Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-04708

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with Glasgow City Council regarding support for the reported development of community food production and short supply chains, as outlined in the Glasgow City Food Plan.

Question reference: S6W-37505

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 21 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will clarify the meaning of its aim to "rationalise the qualifications offer in the senior phase", and how it will do this.

I made it clear when responding to the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment (IRQA) in September last year that it is vitally important that all young people have a clear and coherent senior phase offer, which aligns with pathways that are available in both higher and further education, and on into employment.

As indicated in the Scottish Government response to the IRQA, the work to rationalise the qualifications offer in the senior phase will be undertaken by the current qualifications body and subsequently Qualifications Scotland. The work should ensure high-quality qualifications in senior phase that:

suit all pupils regardless of their age, stage, and ambition;
is clear and easy for pupils to understand and navigate;
delivers greater parity of esteem between different qualification types;
delivers the skills and knowledge to grow our economy and
will be maintained, reviewed and updated on a regular basis.

During 2024-25 SQA worked with stakeholders to identify and remove underutilised qualifications from their portfolio and, after extensive engagement, will remove 143 qualifications mostly on the grounds of no or low uptake.

An essential part of rationalisation of the senior phase offer will be guided by the evidence gathered from reviewing the types of qualifications available, patterns of delivery, their intended purposes, and how effectively they are fulfilling those purposes.

Question reference: S6W-37503

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to involve parents in the design and delivery of the national campaign on school attendance, as announced in its Programme for Government 2025-26.

The Scottish Government is committed to meaningful parental involvement in the national attendance campaign announced in our Programme for Government 2025-26.

As part of the development of the campaign, qualitative research was undertaken in 2024 with parents, pupils and stakeholders to build a clear picture of lived experience and needs. Insight from this research will be used to inform the development of the campaign, including the core creative idea, messages and channel selection. A second stage of qualitative research with parents and carers of pupils with lower levels of attendance will then be used to test different creative approaches for effectiveness. We will also engage with stakeholders, parent councils and other representative groups as part of this process to gather diverse perspectives.

Question reference: S6W-37504

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish its updated guidance on consequences in schools.

Question reference: S6W-37501

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what specific actions it will take to ease teacher workload, as announced in its Programme for Government 2025-26.

The Scottish Government will work with teacher unions, and COSLA through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers to agree our approach to delivering a reduction in class contact time.

The Scottish Government and COSLA are committed to working in partnership with the teacher unions to set out a timeline for implementation of this important commitment, so that meaningful progress can be made as soon as is practical.

Question reference: S6W-37500

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it will deliver its commitment to reduce teacher class contact time.

Question reference: S6W-37506

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 19 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government who will be invited to the data summit on additional support for learning, as announced in its Programme for Government 2025-26.

Question reference: S6W-37255

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 14 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the Scottish Funding Council will publish its report on the financial state of the university sector in Scotland; whether the Minister for Higher and Further Education has been kept informed of the reasons for any delay in publication, and, if not, what information it has on the reasons for the minister not being kept informed of the reasons for any delay.

The publication date of the Scottish Funding Council’s (SFC) annual report on the financial sustainability of the higher education sector is a matter for the SFC. They have made the decision to amend the timing of their publication cycle primarily due to competing pressures and a delay to the finalisation of some college accounts which has resulted in the content of the college and university financial sustainability reports now being unavoidably outdated. Additionally, SFC will have analysis of new financial forecasts in June which will allow them to update and revise their previous analysis.

The updated analysis should be ready for publication in September.

Question reference: S6W-36497

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 8 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what the average expenditure per (a) pre-school education, (b) primary school, (c) secondary school, (d) college and (e) university place has been in each year since 2007-08 in (i) cash and (ii) real terms.

Table 1 provides information on average gross revenue expenditure in Scotland per child attending pre-school, and per primary and secondary pupil alongside allocations (accounting for teaching and tuition fees funding) per college and university place.

2024-25 figures for Pre-School, Primary and Secondary School will be available after the publication of the 2024-25 Scottish local government finance statistics in February – March 2026.

The Scottish Government do not hold data on Pre-School registrations prior to 2010.

Indicative University and College funding allocations for 2025-26 were published by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) earlier this month. These include a cash terms increase in teaching funding for colleges, and a cash terms increase to the Main Teaching Grant (and teaching price) for Universities, compared with last year. These indicative figures have not been included in this table as the underlying calculation requires further details, including the number of controlled and non-controlled funded places, which are not yet available to SFC.

Further detail of College and University Indicative Funding Allocations for 2025-26 can be found at:

College Indicative Funding Allocations 2025-26 - Scottish Funding Council

University Indicative Funding Allocations 2025-26 - Scottish Funding Council

Table 1: Average Expenditure Per Place for each Education Level (Cash Terms)

	Pre-School	Primary	Secondary	College	University
2007-08	-	£4,651	£6,344	£4,046	£6,561
2008-09	-	£4,833	£6,665	£4,219	£6,760
2009-10	-	£4,882	£6,533	£4,293	£6,904
2010-11	£3,456	£5,007	£6,607	£4,289	£6,957
2011-12	£3,193	£4,935	£6,495	£4,138	-
2012-13	£3,194	£4,899	£6,629	£4,012	£7,139
2013-14	£3,102	£4,880	£6,714	£4,043	£7,175
2014-15	£3,411	£4,819	£6,795	£4,029	£7,240
2015-16	£3,957	£4,877	£6,920	£4,024	£7,237
2016-17	£4,344	£4,980	£7,050	£4,092	£7,005
2017-18	£4,592	£5,169	£7,131	£4,196	£7,013
2018-19	£5,190	£5,444	£7,459	£4,539	£7,182
2019-20	£6,916	£5,791	£7,789	£4,665	£7,190
2020-21	£9,366	£6,130	£7,906	£4,878	£7,316
2021-22	£10,435	£6,550	£8,174	£4,952	£7,433
2022-23	£11,282	£7,075	£8,766	£5,054	£7,558
2023-24	£12,000	£7,487	£9,276	£5,506	£7,613
2024-25	-	-	-	£5,506	£7,635

Table 2 provides the same information at 2024-25 price levels. Real terms conversions were produced using use HM Treasury’s March 2025 GDP Deflator series, including forecasts for the 2024-25 financial year.

