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The provision of funds for the UK rail network is a reserved matter. The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) has administered funding on a UK basis since it was established in 2001. The SRA publish their strategic plan annually, a copy of the 2002 and 2003 documents are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. numbers 18609, 26628 and 26626). The strategic plan sets out the projects that the SRA is seeking to support in Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-255 today. 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/webapp/search_wa.

Figures across the time period requested are not available on a consistent basis. This is because the method of funding further education (FE) colleges changed when responsibility for the methodology responsibility transferred to the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC) from 2000-01.Because of the fundamental role that FE colleges have in encouraging people of all ages and from different backgrounds to participate in post-school learning, a large proportion of the resources available to FE colleges are associated in some way with the promotion of social inclusion. However, the amounts cannot be determined separately.The figures provided in the following table relate to the specific elements that cover the additional costs of social inclusion over and above the standard funding per student place.

College	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03
Aberdeen College	£115,257	£279,914	£313,326
Angus College*	£72,942	£97,586	£105,396
Anniesland College	£256,365	£504,858	£530,400
Ayr College	£82,338	£194,423	£228,091
Banff and Buchan College of Further Education*	£87,403	£109,942	£115,083
The Barony College*	£27,636	£24,557	£24,486
Borders College*	£101,806	£92,915	£95,721
Cardonald College	£256,339	£507,839	£549,134
Central College of Commerce	£134,295	£312,708	£383,692
Clackmannan College of Further Education	£39,253	£71,797	£71,157
Clydebank College	£210,907	£352,497	£362,290
Coatbridge College	£120,543	£249,642	£277,925
Cumbernauld College	£25,657	£60,515	£85,598
Dumfries and Galloway College*	£116,836	£186,400	£177,781
Dundee College	£270,339	£522,863	£607,668
Edinburgh's Telford College	£198,813	£395,741	£436,261
Elmwood College*	£57,231	£83,227	£100,560
Falkirk College of Further and Higher Education	£92,192	£181,450	£207,886
Fife College of Further and Higher Education	£112,473	£244,891	£266,292
Glasgow College of Building and Printing	£139,200	£313,173	£356,887
Glasgow College of Food Technology	£91,455	£273,557	£258,752
Glasgow College of Nautical Studies	£119,644	£208,757	£250,934
Glenrothes College	£32,944	£80,217	£94,603
Inverness College*@	£101,968	£109,356	£155,683
James Watt College of Further and Higher Education	£281,725	£771,276	£781,620
Jewel and Esk Valley College	£79,881	£151,101	£164,458
John Wheatley College	£272,332	£342,172	£406,437
Kilmarnock College	£87,962	£227,707	£255,300
Langside College	£179,501	£387,034	£433,678
Lauder College	£50,681	£104,890	£144,578
Lews Castle College ***@	£22,902	£36,692	£50,081
Moray College*@	£113,740	£90,427	£85,099
Motherwell College	£211,157	£445,416	£528,230
North Glasgow College	£114,838	£311,894	£385,984
Oatridge Agricultural College*	£36,080	£31,980	£37,288
Perth College*@	£121,624	£117,203	£130,414
Reid Kerr College	£204,736	£473,557	£506,320
South Lanarkshire College	£52,604	£108,815	£112,477
Stevenson College	£174,005	£350,942	£309,010
Stow College	£153,122	£248,674	£301,584
The North Highland College**@	£92,156	£98,087	£131,785
West Lothian College	£33,116	£73,292	£95,256
Orkney College***@	£46,461	£48,282	£61,181
Shetland College of Further Education***@	£16,434	£13,311	£9,743

