The information requested is not held centrally.

The total amounts allocated to institutions to alleviate hardship over the past three years is as follows:

2007-08: £14.7 million

2006-07: £14.4 million

2005-06: £13.7 million.

The total allocation for 2008-09 has not yet been finalised but will increase in line with inflation. It will also include an additional £1 million that has been provided to support the new package of support for part-time students. The figure for subsequent years cannot be provided at this stage but it would be expected to rise in line with inflation.

As a point of clarification, the First Minister referred in the Parliament on 24 April 2008 to around 160,000 students in Scotland not earning enough to pay local income tax. He did not say that 160,000 students are currently not liable for the council tax.

A breakdown of the estimated numbers of full-time students in 2006-07 who were potentially exempt from paying council tax is given below.

Postgraduate Students	30,040
First degree Students	117,600
Other Students in Higher Education	35,870
Students in Further Education	38,720
Total	222,230

Notes:

(i) Full-time students are exempt from paying council tax in most cases. Some full-time students in further education are enrolled on courses that do not qualify them for a council tax exemption as the course is not considered long enough to be full-time for council tax purposes. A number of other full-time students will be liable for other reasons, but the number of such students is not currently known.

(ii) The figures in the table above are based on Higher Education Statistics Agency and Scottish Funding Council enrolment data. They exclude dormant, visiting exchange, writing-up and sabbatical students at higher education institutions, as well as those college students who failed to complete 25% of their course.

Part-time students aged 18 and over are not exempt from paying council tax by virtue of their student status and so are potentially liable for council tax. Some full-time students in further education are enrolled on courses that do not qualify them for a council tax exemption as the course is not considered long enough to be full-time for council tax purposes, and they will also be potentially liable. On that basis, the numbers of part-time students that are potentially liable for council tax break down as follows:

Postgraduate	41,550
First Degree	15,985
Other HE	49,300
FE	281,725
Total	388,560

Note: This information is based on Higher Education Statistics Agency and Scottish Funding Council enrolment data, and excludes; dormant, visiting exchange, writing up and sabbatical students at HEIs, as well as those college students who failed to complete 25% of their course.

There were 228,795 full-time students in Scottish institutions in 2006-07. Of these, 222,230 were potentially exempt from council tax. It is not possible to say that all were exempt because some may have made a contribution to council tax, for example if they were part of a household with other non-students shared or if they lived with a partner or spouse, or if they were a full-time student landlord, or if they were liable during the summer holidays as a consequence of the way the legislation interprets their enrolment information. However, we do not hold information on the numbers who may have been in these various categories. The remaining 6,565 students were liable for the tax because they were not on courses that were long enough to qualify for the exemption.

As a point of clarification, when the First Minister said that the number of higher education students paying council tax depends on where they stay, he was referring to the fact that some students live with non-students and partners and these students may be contributing to council tax as part of a household. While we do not hold information at this level of detail, we are consulting student representative organisations, amongst others, about our proposals and we expect that to provide additional information. An analysis of the consultation responses will be published in the autumn.

We have made initial estimates of the likely impact on students of the local income tax proposals which are currently the subject of a consultation exercise. We are consulting student representative organisations, amongst others, as part of that consultation. We intend to assess the results of the consultation exercise currently underway before deciding the next steps.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-12905 on 22 May 2008. 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/wa.search.

The answer would depend on a range of factors and it would not be appropriate to seek to estimate these at this stage.

While information is available by institution and by course for all students, information at the level of detail requested for the subset of students specified is not held centrally.