Chamber and committees

The latest data on pupil support assistants is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-support-staff-statistics/

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing teacher numbers to deliver improved outcomes for children and young people.

The number of teachers in permanent posts has remained stable at more than 80% over the past 10 years. In addition, the number of teachers in Scotland's classrooms has increased by more than 2,500 over the past decade, as a result of investment by the Scottish Government. While we cannot direct teachers where to work, it is important to note that teacher vacancies arise across Scotland throughout the year.

We recently agreed with local government a commitment to working together to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels in 2025-2026, freeze learning hours and make meaningful progress towards reducing class contact time for teachers.

In order to support each of these measures, the Scottish Government is increasing the funding available to local government to £186.5 million in 2025-2026, and will issue £145.5 million to local government in full this financial year.

Local government will also receive additional funding of £28 million from 2025-2026 to develop the Additional Support for Learning (ASL) education workforce with further funding of £1 million being made available to support national initiatives which will help to recruit and train more ASL teachers.

Data on post-induction scheme teacher employment broken down by subject, Local Authority, contract type (permanent/temporary) and mode of working are published on the Post-Probationer Teacher Employment Dashboard, here: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-post-probationer-employment-dashboard/

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information

The operating costs for the crèche over the last five years has been as follows –

2023/24        £108k

2022/23        Service closed

2021/22        Service closed

2020/21        Service closed

2019/20        £145k

The SPCB owns and operates five number flagpoles, and they are approximately 8.2 metres in height. There has been no general maintenance works needed to the flag poles in the last 15 years with the only cost for each being the annual LOLER inspection. LOLER stands for Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations and the flag poles are included within other inspections of the same type carried out across the parliament. The cost for LOLER inspection is included within the planned building maintenance contract and we do not hold information in a format which allows us to identify the flagpole inspections as an individual item. 

The total cost for maintenance of the lift system for the past four years including financial year 24-25 is as follows. For financial year 20/21 we do not hold information in a format that allows us to identify the costs of maintaining the lifts as it was included within a project capacity and therefore wouldn’t be accurate to what was spent solely on maintenance. All costs provided exclude VAT.

• 2024/25 - £30,411.89
• 2023/24 - £28,384.80
• 2022/23 - £25,012.17
• 2021/22 - £13,375.91

Christmas tree decorations are stored and delivered onsite by our service provider, with PAT testing costs covered by the contractor.

We can’t easily calculate an occupancy rate for the creche, as the overall capacity of the creche varies depending on the ages of the children using it and the required staffing ratios (i.e. 0-2 years requires 1 staff member to every 3 children, 2-3 years requires 1 staff member to every 5 children, 3-5 years requires 1 staff member to every 8 children). 

In terms of overall usage, in 2019/20 the creche had a total of 2759 bookings with average length of stay of 1hr 41mins. In 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23, the creche service was closed due to the pandemic and the time required to set up a new service contract. In 2023/24, the creche returned with reduced opening hours (now only operating 3 days per week, rather than 5 day per week). There were 894 bookings in 2023/24 with an average length of stay of 2hr 13mins. The number of bookings in 2023/24 only reflect 10 months of opening, as the service was still being mobilised for the first 2 months of the year.