opportunities in 2012-13 and beyond. Despite the constraints on our budgets, we are again guaranteeing that no existing student will see their living costs support decrease in academic year 2012-13.

OUR PRIORITIES

In this Spending Review period we will:

• continue to focus resources on supporting improved outcomes for children, young people and, in collaboration with Health and Social Care Directorates, users of social care. We will continue to prioritise investment in the first years of life - where we will have the biggest impact - and preventative spend at the earliest point where problems emerge. Similarly, we will invest so that we continue to deliver a better, more relevant learning experience for all learners; a further education sector which meets our needs in terms of skills; and a higher education sector which continues to enhance its international reputation for excellence. While we will continue to invest in these priorities, we will ensure that, across the portfolio, there is less regulation and national bureaucracy and less money spent on national support and challenge to protect as far as possible those frontline services we support. At the same time, we support our partners, in local government, higher and further education and elsewhere, to continue to find efficiencies and continuous improvement in the services they deliver;
• continue to give priority to early years and early intervention through ongoing investment of £6.8 million in our Early Years Early Action Fund. This will make additional funding available to the third sector for early years and early intervention activities. In these difficult economic times, this fund will work to improve life chances, building capacity within the third sector to deliver these vital services to those who need them most. In addition to this fund, we have sought to protect the funding that we provide to the third sector to support children and young people facing the greatest difficulties, including those with disabilities or those living with substance abuse in their families;
• continue to invest to improve life chances. We will support continued delivery of the Early Years Framework, the ongoing reform of the children's hearings systems; and the continued roll-out of Getting it Right for Every Child to ensure that every child and family gets the support and help they need when they need it. We will prepare for the introduction of a Rights of Children and Young People Bill in 2012 and a Children's Services Bill later in the Parliament;
• work with partners to implement the Curriculum for Excellence. A key aspect of this will be our funding of the development of a new generation of national qualifications for introduction from 2013-14 which will retain the strengths of the current arrangements and better prepare young people for the challenges of the 21st century;
• continue to support the thousands of excellent teachers who are delivering the Curriculum for Excellence to improve outcomes for children and young people. We will work with Education Scotland and other key partners to support schools, ensure the ambitious challenges set out in Professor Graham Donaldson's Review of Teacher Education are met and consider the outcomes of Professor Gerry McCormac's Review of Teacher Employment in Scotland;
• continue to invest in the school estate across the length and breadth of the country. We will reduce the number of children in poor condition schools by half again during this Parliament and, working with local authorities, build on the 37 school building projects already announced - at least one in every local authority area - from the £1.25 billion Scotland's Schools for the Future programme;
• continue, primarily through the Scottish Social Services Council, to drive and support the development of a competent, confident and valued social services workforce;
• in line with our manifesto commitments we will continue to invest in a range of measures to support the Gaelic language. Our aim in this is to create a secure future for Gaelic in Scotland, and our focus is to create a stable population of Gaelic speakers;
• ensure support is provided for the unemployed, young people, making the transition into work and upskilling within the existing workforce, by delivering 100,000 training opportunities;
• invest in 25,000 modern apprenticeship new starts, the highest ever number. We will maintain this throughout the period of the Spending Review;
• maintain free access to higher education by ensuring that the opportunity to learn is based on ability to learn, not the ability to pay. We will invest significant sums in higher education over the period of this Spending Review. This settlement for universities, when taken together with our proposals on fees for students from the rest of the UK and the measures to improve efficiency across our institutions, will ensure that we maintain a university sector that is internationally competitive and truly excellent in world terms;
• reform post-16 education to produce a better learner journey that equips people with the right skills to enter and stay in work. We have published Putting Learners at the Centre, a pre-legislative paper setting out our plans for skills, further and higher education. As part of this, we will deliver our manifesto commitment for a minimum student income in higher education of £7,000 starting with the poorest students. The aim of our programme of reform is to best support jobs and growth, improve life chances and deliver better outcomes with the resources we have. As part of this, we have already begun separate reviews of university and college governance;
• support local partnerships to deliver our Opportunities for All initiative and the roll out of Activity Agreements to support our most vulnerable 16-19 year olds;
• continue to provide Education Maintenance Allowances and implement our new Careers Strategy with more and better support for those who need it most;
• support employers and help people find jobs to support themselves and their families by seeking the best possible outcomes for Scotland's people and the Scottish economy from the UK Government's Welfare Reform programme; and
• refresh our approach to employability to reflect the significant changes in both the economy and the delivery landscape. Working closely with Jobcentre Plus to create a more coherent offer of support to both jobseekers and employers.

