- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 1 March 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many court actions were raised against graduates to recover student loans sold to banks in (a) 1997-98 and (b) 1998-99, expressed also as a percentage of the number of loans sold.
Answer
There were two sales of student loan debt to the private sector: the first in 1998 and the second in 1999.
The following table shows the number of court actions raised against account holders UK wide to recover student loans sold to each debt owner. No breakdown of figures for Scotland is available.
Not all account holders will necessarily be graduates.
| Debt Owner | Court Actions Raised Against Account Holders | Approx no. of Loans Sold to Debt Owner | Percentage of Court Actions Raised to The Number of Loans Sold |
| 1 | 9,942 | 500,000 | 2.0% |
| 2 | 1,147 | 500,000 | 0.2% |
Source: Student Loans Company.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 28 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many student loan debts have been written off and what the total cash value was of the deleted debt in each year since the system was introduced.
Answer
The Student Loans Company estimates that the total number of student loan debts, held by Scottish account holders, that have been written off since the student loans scheme began is approximately £1.5 million relating to approximately 770 loans. It is not possible to provide an annual breakdown of this figure.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 28 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many Scottish graduates have been advised that they face court proceedings to recover outstanding student loans in each year since the system was introduced.
Answer
Information on Scottish graduates who have been advised that they face court proceedings to recover outstanding student loans is not held centrally.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 28 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many student loan borrowers have been declared bankrupt in each year since student loans were introduced.
Answer
The number of Scottish student loan borrowers who have been declared bankrupt to 2003 is given in the answer to question S2W-6052 answered on 2 March 2004.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/search_wa.The number declaring bankruptcy in 2004 is 1,541.
There is no statutory requirement for bankrupt students to notify the Student Loans Company of their status, so the figures given will not include all bankruptcies.
The following is a corrected answer (published on 25 October 2005); see below.
Nicol Stephen: The number of Scottish student loan borrowers who have been declared bankrupt to 2003 is given in the answer to question S2W-6052 answered on 2 March 2004. 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 number declaring bankruptcy in 2004 is 289.
There is no statutory requirement for bankrupt students to notify the Student Loans Company of their status, so the figures given will not include all bankruptcies.
This is a correction to the earlier answer to this parliamentary question given by Jim Wallace MSP on 28 February 2005. I have written to Ms Hyslop to say that the Student Loans Company have apologised for their mistake and that they have asked for their apologies to be passed onto Parliament. My letter has been lodged in the Parliament’s Reference Centre under bib number 37248.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what the interest rates set for student loans were in each year since the system was introduced.
Answer
The rate of interest applied to student loans is equal to the annual change in the retail price index. This is applied to maintain the value of the amount borrowed in real terms.
1990 - 9.8%.
1991 - 5.8%
1992 - 3.9%
1993 - 1.2%
1994 - 2.3%
1995 - 3.5%
1996 - 2.7%
1997 - 2.6%
1998 - 3.5%
1999 - 2.1%
2000 - 2.6%
2001 - 2.3%
2002 - 1.3%
2003 - 3.1%
2004 - 2.6%
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether student loans are a disincentive to potential mature students to enter higher education.
Answer
The number of students aged 25 and over receiving support from the Student Awards Agency for Scotland has remained broadly unchanged since the introduction of a wholly loan based system of living cost support in 1999. This would suggest that potential mature students do not regard the current student loans arrangement as a disincentive.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has paid in subsidies for student loans sold in 1998 and 1999.
Answer
Debt sale subsidy payments by the Scottish Executive to 2003-04 in respect of student loans total £62,527,000. However, the cost of these payments is offset in the Executive’s balance sheet against the debt sale subsidy provision, created when the loans were sold, and thus are a nil cost annually.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what change was made in the accounting treatment of student loans in 2001.
Answer
Student loans were accounted for on a cash basis until 2000-01. From 2001-02 they were accounted for entirely on a resource accounting basis. To facilitate the change, both cash and resource accounts were published in 1999-2000 and 2000-01.
In the year ended 31 March 2000, student loans were accounted on the basis of the Scottish Executive share of the Student Loan Company loan book, giving a balance of £458.554 million. In the year ended 31 March 2001 the Scottish Executive’s share of these loans was accounted for on the basis of the loans balances of students domiciled in Scotland. This meant that the opening balance of student loans was recalculated to be £420.880 million.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether student loans are a disincentive to potential students from ethnic minority backgrounds to enter higher education.
Answer
Student loans have been an integral part of an affordable student funding system since 1990. The most recent information from the Higher Education Statistics Agency and the Scottish Further Education Council, gives details over the five year period from 1998-99 until 2002-03. This shows that the number of students from ethnic minority backgrounds who have entered higher education in this period has increased and continues to exceed the proportion of the general population who are from an ethnic minority background.
- Asked by: Fiona Hyslop, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Wallace on 25 February 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive when it intends to publish the findings of its research into student poverty and graduate debt.
Answer
The Scottish Executive intend to publish the findings from the Scottish Student Income and Expenditure Survey in summer 2005.
