Dear Newbattle Abbey College,

Under Freedom of Information Scotland, I wish to receive the following information within 20 working days:

(1) How many hours of facility time per week are allocated to the various trade unions within your college for local business and how is this determined? Is it allocated by trade union or by steward? Please provide a breakdown by trade union.

(2) How many stewards do you have for each recognised union?

(3) Over and above the core allocation to the stewards involved in the local bargaining machinery, do you provide additional facility time to health and safety, learning or equalities reps? If so, please detail arrangements for each trade union and indicate whether or not this allocation is already covered in your response to question one or whether this is additional.

(4) Is more time given to stewards who are involved in the local bargaining machinery to those who are not? Please specify the amount per week for each trade union.

(5) Are any of your local stewards involved in the national bargaining machinery? If so, how much time is allocated to them per week to facilitate this and how many stewards are involved? Please detail for each trade union and indicate whether or not this time is already included in your response to question one or whether this is an additional allocation.

(6) Are any of your local stewards on facility time to run a trade union branch? If so, how many for each trade union and how many hours per week are allocated? Again, is this additional to the response provided for question one?

(7) When stewards are on union business, are there back-filling arrangements in place to cover their work? Please detail the arrangements for each of the recognised unions.

(8) Does your college support the notion of a central facility time fund whereby each college within the sector pays an equal share of the costs associated with national bargaining?

(9) If you answered yes to question 8, please indicate whether or not this position has been put formally to the Employers Association in any relevant discussions/votes.

Yours faithfully,

John Gallacher