Spending plans for 2012-13 are set out below.

Table 9.01: Spending Plans (Level 2)

	2011-12 Budget £m	2012-13 Draft Budget £m	2013-14 Plans £m	2014-15 Plans £m
Learning	177.2	193.2	180.0	172.5
Children & Families	95.5	100.6	96.5	93.0
Employability Skills & Lifelong Learning	244.4	240.4	248.0	244.5
Scottish Further & Higher Education Funding Council	1,570.3	1,577.7	1,590.0	1,596.7
Higher Education Student Support	516.6	558.0	744.4	854.6
Total	2,604.0	2,669.9	2,858.9	2,961.3
of which:
DEL Resource	2,338.3	2,395.5	2,460.3	2,505.4
DEL Capital	163.2	148.6	108.8	108.1
AME	102.5	125.8	289.8	347.8

Table 9.02: Spending Plans (Level 2 real terms) at 2011-12 prices

	2011-12 Budget £m	2012-13 Draft budget £m	2013-14 Plans £m	2014-15 Plans £m
Learning	177.2	188.5	171.0	159.6
Children & Families	95.5	98.2	91.7	86.0
Employability Skills & Lifelong Learning	244.4	234.5	235.6	226.2
Scottish Further & Higher Education Funding Council	1,570.3	1,539.2	1,510.4	1,476.9
Higher Education Student Support	516.6	544.4	707.2	790.5
Total Portfolio	2,604.0	2,604.8	2,715.9	2,739.2
of which:
DEL Resource	2,338.3	2,337.1	2,337.2	2,317.5
DEL Capital	163.2	145.0	103.4	100.0
AME	102.5	122.7	275.3	321.7

Learning

Table 9.03: Learning More Detailed Spending Plans (Level 3)

	2011-12 Budget £m	2012-13 Draft Budget £m	2013-14 Plans £m	2014-15 Plans £m
People & Infrastructure	65.3	88.4	72.7	66.0
Strategy & Performance	16.3	16.2	15.2	14.2
Learning & Support	46.5	43.3	47.7	49.1
Gaelic	20.3	20.6	21.1	21.2
Education Scotland	28.8	24.7	23.3	22.0
Total Level 3	177.2	193.2	180.0	172.5
of which:
DEL Resource	111.3	109.8	118.5	121.7
DEL Capital	65.9	83.4	61.5	50.8
AME	-	-	-	-

What the budget does

The majority of expenditure on school education in Scotland is funded by local authorities from the budgets outlined in chapter 15.

The Learning Directorate budget delivers national challenge and improvement support for education. It funds Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

In 2012-13, working with national partners and local government, we will:

• deliver national support for local delivery of Curriculum for Excellence including development of new qualifications and implementation of the assessment framework, ensuring that all children are able to benefit and their needs met;
• focus on improving attainment for all our children and young people.
• continue to implement the Donaldson review of teacher education, in order to develop excellent learning and teaching, supported by improved educational leadership;
• invest in a fit-for-purpose school estate through the Scotland's Schools for the Future programme.
• support the vitality of Gaelic, working with Bòrd na Gàidhlig and with MGALBA.

Children and Families

Table 9.04: Children and Families - More Detailed Spending Plans (Level 3)

	2011-12 Budget £m	2012-13 Draft Budget £m	2013-14 Plans £m	2014-15 Plans £m
Care & Justice	35.7	36.3	34.8	33.1
Children's Rights & Wellbeing	7.8	7.4	7.0	6.6
Disclosure Scotland	10.0	10.3	7.2	6.1
Early Years & Social Services Workforce	34.4	43.3	43.9	44.3
Education Analytical Services	3.5	3.3	3.6	2.9
Former SWIA Budget*	4.1
Total	95.5	100.6	96.5	93.0
of which:
DEL Resource	89.6	96.5	95.5	92.5
DEL Capital	5.9	4.1	1.0	0.5
AME	-	-	-	-

*the role of the Social Work Inspection Agency ( SWIA) has now been incorporated into Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland - Care Inspectorate

What the budget does

Most of the expenditure on children's services is channelled through local authorities.

