Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government values teachers and is committed to understanding their needs and providing them with the right support.

While teacher wellbeing is ultimately a matter for the employer, since 2020 we have invested more than £2 million specifically in supporting wellbeing in the education workforce. In 2023-24 we provided £0.2 million to Know You More, to offer free wellbeing coaching to teaching staff and educational professionals across Scotland.

We also worked in collaboration with the Association of Directors of Education Scotland to fund an Education Workforce Support Project, to gain a comprehensive understanding of how we support the wellbeing of our education workforce. We are currently considering the outcomes of this work and next steps to improve the existing wellbeing support that is provided by local authorities and teaching unions.

The Scottish Government’s future legislative programme will be set out as part of the upcoming Programme for Government in due course.

In the meantime we are working on those Deer Working Group recommendations that do not require primary legislation through the Strategic Deer Board .

In addition to this, as set out in the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Action: Policy Package , we are developing a package of incentives schemes for deer management to pilot across Scotland. These local schemes will be implemented this year in different parts of Scotland to test different approaches to incentives and to better understand the barriers to deer management.

While employment practice is a matter for local authorities as employers, the Scottish Government values teachers and recognises the concerns around teacher workload that are identified in this research.

We are committed to working with COSLA and the teacher unions, through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers on matters such as teacher workload.

Whilst there are no current plans to update the Teachers’ Agreement 2001, any future changes to teachers’ terms and conditions would be matters for the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, which was established as part of the Teachers’ Agreement.

The Scottish Government is increasing funding to the culture sector by £15.8m this financial year to £196.6m. This is the first step on the route to investing at least £100m more annually in culture and the arts by the financial year 2028-29. In 2025-2026 we aim to provide an additional £25m to the culture sector.

I appreciate the need for clarity within the culture sector regarding the £100m and I hope to set out the trajectory of spend for the remainder of this Parliament in due course.

In line with normal budgetary procedure the Scottish Government will publish a draft budget for 2025-26 later this year.

Five local authorities have supplied NatureScot with cull return information in the past five years.

This information is not currently held centrally. Students applying to the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) for the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) for the first time are referred for an assessment of their needs before a decision can be made. SAAS does not set the timing of this process, as it is undertaken by an external party. A new DSA Online system is currently in development.

This is a matter for local authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.

We are aware of the following five local authorities overseeing and being actively involved in deer management:

• East Dunbartonshire
• West Lothian
• Aberdeen City
• Highland Council
• Perth & Kinross

This is a matter for local authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.