Chamber and committees

The 2023-24 Official Statistics on attendance and absence show a slight increase in attendance and reduction in persistent absence. It is acknowledged that the rate of attendance has decreased prior to this as a result of the impact of Covid-19.

The overall attendance rate for 2023-24 was 90.3%, an increase of 0.1 percentage points on 2022-23. The rate of persistent absence for 2023-24 was 31.4%, a reduction of 1.1 percentage points on 2022-23.

The Scottish Government recognises these slight improvements in the most recent data and will continue to implement the national strategic approach to supporting education authorities and schools to improve attendance and reduce absence through engagement and support of children, young people and their families.

As part of this approach, which follows the deep dive on attendance and absence which I commissioned and which was published by Education Scotland in November 2023, there are a range of actions in place to support improved attendance.

Every Local Authority in Scotland has school attendance as a stretch aim, as part of their work on the Scottish Attainment Challenge, and every council in the country has identified action they are taking at school level. This work is being supported by the Pupil Equity Fund.

Education Scotland have developed and published a range of updated practice advice and guidance, established a professional network, and are providing bespoke support to authorities as part of a phased approach to improvement.

The Scottish Government has added additional analysis of data and is publishing data more frequently to support education authorities in understanding their local picture, as part of monitoring and review.

Finally, as I announced in December, there will be a national marketing campaign in the coming year to further enhance the support available.

The Scottish Government recognise that stock exchanges can be an alternative platform for some companies seeking to raise substantial capital for growth investment, whilst also offering investors the opportunity to contribute to the development of listed companies.

The establishment of any stock exchange in Scotland is a commercial matter for those seeking to do so.

The 2025-26 Budget provides almost £2.2 billion for social care and integration – including £200 million to reduce waiting lists, help support reduction of delayed discharge and increase capacity– expanding the hospital and home programme to ensure no one waits more than 12 months for a new outpatient appointment or day case treatment by March 2026.

£100 million of this is going on planned care (waiting times) and the remainder is going on a package of improvement and support to improve flow and increase capacity in NHS acute settings.

The Fund was co-designed and funded between the Scottish Government and the Law Society of Scotland (“the Society”) and was part of an overall support package for the legal aid sector as it recovered from COVID 19 and is due to close at the end of March 2025. As part of the grant funding conditions, on completion, the Society must submit a report to the Scottish Ministers summarising the outcomes and performance of the Fund.

The evaluation will form part of the discussions of the Future of the Legal Profession Working Group. Once we receive the Society’s report and have considered the contents, we will arrange to meet the working group again. The Group consists of senior representatives from the legal professional bodies, the legal profession, wider justice sector and other organisations.

The Scottish Government considers available research to inform improvement work and help improve outcomes.

We recently funded research on domestic abuse and child contact that was published in 2023: Domestic Abuse and Child Contact: The Interface Between Criminal and Civil Proceedings - SCCJR.

Following this research, we have held workshops with key stakeholders to consider how to improve the interaction between the civil and criminal courts in the context of domestic abuse, including the approach taken in family proceedings where there has been domestic abuse.

We held a workshop with justice agencies on 8 May 2024 and a workshop with third sector organisations on 3 October 2024. We are currently considering next steps and will publish notes from these workshops in due course.

The key legislation in relation to contact and residence cases is section 11 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. In deciding whether to make a contact order the welfare of the child must be the court’s paramount consideration. The court is also required to have regard to the need to protect the child from any abuse, or the risk of any abuse, which affects or might affect the child.

The Ministerial led Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce met on 11 December and agreed a number of recommended actions to be included within its final report which will be published early in the new year.

Patterns of business in the criminal justice system have changed fundamentally since 2007 due to reductions in crime, the increasing availability and use of alternatives to prosecution and trends towards earlier resolution of cases. This means that the demand for criminal legal aid - and so for the services of criminal defence solicitors - has also changed fundamentally.

Comparing the 12 months ending March 2007 with the 12 months ending March 2024, the number of grants of legal aid in relation to summary matters fell by 37%, for solemn legal aid by 13%, for appeals by 86% and the number of accused requiring representation by a duty solicitor fell by 81%. Over the same period, the number of registered solicitors fell by 34%, broadly reflecting the reduction in demand.

The criminal courts are not reporting people unable to get representation, anyone who needs a solicitor at a police station or to appear in court from custody gets access to a solicitor.

The Scottish Government recognises that supporting labour market participation and reducing economic inactivity requires a concerted approach from a range of services, including employability, health and childcare. We are currently taking action to support this, and have committed to doing more through our Programme for Government. For example, we have set out plans to improve access to health services by April 2025, and to implement specialist employability support for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions across all 32 local authorities by Summer 2025.

We publish statistics on the impact of our devolved employability services on a quarterly basis. The most recent publication, which covers up to June 2024, shows that Fair Start Scotland has supported 22,875 job starts since April 2018, and that No One Left Behind has supported 20,743 people to enter employment since April 2019. Although Fair Start Scotland has closed to new referrals, those on the service continue to be entitled to the full offer of support.

No One Left Behind reports on the economic status and long-term health conditions of participants and at the point of accessing services, with 14,025 reporting as economically inactive and 16,594 people reporting a long-term health condition. We will begin to include data on the outcomes achieved by those who are economically inactive at the time of entering No One Left Behind in the coming financial year.

Furthermore, the latest ELC census shows that uptake of the funded ELC offer for 3 and 4 year olds remains near-universal at an estimated 95% of children within that age group, and the latest parent survey shows the 74% of parents using funded ELC said that the funded offer enabled them to work or look for work.

The Scottish Government routinely analyses data on economic inactivity published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and publishes this data on the Scottish Government’s website.

The Labour Market Trends: December 2024 publication was released on 17th December 2024, and contains statistics from ONS’s Labour Force Survey. These show that Scotland had an estimated economic inactivity rate of 24.0% for August to October 2024.

The latest Scotland’s Labour Market Insights statistical publication was released on 28 October 2024, containing statistics from ONS’s Annual Population Survey. This reported that an estimated 786,300 people aged 16 to 64 were economically inactive in Scotland in July 2023 – June 2024. An estimated 32.0% of inactive people gave their reason for being inactive as “long-term sick or disabled”. The second most common reason for being economically inactive was being a student (24.6%), followed by looking after “looking after family / home” (16.1%).

Economic inactivity due to ill health is a key concern, and the Scottish Government published analysis in September 2024 on supporting those with longer-term health conditions and disabilities to remain economically active. This is available at: Economic inactivity in Scotland: supporting those with longer-term health conditions and disabilities to remain economically active.

The Scottish Government routinely analyses data on economic inactivity published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and publishes this data on the Scottish Government’s website.

The latest Scotland’s Labour Market Insights statistical publication was released on 28 October 2024, containing statistics from ONS’s Annual Population Survey. This shows that an estimated 17.3 per cent (135,700) of inactive people aged 16 to 64 reported that they wanted to work during the period July 2023 to June 2024.