Chamber and committees

Scottish Ministers honoured the commitment to treat sympathetically the compensation claims of the tenant farmers in the court actions of McMaster & Others v Scottish Ministers and Mackay & Another v the Scottish Ministers. Settlement terms are confidential to the parties involved in a litigation and should not be disclosed.

Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is available at school and college for eligible 16-19 year olds supporting them to remain and progress in learning. For those at school, and under 17 who are not eligible for EMA, they may receive Free School Meals and/or the School Clothing Grant depending on their individual circumstances.

Similarly, for those young people studying a further education course at college, they may be eligible for discretionary funding, study costs and childcare funding. This support is assessed and administered directly by individual colleges.

In the instances where a young person under 17 opts to study a higher education course, they may be eligible to apply for tuition fee support, bursary and living cost grants to support them throughout their studies. Students over the age of 16 are also eligible to apply for a student loan. This support is assessed and administered by the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS).

All young people and children living in Scotland aged 5-21 can apply for a card to access the Young Persons’ (Under 22s) Free Bus Travel Scheme.

The Scottish Government does not currently provide direct funding to Legion Scotland’s Veterans Community Support Service. The Service does, however, receive Scottish Government grant funding indirectly through the Unforgotten Forces consortium, which the Scottish Government has funded since 2020. In 2023 the consortium’s Scottish Government funding was extended for a further three years on the condition that they develop and implement a long term sustainable funding model from 2026 onwards, and we are liaising with the consortium to support them in that transition.

The consortium independently allocates funding from the Scottish Government grant amongst their partners each financial year, in line with grant conditions. Therefore, if the consortium have other funds available once the Scottish Government funding has ceased then the decision on whether funding continues to be allocated to the Veterans Community Support Service beyond 2026 will be made by them.

A possible alternative source of funding for the Veterans Community Support Service is the Scottish Government’s Scottish Veterans Fund. The Fund provides a total of £500,000 per annum for projects that support the Armed Forces and veterans community. Details regarding the 2026-2027 funding round will be announced closer to the time.

As set out in the Scottish Government’s second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, Best Start, Bright Futures, we remain fully committed to ensuring that all relevant action across government is focused on meeting the needs of the six priority families identified – including lone parent families. This will ensure that support is tailored and ultimately more effective in meeting the needs of families at risk of poverty.

Despite facing the most challenging budget settlement of devolution, we are committing over £3 billion this year to policies which tackle poverty and protect people, including single parents, as far as possible during the ongoing costs crisis. This includes investment in our game-changing Scottish Child Payment, funded early learning and childcare, providing free bus travel for over two million people, and offering free school meals to over 277,000 children.

This investment also includes making £7.8 million available to Local Authorities to mitigate the previous UK Government’s benefit cap as fully as possible through Discretionary Housing Payments. This supports around 2,300 families, of which it is estimated 74% are lone parent families.

Further to this wide ranging support for families, we continue to take action which is specifically targeted to lone parents. Since 2016 the Scottish Government has been providing core funding to One Parent Families Scotland (OPFS) through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund. OPFS will receive £371,700 for core funding in 2024-25, supporting their work with and for single parent families, providing support services that enable them to achieve their potential and help create lasting solutions to the poverty and barriers facing many single parents and their children.

We have also allocated £523,966 to One Parent Families Scotland in 2024-25 to support its specialist National Advice and Information Service and debt advice service, which aims to reduce child poverty, provide debt support to single parent households and increase their financial and family wellbeing.

In addition, we have continuously called upon the UK Government to abolish the two-child limit policy, which is estimated to impact almost 1 in 10 children in Scotland. Scottish Government analysis from February 2024 found that removing the two-child limit and reinstating the family element in Universal Credit would lift around 10,000 children in Scotland out of relative poverty in 2024-25.

The Scottish Government will continue to do all we can within our powers and will leave no stone unturned across government as we seek to eradicate child poverty. We remain committed to working with the UK Government to build on the action we have taken to date and to end child poverty once and for all.

Our latest tackling child poverty progress report against our delivery plan ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’, highlighted £2.9 billion investment targeted at low income households. Actions include our unique Scottish Child Payment which we have increased to £26.70 per week and is now benefitting around 330,000 children, further investment through our No One Left Behind approach to strengthen our employability offer to parents and investment of Whole Family Wellbeing Funding which aims to deliver transformational change to improve holistic whole family support.

'Getting it right for every child' (GIRFEC) is the Scottish Government's commitment to provide all children, young people and their families with the right support at the right time. The GIRFEC approach recognises that children, young people and their families need to know who they can contact when they require support. The named person, or equivalent role, provides a clear point of contact within universal services for information, advice or help.

The Scottish Government is also investing £12 million this year in free income maximisation, welfare and debt advice services, helping to ensure people are aware of their rights and entitlements, tackle problem debt and reduce poverty.

We are also proud that we have the Scottish Welfare Fund providing emergency support and a lifeline to people in need, through Crisis Grants to help meet immediate short-term needs arising from exceptional circumstances and Community Care Grants to help eligible people establish or maintain a home. We have protected investment in the fund of £41 million this year. Statistics show that in 2023-24, 96% of Crisis Grant applications were processed within the target of the end of the next working day.