The Children and Families budget primarily supports the functions of the Scottish Children's Reporters Administration and Scottish Social Services Council and, from this financial year, the establishment of Children's Hearings Scotland, building on the reform of the children's hearings system. It provides support for specific workforce development activities for the social services sector and also for Centres for Excellence, providing training and support for the workforce on specialist areas such as residential child care and youth justice. It also supports a broad range of activity to improve children's services, including commitments shared with local government, such as the development of strategic commissioning strategies and improvements to care and permanence planning for looked after children.

In 2012-13 we will:

i) Have a greater focus on early years by:

• introducing legislation on the rights of the child and young people;
• consulting on legislation for the early years and early intervention - a draft Children's Services Bill for introduction later in this parliamentary term;
• introducing an Early Years and Early Intervention Change Fund and working with partners to focus Scottish public sector spend on early intervention, accelerating the implementation of the Early Years Framework;
• delivering the next phase of the PlayTalkRead programme and developing a national parenting strategy that encourages agencies to work together to support new parents, giving parents the skills they need to best support their children; and
• In addition, we will develop support for families to meet a range of needs, including a new generation of family centres, flexible childcare options, and support for families in conflict.

ii) Help improve the life chances of vulnerable children and young people by:

• continuing the implementation of Getting it Right for Every Child, ensuring that universal services deliver for the most vulnerable children;
• implementing the Children's Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 to improve outcomes for children and young people, and their families, who experience the Children's Hearings System;
• working with partners to strengthen strategy and practice around looked after children and young people, children and young people at risk of going into care and young people who offend, giving a greater focus to earlier and more effective interventions to improve outcomes for some of our most vulnerable children and young people, and their families and communities, and to reduce the bureaucratic burdens on those working with them;
• driving and supporting the development of a competent, confident, valued social services workforce, primarily through the Scottish Social Services Council.
• working with the Care Inspectorate to develop a new integrated children's services inspection, ready for piloting in 2012; and
• improving guidance for frontline child protection professionals: - on working with children affected by parental substance misuse; in families where disability is a key factor; on assessing the risks for vulnerable children; and on training.

Employability Skills & Lifelong Learning

Table 9.05: More detailed spending plans (Level 3)

	2011-12 Budget £m	2012-13 Draft Budget £m	2013-14 Plans £m	2014-15 Plans £m
Colleges & Adult Learning	9.1	7.9	7.7	7.0
Employability & Tackling Poverty	1.2	1.2	1.0	1.0
Higher Education	2.2	2.0	2.0	2.0
Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser	6.4	6.0	5.5	5.5
Youth Employability & Skills	44.2	46.9	44.4	44.0
Skills Development Scotland	181.3	176.4	187.4	185.0
Total	244.4	240.4	248.0	244.5
of which:
DEL Resource	244.4	240.4	248.0	244.5
DEL Capital	-	-	-	-
AME	-	-	-	-

What the budget does

These budgets support policy and development relating to all aspects of lifelong learning. This includes our investment in skills and national training programmes and our continued support for young people to develop their skills as they move into training and work.

In 2012-13 we will:

• maintain access to free higher education;
• continue to fund the Education Maintenance Allowances for young people in school and college;
• deliver 25,000 Modern Apprenticeship opportunities;
• implement Opportunities for All an initiative which will offer an education or training place to every young person under 19 who is not already in a modern apprenticeship, job or learning; and
• maximise our science spending against Government outcomes. Our priorities will be Scotland's four science centres, its family of science festivals, its science engagement outreach programmes and certain programmes delivered by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Scottish Funding Council

Table 9.06: More detailed spending plans (Level 3)

