Australian Council for Educational Research International UK (ACER UK) were awarded a contract to support the Scottish Government, in consultation with its partner country Governments, to provide a needs analysis in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda to inform the design of our new Inclusive Education programmes, with a focus on improving access to education for the most marginalised – particularly girls and learners with disabilities. The total amount paid to ACER UK for their services in FY2023-24 was £54,172.

Support from the Scottish Government for Inclusive Education was a specific ask during discussions with all three partner countries of Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda, and is provided in line with commitments made in Scotland’s International Strategy: Delivering for Scotland and the Programme for Government in 2023.

In 2020-21, the Scottish Government carried out a review of its approach to International Development in light of COVID-19 which deepened pre-existing inequalities, exposing vulnerabilities in social, political and economic systems. The results of that Review were announced to the Scottish Parliament through a Ministerial Statement on 3 March 2021 which included agreeing priority focus areas for future international development programming, ensuring SG is supporting its partners to address the impacts of COVID-19; education was one of the priority areas.

The third sector plays a critical role in the Scottish Government’s ambition to improve outcomes for children, young people, families and adult learners particularly given the ongoing cost of living crisis. Since 2016, the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities (CYPFEI & ALEC) third sector fund has supported 122 organisations with just over £112m in funding. Since 2022, the Scottish Government has supported a further 22 organisations, providing core funding of over £6m, through the Children, Young People, Families and Adult Learners (CYPFAL) third sector fund. Core funding delivered through these funds has helped to support a range of action to deliver on priorities including tackling child poverty, supporting Children’s Rights, Keeping the Promise and promoting positive mental and physical health and wellbeing.

The Scottish Government appointed a fund administrator – the Corra Foundation – to work closely with all 137 organisations to support delivery of the funding outcomes that were set out in grant offers. As part of the conditions of grant, funded organisations are required to report on their progress towards delivery of the agreed funding outcomes. In the most recent reporting period from April to September 2024 around 1.3 million people – children, families and adult learners - across Scotland were directly supported as a result of this funding. Some of the key benefits of the funding identified by the Corra Foundation through their support for organisations include high quality support for children and families; improved knowledge and confidence in children, families and adult learners; improved outcomes for families, and enhanced partnership working across the third sector.

Scotland’s partnership with Pakistan is long-standing, with a highly active diaspora, and Pakistan being the 4th largest international student community in our own universities. Our commitment for the Scotland Pakistan Scholarships for Young Women and Girls has been to provide £400,000 a year, through British Council Pakistan who manage the scholarships, though we have provided further financing in year 2022 to support women and girls affected by floods, and year in 2023-24 and 2024-25 because the high level of demand on the scheme.

This is in a country with significant gender disparities in education ranking 145 out of 146 countries on the Gender Parity Index for literacy and educational attainment (in 2018 that was 146 out of 148 countries). Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children with an estimated 22.8 million children aged 5-16 not attending school, close to 60% of which are girls. Pakistan has one of the highest amount of out of school girls. Only about 22% of the workforce are women while women's representation in professional and managerial positions remains low, with only 7.4% of STEM professionals being female.

Inspired by a courageous campaign for better education for girls in Pakistan led by Malala Yousafzai, a young female education activist and the youngest Nobel laureate who was shot by the Taliban, the Scottish Government set up the Scotland Pakistan Scholarships for Young Women and Girls to support equality for women and girls in Pakistan. Since 2013, I am proud to say that Scottish Government has supported over 20,000 women and girls to get Secondary education and a further 2,000 to attend University education including at postgraduate level (16300 for secondary education and 1,200 for University in the last 5 years).

In November last year we published a plan setting out a suite of 20 actions being taken to improve GP recruitment and retention.

We have also reactivated the GP Sustainability loans scheme for GP premises and invested an additional £73.2 million in General Practice this financial year to provide a pay uplift for GPs and to support GP practices to retain and recruit key staff. The uplift includes £7.6 million to cover population growth.

To support work with refugees, people seeking asylum and local communities, the Scottish Government provides funding to organisations such as the Scottish Refugee Council to ensure that all people seeking refugee protection in Scotland are welcome, where women, children and men are protected, find safety and support, have their human rights and dignity respected and are able to achieve their full potential.

