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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Due to the nature of the commercial process undergone, Forestry Commission Scotland could not specify requirements in this way however, each developer has stressed as part of their submission the importance they attach to local development and sustainability.

Depending on energy prices Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) anticipate total renewable energy derived income of about £30 million per year by 2020, this is based on FCS''s forecast that an additional 500MW of installed capacity should be achievable. This extra income will be reinvested and will therefore be a huge saving to the taxpayer.

In March 2010 I announced £100,000 in support of the Community Wellbeing Champions Initiative. So far the Initiative has been piloted in five areas across Scotland: Fife; Shetland; North Lanarkshire; South Lanarkshire, and Stirling.

Evaluation of these pilots is currently taking place, and a full report of the Initiative will be included in the second annual report to Parliament.

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.

Communities are welcome to flag up their interest during the eight month period if they want to pursue a renewables project under the National Forest Land Scheme (NFLS) prior to the list of sites being finalised by the developer. Once that list is established communities will have another opportunity to take forward sites via the NFLS scheme for non allocated sites. They will be able to engage with the developers to avail of the negotiated Forestry Commission Scotland deal for a longer period after the exclusivity period prior to a planning application being made.