The St Mary’s Music School (Aided Places) Amendment Regulations 1997

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the St Mary’s Music School (Aided Places) Regulations 1995, principally to amend the definition of the “parents” of an aided pupil and to uprate the qualifying income levels for the remission of fees and charges and the making of grants under the aided places scheme.

The details of these amendments are as follows:–

(a) the definition of “parents” of an aided pupil is amended broadly to reflect changes introduced by the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, in particular to introduce the concept of a parent “with whom the child normally lives” in place of a parent “with actual custody of the child” (regulation 2(a));

(b) the deduction made from relevant income for dependent children and relatives has been increased from £1,200 to £1,230 (regulation 2(b));

(c) the level of income at or below which fees are to be wholly remitted is increased from £8,498 to £8,723 for boarders and from £10,687 to £10,972 for day pupils, with corresponding increases in the extent of remission where the relevant income exceeds those sums (regulation 2(c) and (d));

(d) the qualifying income levels for school travel grants and clothing grants are increased (regulation 2(f) and (h)); and

(e) school clothing grants are increased by amounts varying from £1 to £5 (regulation 2(f)).

In addition paragraph 17 of Schedule 1 to the 1995 Regulations has been amended to require remission of charges for meals where the parents of an aided pupil are in receipt of income-based jobseeker’s allowance (regulation 2(e)). A minor drafting correction has also been made to paragraph 22 of that Schedule regarding the specification of distance in kilometres relevant to school travel grant for day pupils (regulation 2(g)).