	2011-12 Budget £m	2012-13 Draft Budget £m	2013-14 Plans £m	2014-15 Plans £m
Scottish Funding Council FE Programme	544.7	506.9	494.7	470.7
Scottish Funding Council HE Programme	926.2	1,002.2	1,041.5	1,061.7
Scottish Funding Council FE/ HE Capital	91.0	60.7	45.9	56.4
Scottish Funding Council Administration	8.4	7.9	7.9	7.9
Total	1,570.3	1,577.7	1,590.0	1,596.7
of which:
DEL Resource	1,479.3	1,517.0	1,544.1	1,540.3
DEL Capital	91.0	60.7	45.9	56.4
AME	-	-	-	-

What the budget does

The Scottish Funding Council budgets fund strategic investment in Scotland's 41 colleges and 19 higher educational institutions (including Open University (Scotland)). This funding will support the development and delivery of study programmes that offer coherent high quality provision for learners across Scotland. It will also enable universities to undertake world class research to maintain Scotland's international reputation for educational excellence in teaching and research. The funding will also continue to support college provision and help colleges deliver their valuable contribution to Opportunities for All.

In 2012-13 we will:

• invest in our universities so that they maintain their world class reputation;
• embark on an ambitious programme of reform of post-16 education;
• in particular, re-focus college provision towards those who need it most - young people and those looking for a job and towards learning that better meets the needs of employers, and therefore of the Scottish economy.

Higher Education Student Support

Table 9.07: More detailed spending plans (Level 3)

	2011-12 Budget £m	2012-13 Draft Budget £m	2013-14 Plans £m	2014-15 Plans £m
DEL
Student Support and Tuition Fee Payments	329.4	325.9	302.4	307.0
Student Loan Company Administration Costs	5.6	5.0	5.0	5.0
Student Loan Interest Subsidy to bank*	-	4.5	4.5	4.5
Cost of Providing Student Loans ( RAB Charge) (Non-Cash)	71.4	88.4	134.0	181.6
AME
Net Student Loans advanced	208.0	241.3	408.3	468.3
Capitalised Interest	(60.0)	(47.0)	(50.0)	(52.0)
Student Loans Fair Value Adjustment	(46.0)	(69.0)	(69.0)	(69.0)
Student Loan Sale Subsidy Impairment Adjustments	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.5
DEL
Student Awards Agency for Scotland Operating Costs	7.7	8.4	8.7	8.7
Total	516.6	558.0	744.4	854.6
of which:
DEL Resource	413.7	431.8	454.2	506.4
DEL Capital	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.4
AME	102.5	125.8	289.8	347.8

*was shown outside DEL in Draft Budget 2011-12

What the budget does

Higher Education Student Support provides financial support to Scottish domiciled students undertaking higher education courses in the UK and abroad and to EU students studying in Scotland. The level of spend is demand-led, depending on the student population in a given year, but an overall control is maintained on the number of students for which the Scottish Funding Council funds institutions. Student loans are provided at a cost to the Scottish Government which is calculated using the gross value of loans advanced in the year. The Student Loan Company administers the borrowers' loan accounts on behalf of the Scottish Government.

The Higher Education Student Support budget meets the costs of running the Student Awards Agency for Scotland ( SAAS) (running costs, IT systems and capital charges). SAAS administers schemes covering student support for higher education students (at college and university) as well as bursaries for nursing and midwifery students. SAAS administers the Individual Learning Accounts Scotland scheme in partnership with Skills Development Scotland.

The AME figures for 2012-15 are forecasts and relate to the amount of AME funding for student loans which HM Treasury made available to the Scottish Government through the 2010 UK Spending Review. In 2012, we will develop proposals for a minimum student income of £7,000, starting with the poorest students, with a view to implementing this alongside a simpler system of higher education student support from 2013-14. The actual amounts of student loans required by the Scottish Government will be determined as part of developing that policy. The associated AME forecasts set out above will therefore be subject to revision during the Spending Review period.

Local Government Gaelic

Table 9.08: More detailed spending plans (Level 3)

	2011-12 Budget £m	2012-13 Draft Budget £m	2013-14 Plans £m	2014-15 Plans £m
Local Government Gaelic Specific grant	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5
Total	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5
of which:
DEL Resource	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5
DEL Capital	-	-	-	-
AME	-	-	-	-

What the budget does

This budget, together with other Gaelic funding lines, supports the additional costs attached to the delivery of Gaelic education and Gaelic medium education in Scotland. This funding supports Gaelic education through a wide range of Gaelic education programmes and projects.