To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made with arrangements for the evaluation of the pre-school education initiative as proposed in the invitation to local authorities to submit pilot schemes issued by his Department last month. [13127]

The Scottish Office is today inviting several research institutions to respond to a specification for an implementation evaluation of the pilot. The remit for this evaluation is wide. It demands that the evaluators look at the experience of parents and providers; examine the way vouchers are used and their effects; and look at the patterns of provision that emerge and at the growth in places that is achieved. We are serious about learning from the pilot; and we are demonstrating that in what we do.