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The Scottish Government, including its Executive Agencies, do not invest resources outside the public sector. bodies sponsored by the Scottish Government, essentially non-departmental public bodies, are not permitted to make investments of a speculative nature.

The Scottish Government uses the Government Procurement Card (GPC), a branded Visa Purchasing Card that enables Public Sector buyers to benefit from cost and process efficiency savings in their purchasing of high-volume, lower-value goods and services (generally below £5,000 per transaction), and allows suppliers to benefit by being paid a few days (three to four days) after despatching the goods/delivering the services.

The procurement cards are provided to the UK Public Sector through a UK Framework Agreement between OGCbuying.solutions, Visa and six Visa issuing banks. Our GPC contract is with Barclaycard. It covers the core Directorates and the Executive Agencies and other bodies that use our finance system.

The GPC Framework Agreement also covers a separate travel and subsistence (T&S) card which is issued to those members of staff who frequently incur travel and accommodation costs whilst on business.

There are currently 1,122 GPC''s and 346 T&S cards in use across all organisations that use the Scottish Government contract.

Barclaycard submits a monthly statement for payment and this is paid in full within 14 days of receipt of the statement in line with the terms of the contract. Currently there is nothing due to pay. The level of expenditure incurred using the GPC and T&S cards varies from month to month but, as an indication, the average monthly balance on the statements is £609,000.

Since the HBOS shareholders voted on 12 December in favour of the acquisition by Lloyds TSB, both the First Minister and John Swinney MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth have spoken to senior executives of the new Lloyds Banking Group to offer continued assistance and support as the new merged organisation takes shape.

Our policy has always been to strive to secure the best possible outcome for Scotland. Our preference throughout the takeover process has been that a continuing standalone Bank of Scotland would have best served the interests of Scotland''s businesses, bank depositors and customers. That has not prevailed. We remain, however, fully committed to helping Lloyds Banking Group realise the benefits of Scotland as a location of choice for them in terms of our highly skilled workforce, cost efficient property base and world class business infrastructure. That will also maximise jobs and decision making in the Scottish economy.

The managing agent has indicated that, in the private sector, the average waiting time for the installation of Warm Deal measures is currently around 80 days.

Information is held for the scheme as a whole, not for the installation of various individual measures.

The Scottish Government also funds Warm Deal measures in the public sector through local authorities and housing associations. However, local authorities and housing associations are not required to provide information on waiting times as part of the scheme.

The Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) programme provides insulation measures in domestic properties to reduce energy consumption. The scheme is designed to fulfil an obligation imposed on the gas and electricity suppliers and is funded by energy customers. No information is held by the Scottish Government on average waiting times for the CERT scheme.

The information requested is set out in the following table. The latest year for which data is available is 2006-07.

Students studying a course at Scottish Institutions that lead to teacher qualifications by academic year and Institution, 2002-03 to 2006-07.

Institution	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Heriot Watt University	0	0	0	0	5
The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama	80	80	90	100	95
The University of Aberdeen	725	800	895	990	1,060
The University of Dundee	350	370	430	535	565
The University of Edinburgh	1,240	1,335	1,445	1,605	1,610
The University of Glasgow	950	980	1,125	1,255	1,265
The University of Paisley	410	455	520	575	560
The University of Stirling	405	405	465	470	495
The University of Strathclyde	1,195	1,365	1,670	2,070	2,050
Total	5,350	5,785	6,645	7,590	7,705

Source Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)

Notes:

1. Students studying a course at Scottish Institutions that lead to teacher qualifications by academic year and institution, 2002-03 to 2006-07. The figures relate to where the student is enrolled rather than the provider of teacher training. Heriot Watt students receive teacher training from Stirling and RSAMD from Glasgow. The figures also include overseas students.

2. In the table, zero, one, two are rounded to zero. All other numbers are rounded up or down to the nearest five. Numbers may not sum to totals exactly due to rounding.

3. The term students refers to instances of enrolments on courses it does not represent a count of individuals. It is consistent with previous outputs.

4. Includes PGCE, BEd, first degree with Qualified Teacher Status and courses leading concurrently to a degree and to a diploma in Education.

5. Includes students on initial or pre-service teacher training course leading to Qualified Teacher Status or to registration as a school teacher with the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

6. The bulk of Stirling students are on concurrent degrees and elect at the end of their second year whether to continue with teacher training.

The arrangements for allocating probationary teachers to local authorities are jointly administered by the Scottish Government and the General Teaching Council for Scotland. Any year-on-year adjustments to the arrangements, including arrangements relating to funding, are conveyed to local authority representatives at seminars in February each year.

The General Teaching Council for Scotland work with local authorities on an on-going basis in relation to the quality and consistency of support offered to probationary teachers.

The employment of teachers is a matter for local authorities. No meetings have been sought or held with representatives of teaching unions regarding the availability of jobs for probationary or post probationary teachers. Teaching unions were represented on the Teacher Employment Working Group which considered whether the Teacher Workforce planning process was fit for purpose and the impact of the Teacher Induction Scheme on employment opportunities for teachers.

The National Conversation website is a platform for free and open debate about Scotland''s future, with views expressed both for and against the constitutional options set out in the White Paper Choosing Scotland''s Future. The judgement of the website moderator is that all comments currently posted can reasonably be considered to meet the moderating criteria set out in the answer to S3W-11333.

All probationary teachers are given the opportunity to join the Induction scheme which guarantees them 10 months employment. We do not continually track the employment status of each teacher throughout the year.

The total number of Senior Civil Servants in the Scottish Government* and in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) at 30 November 2008 and the percentage who are women is shown in the following table:

Senior Civil Service Staff Numbers and Percentage Women

	Number	% Women
Scottish Government*	221	37%
COPFS	38	42%

Note: *Includes agencies and other bodies.