Table 2: Average Expenditure Per Place for each Education Level (Real Terms)

Education Level	Pre-School	Primary	Secondary	College	University
2007-08	-	£7,170	£9,780	£6,238	£10,115
2008-09	-	£7,191	£9,917	£6,277	£10,058
2009-10	-	£7,167	£9,591	£6,303	£10,136
2010-11	£4,979	£7,214	£9,520	£6,180	£10,024
2011-12	£4,521	£6,987	£9,196	£5,859	-
2012-13	£4,440	£6,810	£9,215	£5,577	£9,924
2013-14	£4,231	£6,657	£9,158	£5,515	£9,788
2014-15	£4,597	£6,494	£9,157	£5,429	£9,756
2015-16	£5,294	£6,525	£9,259	£5,384	£9,683
2016-17	£5,684	£6,516	£9,224	£5,354	£9,166
2017-18	£5,915	£6,659	£9,186	£5,405	£9,034
2018-19	£6,548	£6,868	£9,410	£5,726	£9,060
2019-20	£8,523	£7,137	£9,599	£5,749	£8,860
2020-21	£10,955	£7,170	£9,247	£5,705	£8,556
2021-22	£12,277	£7,706	£9,617	£5,826	£8,744
2022-23	£12,399	£7,775	£9,634	£5,554	£8,306
2023-24	£12,456	£7,771	£9,629	£5,715	£7,902
2024-25	-	-	-	£5,506	£7,635

Sources:

1.Local Financial Returns – Education (LFR 01) statistical return provided by local authorities to the Scottish Government: Local government finance statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

2.Pupil Census – published annually - for further details go to: Pupil census: supplementary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

3.Scottish Funding Council

4.GDP deflators at market prices: GDP deflators at market prices, and money GDP - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Methodology

The methodologies used to determine the average expenditure per place for each education level are provided in more detail below.

Pre-school: average gross revenue expenditure per child in pre-primary education is arrived at by taking the total gross revenue expenditure on pre-primary education, adjusted for inter-authority transfers, as reported by local authorities to the local financial return. These figures are then divided by the number of pupils in funded early learning and childcare as per the statistics reported in the early learning and childcare (ELC) census. The figures for per child expenditure on pre-primary education are likely to be overestimates due to the fact that September (when the figures for the ELC census are collected) is a point in the academic year when ELC registrations are at their lowest. This is because children starting funded ELC (usually when they turn three) start at the beginning of the term which starts after their birthday – so, in the Autumn term only some of the children who will become eligible for funded ELC during that academic year have already taken up their funded place. However, this issue applies every year, meaning that the above time-series comparison is reasonable.

Primary and Secondary schools: average gross revenue expenditure per pupil in primary and secondary education respectively is arrived at by taking the total gross revenue expenditure adjusted for inter-authority transfers, reported by local authorities on primary and secondary education to the local financial return, divided by the number of pupils in primary and secondary education as per the statistics reported in the pupil census.

Colleges: The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) have supplied detail of the average cost of a College place (expenditure per full-time equivalent (FTE)). This is calculated by taking funding provided to Colleges for core teaching and assumed tuition fee income (see supplementary note 3) and dividing this by the number of student places.

Universities: The cost of an average University place, also provided by the SFC, is estimated by taking the total teaching grant awarded to Universities (excluding teaching grant associated with rUK students studying expensive strategically important subjects, who are not eligible for funding) and assumed tuition fee income associated with those places (see supplementary note 3) and dividing this by the total number of SFC funded places for Scottish and EU domiciled FTEs. Expenditure figures exclude funding for student support, and SFC’s research and strategic funds. Total FTE figures are SFC/SG funded places and do not include fees only and international places.

Supplementary notes:

1.“-“ indicates that there is no available data for this year.

2.Assumed tuition fees include income from SAAS, SDS, employers and students paying their own tuition fees for SFC funded programmes.

3.For college and university figures, the funded places/weighted SUMS/credits figures used are taken from the final published main grant letters or outcome agreements, and do not take account of any subsequent adjustments.

4.No fee assumption was made in AY 2011-12. In response to a reduction in grant in aid each university's teaching grant was reduced pro-rata, rather than being calculated based on our funding formula. As a result, no figure was provided by SFC for this year.

5.Further detail on College and University funding figures each year can be found in the supplementary notes of the answer to question S6W-15187 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

Question reference: S6W-36729

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 6 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the £900,000 that was allocated to local authorities in March 2024 to provide professional learning for school support staff in response to distressed behaviour was distributed; what criteria were used to determine allocations; what proportion of support staff has received training; what assessment it has made of (a) the effectiveness of this training as a standalone intervention and (b) whether this was adequate to meet the training needs of support staff, and how the impact of this funding is being monitored.

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