Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-37268

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 13 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has conducted any analysis on the cost per person to successfully transition an individual into employment through its Young Person's Guarantee, and, if so, what that cost was.

The Young Person’s Guarantee last and final update report was published in March 2023 and outlines the outcomes and opportunities provided by the funding from the Young Person’s Guarantee.

A joint implementation evaluation of No one Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee was published in Autumn 2023 which explores how well they had been implemented, the experiences of service providers and service users, and lessons from early delivery.

Since April 2023, the Young Person’s Guarantee has been mainstreamed across Government, with activity across education, skills and employability supporting young people into opportunities.

Question reference: S6W-37265

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 13 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many individuals were supported into employment through its Young Person's Guarantee in each of the last three years, and what this figure was as a proportion of all individuals supported through the programme in each of those years.

The Young Person’s Guarantee last and final update report was published in March 2023 and outlines the outcomes and opportunities provided by the funding from the Young Person’s Guarantee.

A joint implementation evaluation of No one Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee was published in Autumn 2023 which explores how well they had been implemented, the experiences of service providers and service users, and lessons from early delivery.

Since April 2023, the Young Person’s Guarantee has been mainstreamed across Government, with activity across education, skills and employability supporting young people into opportunities.

Question reference: S6W-37266

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 13 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has conducted any analysis on the cost per person to successfully transition an individual into employment through its No One Left Behind programme, and, if so, what that cost was.

No One Left Behind is the approach to devolved employability support between Scottish and Local Government, which empowers Local Employability Partnerships to lead the design and delivery of services in each Local Authority area. These services are influenced by local need, and guided by co-produced national products in areas that require consistency, such as the Employability Service Standards, the Customer Charter, and the Shared Measurement Framework. Local Authorities may supplement funding provided through No One Left Behind with resources from other sources.

The Scottish Government collects and publishes experimental statistics on outcomes linked to the No One Left Behind strategic approach. These include the cumulative number of participants supported into employment, and the number of individuals who have sustained employment for defined time periods. The most recent statistics for Scottish Government funded employability support are available at: Scotland's Devolved Employment Services statistics - gov.scot.

The Scottish Government does not currently publish estimates of costs per sustained employment outcome for No One Left Behind at either Scotland or Local Authority level.

Question reference: S6W-37257

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 9 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made an estimate of the number of individuals in Scotland whose partner has died whilst under the age of 50.

I have asked Alison Byrne, Chief Executive of National Records of Scotland to respond. Her response is:

The number of individuals in Scotland whose partner has died under the age of 50 is not held. Marital status of the deceased is collected through death registrations so the number of deaths by marital status is provided in the following table.

Table 1: Deaths of those aged under 50 by marital status, registered in Scotland, 2014 to 2023

	Total	Single [note 1]	Married [note 2]	Widowed	Divorced [note 3]	Civil Partnership	Not stated
2014	3,284	2,190	743	27	320	4	0
2015	3,366	2,220	767	33	341	5	0
2016	3,645	2,478	790	24	344	3	6
2017	3,463	2,456	687	28	283	2	7
2018	3,624	2,604	677	32	296	1	14
2019	3,723	2,697	719	29	261	2	15
2020	3,815	2,807	693	29	280	0	6
2021	3,748	2,747	708	20	265	2	6
2022	3,374	2,459	615	30	258	6	6
2023	3,508	2,619	633	19	227	3	7

Note 1: Includes marriage annulled

Note 2: Includes surviving civil partner

Note 3: Includes civil partnership dissolved

Source: National Records of Scotland

Question reference: S6W-37263

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 9 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many individuals were supported into employment through its No One Left Behind programme in each of the last three years, and what this figure was as a proportion of all individuals supported through the programme in each of those years.

Question reference: S6W-37264

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 9 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many individuals were supported into employment through its Parental Employability Support Fund in each of the last three years, and what this figure was as a proportion of all individuals supported through the programme in each of those years.

The Scottish Government collects and publishes statistics related to the No One Left Behind strategic approach including the number of participants supported into employment. This includes a range of Scottish Government funding such as the Parental Employability Support Fund.

Since February 2022, statistics have been reported by totality of all funds and as such, no breakdowns for Parental Employability Support are available.

The most recent statistics for Scottish Government funded employability support by all parents are available at: Scotland's Devolved Employment Services statistics - gov.scot.

Question reference: S6W-37267

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 9 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has conducted any analysis on the cost per person to successfully transition an individual into employment through its Parental Employability Support Fund, and, if so, what that cost was.

The Scottish Government collects and publishes statistics related to the No One Left Behind strategic approach as a totality of all funding. Therefore, no breakdowns for Parental Employability Support, including a cost per person, are available.

The most recent statistics for Scottish Government funded employability support by all parents are available at: Scotland's Devolved Employment Services statistics - gov.scot.

Question reference: S6W-36732

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the comments by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice to the Social Justice and Social Security Committee on 5 December 2024, on what date and at what time the official ministerial decision to mitigate the two-child limit was recorded in its electronic Records and Document Management system, and who made that decision.

Question reference: S6W-36670

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 6 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met officials from the Department for Work and Pensions regarding work to progress the delivery of automatic split payments of universal credit, as set out in part 6, section 94 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018.

The Scottish Government provided a Policy Design Specification in October 2023 for formal impact assessment by the DWP, which set out how the Scottish Government would like the split policy to be delivered. I also recently met with Sir Stephen Timms MP, on 30 April, to discuss the UK Governments UC review, highlighting the work being carried out on split payments policy and the need for the UC review to include a gendered analysis. The Scottish Government remains committed to working with the DWP towards delivery of split payments for Universal Credit.

Question reference: S6W-36672

Asked by: Paul O'Kane, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 6 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the steps that it has taken to share the necessary information with the Department for Work and Pensions to support the progress of the Scottish Government’s 2017 policy commitment to introduce automatic split payments of universal credit in Scotland.

Chamber and committees