- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive what options were explored by Forestry Commission Scotland prior to concluding that private companies be awarded the renewables contracts announced by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change on 22 February 2011.
Answer
A series of options were modelled ranging from the current leasing arrangement through joint ventures to Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) self development. Given FCS cannot borrow funding for such purposes the lease/joint version option was seen to be the best route to follow.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is aware of community renewables development scheme that have previously been worked up to the appropriate level for consideration under the provisions of the Forestry Commission Scotland renewables contracts out to tender.
Answer
Where Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) was aware of community schemes that had started doing some preparatory work before the renewables contracts were announcement on 22 February, FCS built that knowledge into the arrangements by withholding the relevant forest blocks from the process. This has happened in the case of Dalavich, Strathyre and Mull.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive how communities will be consulted on spending priorities arising from benefits received from Forestry Commission Scotland’s renewables contracts announced by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change on 22 February 2011.
Answer
Representative communities who engage with the developers will receive the level of benefit and direct investment agreed on their behalf by Forestry Commission Scotland with the developer for each lot. As such it will be entirely up to the properly constituted body to decide how to make use of such income going forward.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive how many community projects were developed as part of the hydro-tendering process by the Forestry Commission Scotland renewables contracts announced by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change on 22 February 2011.
Answer
The results of the hydro-tendering process were announced in August and October 2010. The appointed development companies are still in the exclusivity phase and nothing has been decided as yet. Discussions are underway with some communities however.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive what the duration will be of the contracts for the Forestry Commission Scotland renewables contracts announced by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change on 22 February 2011.
Answer
It will only be possible to say which communities will benefit once the developers have identified potential sites on the national forest estate. It is expected that this process will take up to eight month to complete.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Forestry Commission Scotland renewables contracts announced by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change on 22 February 2011 give exclusive rights to the whole of the commission’s estate to those companies that won the contracts.
Answer
Forestry Commission Scotland split the geographical areas of the national forest estate into five lots.
In four of the five lots there are two companies given exclusivity for the eight month period, one dealing with schemes under 5MW site potential and the other over 5MW. In the fifth lot both development segments are dealt with by the same company. It is not intended that exclusive options will be granted on all of the forest estate in each lot at the end of the exclusivity period, instead a select list of potential sites will be taken forward and the rest of the land can be open to communities or others to take forward if possible.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive on what basis it proposed the deadline of eight months from the agreement of exclusivity arrangements for communities to propose their own renewables projects on the Forestry Commission Scotland estate.
Answer
This was considered to be a reasonable time for the development partner companies to assess the potential and draw up a portfolio of suitable sites.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive what estimates it has made of the renewables potential of the forestry estate.
Answer
Forestry Commission Scotland estimate having 2GW of capacity installed (wind and hydro, excluding large-scale pumped storage) on the national forest estate by 2020.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive what the average bursary award has been for (a) part-time and (b) full-time students at colleges and universities in Edinburgh and the Lothians region in each of the last five years, broken down by institution.
Answer
Bursary payments to Scottish students are paid out by Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) for full-time higher education (HE) students, and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) allocates further funds for further education (FE) students. The most recent year where data collection for bursary payments is complete is 2009-10, so this answer contains data for academic sessions 2005-06 to 2009-10.
In these academic sessions, full-time Scottish students studying at HE level in Scotland are eligible to apply for Young Students'' Bursary (YSB). The bursary is income assessed, and is paid out to students who were under 25 before the first day of the first academic year of your course and have not been supporting themselves through earnings for at least three years. YSB is paid out instead of part of the maintenance loan, so it reduces the amount of loan that these students will be entitled to. Table 1 therefore shows the average YSB payments to full-time students for each institution in Edinburgh and Lothians, for 2005-06 to 2009-10.
Table 1: Average Bursary Payments to Full-Time Higher Education Students Studying at Institutions in Edinburgh and Lothians, 2005-06 to 2009-10 (£)
| Edinburgh Institutions | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | 2008-09 | 2009-10 |
| Queen Margaret University | 1,910 | 1,916 | 1,954 | 1,985 | 2,136 |
| Edinburgh''s Telford College | 1,863 | 1,970 | 1,935 | 2,014 | 2,079 |
| Edinburgh College of Art | 1,913 | 1,894 | 1,963 | 1,910 | 2,040 |
| Stevenson College | 1,957 | 1,908 | 1,986 | 2,109 | 2,105 |
| Edinburgh University | 1,775 | 1,814 | 1,854 | 1,885 | 1,923 |
| Napier University | 1,880 | 1,939 | 1,983 | 2,008 | 2,088 |
| Heriot-Watt University | 1,790 | 1,865 | 1,930 | 1,965 | 2,049 |
| Lothians institutions | | | | | |
| Oatridge Agricultural College | 1,842 | 1,821 | 1,856 | 1,773 | 1,912 |
| West Lothian College | 1,901 | 2,068 | 2,074 | 1,914 | 2,036 |
| Jewel and Esk Valley College | 2,008 | 2,001 | 2,075 | 2,021 | 2,077 |
Source: SAAS Management Information.
The Scottish Funding Council allocate money to college institutions in respect of students who are studying at further education level. These funds can be accessed by full-time students or part-time students on the basis of study, travel, or special educational needs. However, because institutions distribute the money as they see fit, the total number of students that benefited from these allocations of money was not available so it was not possible to calculate an average payment. Therefore, table 2 shows the total amounts allocated to each college in the Edinburgh and Lothians regions.
Table 2: Total Bursary Amounts Allocated by Scottish Funding Council to Colleges in Edinburgh and Lothians, 2005-06 to 2009-10
| Edinburgh Colleges | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | 2008-09 | 2009-10 |
| Edinburgh''s Telford College | £2,441,659 | £2,746,050 | £2,687,411 | £2,961,324 | £3,552,944 |
| Stevenson College | £1,864,943 | £2,097,509 | £2,164,474 | £2,638,576 | £2,911,232 |
| Lothians Colleges | | | | | |
| Jewel and Esk College | £1,043,917 | £1,389,652 | £1,165,197 | £1,450,441 | £1,773,488 |
| West Lothian College | £977,562 | £1,079,000 | £1,139,508 | £1,231,406 | £1,302,431 |
| Oatridge College | £356,698 | £414,281 | £413,188 | £512,470 | £572,242 |
Source: Scottish Funding Council.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Edinburgh Central, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive for what reason local communities did not participate in the decision made regarding the Forestry Commission Scotland renewables contracts announced by the Minister for Environment and Climate Change on 22 February 2011.
Answer
Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) has responsibility for the development of the national forest estate and it would not have been appropriate to directly involve communities in the commercial process. However, FCS did discuss with representative community bodies such as Community Energy Scotland, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Scottish Community Woodlands and others during the process and endeavoured to obtain a good outcome for communities.
