asked the Secretary of State for Employment which regional authorities in Scotland operate the job release scheme in such a way as to make it applicable to school teachers.

I regret that information on which regional authorities participate in the job release scheme is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. There have been difficulties in applying the conditions for the replacement of the person released, in the case of teachers and other public authority employees. I have now made special arrangements in these cases which I hope will obviate these problems.