Scotland is also the first nation in the UK to publish a Plan that works towards ending the need for food banks. The plan includes a £1.8m Cash-First Programme to strengthen urgent access to cash in a crisis and reduce the need for food parcels, delivered collaboratively with advice and support to strengthen people’s incomes and help prevent future hardship.

Support for parents in their children’s development is provided across a range of different resources and programmes covering social and emotional as well as early literacy and speech & language.

In 2021 Scottish Government launched the Wellbeing for Wee Ones Hub on the Parent Club website, supporting parents to gain an understanding of their infant’s emotional and mental wellbeing from an early stage. Solihull Online programmes have also been rolled out across Scotland providing evidence based information on relationships and child development all the way through to 18 years. Additionally, the Psychology of Parenting Programme (PoPP) supports local areas with the implementation of evidence based parenting programmes to support the development of positive relationships and attachment across childhood.

Since 2010 the Scottish Government has funded the Scottish Book Trust’s Bookbug Programme which as well as laying the foundations of early literacy, the programme aims to enhance attachment and promote emotional intelligence as well as good communication and listening skills. In 2024/25, the Scottish Government is providing £1.8 million, to deliver this Programme.

In 2024/25 the Scottish Government is also providing Smart Play Network with £645,000 to deliver the PlayTalkRead programme which promotes the importance of playing, talking and reading with children from birth to four years old to boost their development. The programme includes ‘Pathways Through Play’ which is an activity that supports early speech and language development through play.

Maree Todd: The Scottish Government recognises the import role parents and carers play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Because of this, we continue to invest in a range of initiatives to give parents and carers the confidence and skills they may require to support their children while looking after their own wellbeing.

The Scottish Government’s Parent Club web resource, and associated marketing campaigns, provide parents and carers with tips, advice and links to further information on how to support their children’s mental health and wellbeing from birth to teenage years. The website also gives information on how parents and carers can support their own mental wellbeing and maintain resilience. https://www.parentclub.scot/topics/mental-health-wellbeing

Parents and cares in Scotland can also access, free, online courses, expertly designed for parents, carers and grandparents on supporting the emotional wellbeing of their children. These courses are provided by NHS Education for Scotland, in partnership with the Solihull Approach. https://inourplace.co.uk/scotland/

In addition, since 2020, we have provided local authorities with over £50 million to develop and deliver Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Supports and Services, for children, young people and their families, with a further £15 million committed for 2024/25. The services are focused on prevention and early intervention and, where appropriate, offer an alternative to CAMHS by providing support in a community setting.

Community supports and services are available in every local authority area, with more than 300 now in place across the country. Local authorities have advised that over 58,000 people used the supports and services in the first half of 2023. This includes parents and carers who have received advice and assistance on supporting their children’s mental health and wellbeing through; mentoring services, digital services, whole-family supports, counselling services and spaces for peer learning and advice.

The WFWF budget has not been adjusted for inflation. Rather, we are taking funding decisions based on evidence and engagement with our partners about need, and our collective understanding about how to support transformational change. We have continued to prioritise the £50m funding for Whole Family Wellbeing to maintain the programme of activity which has been established across Children’s Services Planning Partnerships. This maintains our multi-year commitment of £32m to transform holistic family support services in communities.

We recognise that further support is required to sustain positive change beyond the lifetime of this funding. We continue to evaluate and listen to our partners to understand the realities of delivering our shared ambitions and intended outcomes for children, young people and families in practice.

The Scottish Government remains committed to this ambition and has prioritised investment in supporting local areas to develop preventative whole family support measures through the Whole Family Wellbeing Funding, with £50m being allocated for the programme in the 2024-25 budget. The Scottish Government continues to work with partners on how we can most effectively deploy future investment to support the system change required and will shortly publish an investment approach setting out our future approach to the Programme and associated funding.

The Scottish Government recognises that supporting parents is key to improving outcomes for children and young people and that monitoring and evaluating of our parenting support programmes is an essential component to ensure the effectiveness of these programmes. Monitoring and evaluation are a key element of all grant funding conditions issued by the Scottish Government.

In respect of both the Bookbug and PlayTalkRead/Pathways Through Play programmes, they provide quarterly reports on progress against outcomes along with a final annual report showing all activities undertaken, the outputs and outcomes achieved as well as an overall evaluation of the programme.

The Psychology of Parenting Programme is monitored through outcomes briefings provided by NHS Education for Scotland (NES). The most recent is available in the Psychology of Parenting Programme section of the NES website alongside a published evaluation of the programme. NES also provide monthly updates on the rollout of Solihull Online.

With regards to our third sector funding programmes – the Children, Young People, Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities fund (CYPFEI & ALEC) and the Children, Young People, Families and Adult Learners fund (CYPFAL) - all 137 CYPFEI & ALEC and CYPFAL funded organisation provide six monthly and annual progress reports. The reports provide key information on the outcomes achieved through the provision of funding, including the number of people directly supported and the work delivered in the reporting period.