Source: Scottish Further Education Funding CouncilNotes:1. These figures consist of the entry costs social inclusion premium; retention and achievement social inclusion premium, and remote student element part of the core formula funding provided to colleges by SFEFC. (NOTE - in 2000-01 the retention and achievement premium did not exist.)2. In addition to the figures shown above, colleges in receipt of the remote student element also received a remote institutional based element at a base rate of £176,000 for 2000-01, £178,640 for 2001-02 and £183,999 for 2002-03 (rising to £191,359 in 2003-04). Mainland colleges that are classed as extremely remote received a 15% increase on this base rate and island colleges received a 30% increase. Remote colleges are marked *, extremely remote **, and island colleges ***3. Colleges marked @ are part of the UHI Millennium Institute (UMI). From 2001-02 their advanced level activity was no longer funded via SFEFC and was instead funded via SHEFC as part of UMI. Therefore the figures for these colleges are not stated on a comparable basis for 2000-01 and 2001-02.

Figures across the whole of the time period requested are not available on a consistent basis. This is because the method of funding FE colleges changed when responsibility for the methodology transferred to the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC) from 2000-01.Because of the fundamental role that FE colleges have in encouraging people of all ages and from different backgrounds to participate in post-school learning, a large proportion of the resources made available to FE colleges by SFEFC are associated in some way with the promotion of social inclusion. The Scottish Executive expects SFEFC to exercise its the judgement and expertise in allocating the resources placed at its disposal, and does not instruct SFEFC on the proportion of funding which must be applied to social inclusion initiatives. The figures in the following table show, from 2000-01, the sums which SFEFC made available to further education colleges to cover the additional costs of social inclusion over and above the standard funding per student place.

Year	£
2000-01	5,208,896
2001-02	9,891,576
2002-03	10,986,126

Source: Scottish Further Education Funding Council.

The public consultation in relation to delivery of court services in the Peebles area will commence when discussions between the Scottish Court Service, Scottish Borders Council and Lothian and Borders Police on the relocation of the court to council buildings at Rosetta Road, Peebles have concluded.

Formulaic funding for social inclusion is provided by the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC) via the three strands shown as follows:Entry Costs Social Inclusion Premium: This element reflects SFEFC's on-going commitment to support the development of further education as a means of giving new opportunities to people from socially deprived areas. The premium supports the extra costs colleges bear when engaging with socially excluded groups and provides an incentive for colleges to increase their provision for these groups. Colleges will receive a premium worth £57.95 in 2003-04 for students domiciled within the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland.Retention and Achievement Social Inclusion Premium: This element acknowledges the difficulty in meeting the on-going support needs of students from under-represented groups as they progress through their courses. Colleges will receive a premium for 2003-04 worth £9.94 per unit of funding generated by students domiciled within the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland.Remoteness Element: SFEFC has a duty, on behalf of the Scottish ministers, to ensure that there is adequate and efficient provision of FE in Scotland. It is recognised that there are additional costs, for what are often small colleges, associated with operating in remote and island areas of Scotland. The remoteness element aims to reflect the additional costs which these colleges necessarily bear. Each qualifying remote college receives an institutional element (£191,359 for 2003-04), and the sum of £30.70 per head based on the number of students whose home address is in a sparsely populated area.It is also recognised that colleges operating on islands or in extremely remote locations can face even higher financial burdens due to their location. Therefore, both the above institutional and student based elements are uplifted by a further 30% for island locations and 15% for extremely remote mainland locations.

There is no information currently available on the future provision of legal services in Peebles. It is hoped that the on-going discussions between Scottish Court Service, Scottish Borders Council and Lothian and Borders Police will culminate in court services being re-established in Peebles.If court services cannot be re-established in Peebles, provision of legal services could be considered as part of the consultation process on the delivery of court services.

Social Exclusion can take many forms and is often complex and multi-dimensional. The Social Justice Milestones are used throughout Scotland to measure a range of issues that can lead to social exclusion. The Scottish Executive is ensuring that the needs of rural areas are identified through urban/rural disaggregation of social statistics. For example, the Social Justice Annual Report's technical report disaggregated 12 of the social justice milestones on an urban and rural basis. A compendium of rural statistics - Social Focus on Urban Rural Scotland - was published on 22 May 2003.

No.

No.