Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 126)
TUESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2006
MS CARRON
MCDIARMID,
MS CAROL
GREER AND
MS PHILOMENA
DE LIMA
Q120 Mr McGovern:
Where do the majority of the students come from? Upon completion
of the degrees or vocational courses do they tend to stay in the
Highland region or go back to where they came from or migrate
to somewhere else in Scotland or the UK or even beyond?
Ms de Lima: On the basis of my
own experience of contributing to the social sciences aspect of
it, most of the students came from the local areas, for example
around Inverness and Ross-shire, so they tend to be mainly local
students. For example, in the social sciences increasingly they
are young students studying at Higher National Certificate/Diploma
level. It was a course designed for mature students but increasingly
young students who do not want to be away but want to spend an
extra year or two in the Highlands will take up that opportunity
and then possibly move on to other degrees. With the UHI coming
on-stream now people have the opportunity of staying on and doing
degrees, so you do get that kind of grouping of people. In terms
of where people end up working, again the college will have a
system of tracking where these students end up because there is
now a system for sending questionnaires out to students but it
does depend on them returning them. My experience of working at
Inverness College for 12 or 13 years is that most of the students
tend to find work locally, they do not tend to move away, but
they tend to be mature students who usually have very good reasons
for staying here.
Q121 Danny Alexander:
One of the things we heard this morning from Sandy Brady from
Highlands and Islands Enterprise was about population, the structure
of population in the Highlands and there being this 16 to 35 age
group where there is a substantial dip in the population compared
with the rest of the country. I wonder whether you would see the
development of UHI, and particularly the development potentially
of a UHI facility with a campus in Inverness, as being a route
to bring more people into the Highlands to study to counteract
the outflow of people who will inevitably get to go to university
but are going elsewhere?
Ms de Lima: That is very much
seen as where the University of the Highlands and Island ought
to be going in the longer term. We are all aware that young people
will want to leave and experience life somewhere else, indeed
I am sure that people in the Highlands would want them to do that,
the key issue is if they go away would they come back if they
were given the right job opportunities? There is that aspect of
it. There are also issues around the University of the Highlands
being attractive to young students from elsewhere. It is a long-term
strategy and I think we have a long way to go yet and that is
not surprising because universities take a long time to get established.
In my view, I am sure, that is what the longer term objective
should be, attracting younger people to come here and selling
the Highlands and Islands to a much wider audience than is the
case at the moment.
Ms McDiarmid: We are fortunate
in that most of our inward migration is of people in the working
age group. The majority, I think it is 82%, of inward migrants
coming from the accession states are aged between 18 and 34.
Q122 Chairman:
My question is to Carol. The people who come to you or to your
organisation for advice, what percentage of those people coming
to you for advice are coming with problems related to poverty?
Ms Greer: That is a very difficult
question, but I would have said that if you look at our stats
the vast majority—I will leave some statistics with you
for the last complete year and for this year to date—by
far and away the biggest area of inquiry for us is welfare benefits,
so by definition people who are certainly on low incomes and arguably
living in poverty. That is the biggest overall area of inquiry.
The second biggest single issue is debt, which obviously affects
people's income. It is hard to say exactly because obviously we
do have an open door policy but if you look at the range of enquiries
that people bring to us and if you look at welfare benefits, the
total over the last complete year was 11,478 which was 40% of
the overall total. If you added those together with some of the
other ones which are indicators of poverty, like debt, the percentage
would be very high. I could not give it off the top of my head,
I would have to work it out from the figures, but I would say
the majority. When I first started in this job about 11 years
ago we dealt with very many more things like simple consumer enquiries.
What is very noticeable in the trend of enquiries is the degree
of complexity of them and the number which are relating to poverty
related issues like welfare benefits, debt, housing, homelessness,
those kinds of issues.
Q123 Chairman:
Do you have people coming to you with health issues or marital
difficulties?
Ms Greer: Very many, yes. In Scotland
we have set up a strategic partnership between Citizens Advice
Scotland and NHS Scotland via the Executive. Part of the rationale
for that is to try and provide more general advice and information
to people on issues which affect their health, poverty obviously
being a key one and low incomes being a key one. We are working
at the moment to try and translate that into local partnerships
between Citizens Advice Bureaux and NHS boards so that they will
fund what we are calling an "Independent Advice and Support
Service" which has got two functions: one is to support people
if they want to complain about the NHS; and the other one, probably
more important from our perspective, is the delivery of advice
and information to people who need it about things which affect
their health, like income, housing, relationships, debt and so
on. We are in the process of negotiating it at the moment, but
we do get large numbers of specific health related enquiries as
well, very many about disabilities and long-term illnesses.
Q124 Mr Davidson:
In terms of the profile of the questions and enquiries you get,
is it vastly different from that across Scotland as a whole? Is
there an enormous peak in a couple of subjects that you do not
encounter elsewhere in Scotland or is it pretty much the same
sort of pattern?
Ms Greer: It is fairly standard.
Nationally welfare benefits is the biggest area and nationally
debt. You do get some local variation. There are pockets in the
Highlands, as other people have said, where housing is particularly
difficult, so in those areas you would probably get a higher ratio.
If you look at the specifics of things like consumer debt then
you will get much more catalogue debt and related debt in some
areas than you might in others where there is more access to shopping.
There is some local variation but it is not very significant.
Q125 Mr Davidson:
I am aware of what the CAB does locally in my own area, but what
I am not clear about is whether or not the patterns of poverty
and misery which they deal with there are replicated here or whether
or not there are any particular issues here that they would not
have picked up otherwise?
Ms Greer: I would have said not
really, no. Where you are looking at issues like access to Jobcentre
Plus, like I said earlier, our perception certainly, and we think
clients' perception, is that they are disproportionately disadvantaged
by that but it is the same issues that are coming up broadly underneath
that.
Q126 Chairman:
Can I thank you for your attendance and for your evidence. Before
I close the meeting if you want to say anything in conclusion,
perhaps on an area which has not been covered during our questioning,
please feel happy to say so.
Ms Greer: No, thank you.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
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