Current status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 5 August 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much has been spent from Pupil Equity Funding on additional staffing in schools since its introduction, broken down by local authority.
Specific data on staffing expenditure from Pupil Equity Funding in schools, broken down by local authority, is not held centrally.
Since Pupil Equity Funding’s introduction in 2017-18, over £1billion has been allocated to Scotland’s schools, empowering headteachers to take the best approaches that suit the needs of their pupils, including using it to support significant numbers of additional staff, to help close the poverty-related attainment gap. Scottish Attainment Challenge funding, which includes annual Pupil Equity Funding of £130 million to 97% of schools, supports up to 3,000 additional staff, including up to 700 FTE teachers.
Across the country we continue to trust and empower Scotland's headteachers to use this extra funding to support their pupils - whether through extra support staff, family link workers or through support for mental health, for example. The recently published PEF Report highlights some of the ways Headteachers are investing their funding to improve outcomes for children impacted by poverty:- pupil_equity_funding_report_2025_.pdf