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The information requested is not held centrally. Results from the survey carried out by the General Teaching Council for Scotland on 2007-08 post probationary teachers shows that by October 2008, 79% of respondents were teaching in Scotland on a variety of contracts.

The Scottish Government provided local government with baselined funding of £70 million in 2008-09 and will be providing a further baselined allocation of £70 million in 2009-10. Over the two year period 2008-10 this equates to a cumulative total of £210 million to enable local authorities to freeze their council tax at 2007-08 levels. This represents a comparative real terms increase of 1.5 per cent in local authorities'' council tax income over the two year period 2008-10.

From the Homecoming budget, £3 million has been allocated to programme expenditure, to create and enhance a programme of events in Scotland. This forms the key element of the marketing offer. In addition to this, £1,915,000 has been spent on marketing and communications and this can be broken down as follows:

Market	Expenditure
UK and Ireland	£784,000
North America / Australia / New Zealand	£525,000
Worldwide (research, website, PR activity)	£606,000
Total	1,915,000

 

In addition to the expenditure from the core Homecoming budget, VisitScotland has supplemented marketing activity, using its core marketing budget, with Homecoming Scotland 2009 running as a theme through all its marketing campaigns. This expenditure is as follows:

Market	Expenditure
UK and Ireland	£957,275
North America / Australia / New Zealand	£1,353,000
Europe (France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium)	£127,273
Emerging Markets	£216,100

 

It is not possible to break down expenditure to an individual country level as many of VisitScotland''s campaigns are developed on a pan-market basis. The pan-market approach ensures significant economies of scale in terms of production and development. It also ensures consistency of messages.

VisitBritain has lent its support to Homecoming to a value of £418,991 across 40 countries.

For the duration of the Year of Homecoming, the promotion of Homecoming runs through VisitScotland''s entire marketing campaign and is integral to the drive to promote Scotland domestically and internationally as a quality, must see, must return destination. It is not possible to distinguish between the contribution of VisitScotland and the Year of Homecoming in encouraging people from overseas to visit Scotland but we are confident that the aim of generating an additional £40 million in tourism revenue in the Year of Homecoming will be achieved.

Across Scotland there is seldom 100% occupancy at any time. The highest annual average rate of occupancy (hotels) is 63%. There is therefore existing capacity within the accommodation sector. An initiative such as Homecoming, with a programme of events running throughout the whole year, is ideal to help fill that capacity.

VisitScotland has a full programme of communication with stakeholders and tourism businesses promoting Homecoming, providing information and advice about how businesses can benefit from Homecoming and providing marketing opportunities for businesses to buy into.

No discussions have taken place with Islamic funding sources in relation to the Scottish Futures Trust or other Scottish Executive spending and there are therefore no plans to make use of such sources at this time.

The Scottish Government Directorates have access to a central Translator''s database, via the intranet. This contains names of 49 internal staff willing to provide verbal and/or written translations, along with 38 external providers of these services. 82 languages are offered to differing skill/technical levels. Directorates have responsibility for commissioning services from the information provided, or are free to source their own alternative services. RR Donnelly are contracted to provide interpretation services for publications.

The provision of police forensic science services is a matter for the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA). The SPSA are currently consulting on the future delivery of forensic science services to the north and north east of the country and will shortly be launching a multi-option consultation seeking views from all interested parties. Following the consultation, which is expected to conclude in the summer, the SPSA Board will provide advice to the Scottish Government on how it wishes to proceed.

There are no plans to move the services currently provided in Edinburgh to Glasgow.

There has been no contact between any Scottish minister and officers of Toscafund.

In accordance with Article 6 of The Scotland Act 1998 (Transitory and Transitional Provisions) (Grants to Members and Officeholders) Order Statutory Instrument (SI) 1999/1081, junior ministers in the Scottish Government are entitled to a severance grant of one quarter of their final salary. This is payable provided they do not again become a holder of a relevant office within a period of three weeks after resignation.

The land and property assets (a) acquired and (b) disposed of by the Scottish Government core estate since May 2007 are as follows:

(a) Land and buildings acquired: none.

(b) Land and buildings disposed of:

167 crofting properties

two lowland properties comprising one holding and one dwelling house.