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The Scottish Government has invested over £4 billion in the higher education sector over the last four years and, notwithstanding a very tough budget round, will continue to invest over £1 billion in our higher education institutions in 2016-17, ensuring that institutions receive financial support to enable them to deliver high quality teaching, world class research and knowledge exchange.

The Scottish Funding Council confirmed in their indicative funding allocations to universities for academic year 2016-17 (published 19 February 2016) that funding for core research, through the Research Excellence Grant and the Research Postgraduate Grant, would be maintained at the same level as in academic year 2015-16 (£231.8 million and £34.6 million respectively). In addition, the Scottish Funding Council is continuing to provide substantial strategic funding for research and knowledge exchange through its ambitious programme of Innovation Centres, investing up to £120 million over six years (2013-19).

Promoting Scotland’s research strengths in collaboration with the business base is key to maximising opportunities and ensuring impact. The Scottish Government’s continued investment in research and the development and application of higher education research and innovation enables our universities to continue to attract research funding from a range of other sources such as UK Research Councils, Innovate UK, businesses, charities and Europe. As announced in the Scottish budget on 16 December 2015, as part of our next major reform, we will work with all our partners, including the Scottish Funding Council and universities to further align our approach to innovation, to pool funding and to simplify the innovation landscape and access to support.

The Scottish Government engages regularly with the higher education sector, and with a wide range of relevant stakeholders. The 2016-17 draft budget allocation of over £1 billion was described in December 2015 by the Convenor of Universities Scotland, the representative body of all Scotland’s 19 higher education institutions, as “a good outcome in a time of severe financial challenges”. He went on to add that Universities Scotland “welcome the commitments expressed by Scottish Government to continuing support for an excellent, internationally competitive and widely accessible university sector”.

The Scottish Government has invested over £4 billion in the higher education sector over the last four years and, notwithstanding a very tough budget round, will continue to invest over £1 billion in our higher education institutions in 2016-17, ensuring that institutions receive financial support to enable them to deliver high quality teaching, world class research and knowledge exchange.

Universities are autonomous bodies that receive income from a range of public and private sources, including the Scottish Government. Each institution is responsible for operational matters such as budget allocation and staffing.

The Scottish Government is firmly committed to achieving its ambition that every child, whatever their socio-economic background, should have an equal chance of attending university. The letter of guidance to the Scottish Funding Council makes clear that there should be no diminution in efforts to widen access and our expectation that progress should be reflected in continued improvements in national measures. It is also important to recognise that there are a range of barriers and issues that affect access, many of which are not related to finance. The Scottish Government established the Commission on Widening Access to identify such issues and advise us on the steps necessary to drive further and faster progress.

The following table provides information on average gross revenue expenditure in Scotland per pre-school registration, primary pupil and secondary pupil along with information on teaching allocations per college and university place.

The following table provides the same information in 2014-15 prices:

For pre-school education, the estimates are derived by dividing the total expenditure on pre-school education reported by local authorities in the local finance return by the total number of early learning and childcare registrations reported in the Scottish Government early learning and childcare statistics. The data for the latter is collected by census based on registrations in a given week in January in 2008-2010 and September in 2010-13 (January 2010 data was used for 2009-10 and September 2010 data was used for 2010-11).

For primary and secondary education, average gross revenue expenditure per pupil is total gross revenue expenditure reported by local authorities on primary or secondary education, sourced from the local financial return, divided by the number of pupils in that school sector on pupil census date during the September of the relevant year.

For pre-school, primary and secondary education, data from 2007-08 and 2008-09 cannot be directly compared with data for 2009-10 onwards as there was an accounting methodology change.

Data from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) on college teaching allocations per place is derived by taking funding provided to colleges for core teaching and fee waiver grant, divided by the weighted SUMs (relative costs to a college of delivering different subject) to derive expenditure by full time equivalent (FTE). Expenditure excludes tuition fees not paid by SFC (mainly the Student Awards Agency for Scotland) and student support funding along with funding from European Social Fund.

Data from SFC on University teaching allocations per place is derived by taking the total teaching grant provided by SFC for teaching places, divided by the total FTEs. The expenditure figures do not include funding for student support, SFC’s research and strategic funds or the tuition fees that SAAS pay. The total FTE figures are SFC and Scottish Government funded places and do not include fees only and international places. The rest of UK places were removed from 2012-13 on a phased basis (new students in 2012-13 and each new cohort thereafter over a five year period).

Real terms figures are in 2014-15 prices and are calculating using HM Treasury's GDP deflator series, December 2015.

Rural Payments and Inspections Division have recruited 36 additional staff in order to help speed up processing and payments. The location of each of these staff members is shown on the following table:

Rural Payments and Inspections Division have recruited 36 additional staff in order to help speed up processing and payments. We currently have one additional staff member based in the Lerwick area office and two additional staff members in the Kirkwall Area Office.

I wrote to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 31 January 2016 inviting him to discuss the further consideration of key issues on deposit return I announced on 30 December 2015. I am happy to share a copy of the letter with the member.

I announced on 30 December 2015 the further work that would be undertaken following Zero Waste Scotland’s call for evidence, including consideration of the potential interaction with local authority collection systems.

I have received no substantive response from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.