The following table contains a list of the funding the Scottish Government has provided to the Scottish Refugee Council since March 2020. It is a condition of all Scottish Government grants that recipients deliver the objectives set out in the grant offer letter. The funding below has been assessed through a combination of written and financial reporting and deemed to be effective.

We encourage all businesses to report any instances of criminality to Police Scotland. As well as enabling the perpetrators to be caught and being prevented from committing further crimes, such reports also ensure Police Scotland has the best possible intelligence on incidents in particular areas. The Scottish Government would also urge retailers to engage with the Scottish Partnership Against Acquisitive Crime (SPAACE) in order to help safeguard their business and the people that work there. The SPAACE Strategy outlines a partnership approach to the prevention, deterrence, and enforcement around a range of crimes including housebreaking and theft.

NHS Boards have reporting systems to capture data on violence and aggression - including sexual assault. I strongly encourage staff to report any and all instances of violent and aggressive behaviour.

Health Improvement Scotland are working with all NHS boards and partner organisations to standardise the reporting of adverse events, and have developed a national framework which was published in February.

This details the importance of national standards of reporting and the requirement for monitoring and publishing of data. This will facilitate the collation of accurate data nationally.

The courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with sexual offending. All instances of such behaviour should be reported and escalated to Police Scotland as quickly as possible for consideration of necessary action.

The Scottish Government has increased the Affordable Housing Supply Budget by £211.8 million for 2025-26 when compared to 2024-25. This will bring the investment in housing in 2025-26 to £768 million, which will enable delivery of more than 8,000 homes in Scotland. In 2024-25, we targeted £42 million of funding to the local authorities with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures. To date, this has supported local authorities to bring 1,000 homes back into use through acquisitions and reduced the number of empty social homes. We have also worked with utility providers on energy supply issues to social rented homes to reduce the turnaround time for void properties.

1.Acquiring larger properties suitable for families will help to reduce the number of households, including families with children, in temporary accommodation. The targeted funding of £42 million will help to increase the supply of social housing of the right type and size where it is needed most. Our most recent statistics show that 20 councils have reduced the number of children in temporary accommodation as at 30 September 2024.

2.All local authorities should ensure that the temporary accommodation they provide to fulfil their duty to accommodate homeless households meets the temporary accommodation standards framework, published by the Scottish Government in 2023. The Scottish Government will provide record funding of more than £15 billion to councils in 2025-26 to support the delivery of a range of services, including homelessness services – an increase of £1,008 million on 2024-25. The Scottish Government allows local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently, and local authorities are best placed to identify and respond to local needs and priorities.

Alongside the draft budget published 4 December 2024, there was accompanying documents that set out level 4 funding - (https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.scot%2Fbinaries%2Fcontent%2Fdocuments%2Fgovscot%2Fpublications%2Fcorporate-report%2F2024%2F12%2Fscottish-budget-2025-2026%2Fdocuments%2F2025-26-level-4-budget-tables%2F2025-26-level-4-budget-tables%2Fgovscot%253Adocument%2F2025-26-level-4-budget-tables.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK).

Within the Health & Social Care tab the direct Mental Health programme spend is broken down along with a summary of what it is used for. This only refers to the direct programme budget and not wider government spend on mental health.

The direct programme budget for Mental Health will increase by 1.2% (to £270.5m) in 2025-26, and in the last five years has more than doubled, from £117.1m in 2020-21 to £270.5m in 2025-26.

Latest data published by Public Health Scotland on 25 February 2025 shows total spend on mental health in Scotland has increased by £179.6 million to £1.486 billion in 2023-24. That is 9.03% of total net NHS expenditure, up from 8.53% in 2022-23. Spend on child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) has increased by nearly £19.4 million to over £134 million. This is 0.82% of total spend, up from 0.75% in 2022-23.

The Scottish Government’s new homelessness prevention measures will mean families at risk of homelessness get help earlier, and other relevant bodies do more to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place.

The Scottish Government provided funding to support the development of the Housing Options Training Toolkit, a learning and development, training and resource platform that supports local authorities to provide housing advice in Scotland.

We know some bodies will already be carrying out effective work to prevent homelessness and others will have mixed levels of knowledge about homelessness. We are making £4 million available for homelessness prevention pilots in 2025-26. This funding will enable relevant bodies and local partners to pilot and share learning on the steps, resources and services needed to resolve crises and effectively prevent homelessness.