The Scottish Government

PUBLIC PETITIONS COMMITTEE

10 September 2008

Dear Ms Robertson,

CONSIDERATION OF PETITION PE1180

Petition by Tom and Josie Wallace calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that students with complex needs are supported in achieving further education placements and that appropriate funding mechanisms are provided to enable such placements to be taken up.

The Public Petitions Committee considered the above petition at its meeting on 9 September 2008 and agreed to seek responses to the issues raised in the petition from the Scottish Government, Scottish Funding Council, Association of Scotland's Colleges, COSLA, Association of Directors of Social Work, Association of Directors of Education (Scotland) and Disabled Student Stakeholders Group.

Purpose

The purpose of this letter is to seek a written response on the-

• specific issues raised in this petition
• specific issues raised during the discussion on the petition (e.g. XXX (the Official Report of the Committee's meeting will be available on the Parliament's website from 17 September 2008) and
• relevant action your organisation is taking to address these (here the Committee is interested in specifics: what is the action, how is it relevant, why is it being taken and when).

Guidance on response

The following information may be helpful in preparing your response-

o please limit your written response to no more than 3 sides of A4

o the Committee would find it convenient if you were to identify in bullet form the action your organisation has taken, or will be taking, that will specifically deal with, resolve etc the issues raised

o the written submission should be provided electronically in MS Word format (no confirmatory hard copy is required) to petitions@scottish.parliament.uk

Timetable

The Committee will give further consideration to this petition and the written responses received at its meeting on 13 January 2009. Accordingly, the deadline for your response is 21 November 2008. The Committee would ask that this deadline is complied with to allow sufficient time for the petitioner to comment on your written response and for consideration of the petition to continue as timetabled. Should you be unable to meet the above deadline, please contact me as soon as possible.

Written submissions are published as a part of a public paper at the meeting at which they are considered. If you do not wish your response to be made public, please contact me to discuss (you may wish to refer to the Parliament's policy on handling information received in response to calls for evidence).

On behalf of the Committee, can I thank you for your assistance and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely

Zoé Tough

Mrs Zoé Tough

Assistant Clerk to the Public Petitions Committee