Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the Supporting Transgender Young People in Schools guidance remains up to date and fit for purpose. As with any significant legal or policy developments, we are considering whether the guidance requires to be updated to reflect these. That consideration is ongoing.

The Scottish Government will engage with organisations representing a range of interests, as appropriate.

The Scottish Government recognises that this will be a worrying time for transgender young people and their families.

Education authorities and schools provide a range of wellbeing support to children and young people which is planned and provided using the Getting it right for every child approach, ranging from pastoral care and support to targeted support, such as counselling provided through schools.

The approaches to provision of support will be tailored to the individual needs of the young person concerned.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the Supporting Transgender Young People in Schools guidance remains up to date and fit for purpose. As with any significant legal or policy developments, we are considering whether the guidance requires to be updated to reflect these.

In the meantime, the Scottish Government has ensured that education authorities and schools have been made aware of the interim update provided by the EHRC, the regulatory body for the Equality Act 2010.

The Scottish Government published revised guidance for education authorities and schools in November 2024. This guidance includes advice on prejudice-based bullying and is available from Anti-bullying guidance for adults working with children and young people - gov.scot. In addition, in 2025/26 we are providing £298,480 to respectme, Scotland’s national anti-bullying service, to provide advice and resources to schools, parents and carers to support and educate young people on the impact of bullying and build confidence and capacity to address bullying.

Since 2021, Scotland has led globally on embedding LGBT inclusive education across the curriculum, providing online resources, staff training modules, teaching toolkits, and creative materials like Scots-language poetry, all aimed at helping schools integrate LGBT+ themes and foster equality. In December 2024, the Scottish Government published the National Approach to LGBT inclusive education guidance for Scottish schools and teachers, which sets out the steps we have put in place to ensure LGBT inclusive education can be delivered consistently in schools across Scotland. The Scottish Government also continues to support LGBT and other organisations to help address concerns about bullying in schools. This includes support for LGBTQI+ equality by funding organisations such as respectme, LGBT Youth Scotland and Time for Inclusive Education (TIE).

LGBT Youth Scotland’s Charter Programme also helps schools, colleges, and universities create safe, inclusive environments for LGBTQ+ learners and staff, an effort made more urgent by rising attacks on the community.

The Wellbeing Economy Monitor will be published on the Scottish Government webpages and can be found using the site search facility when searching for the terms “Wellbeing Economy Monitor” or “Wellbeing Economy”. We intend to bring together the Wellbeing Economy material as a collection on our webpages including previously published monitors which should add to its prominence.

The Wellbeing Economy Monitor is being published slightly later than planned owing to a review of the data and in order to make further improvements to the reporting. The updated monitor will be published in week commencing 14 July 2025. In addition to the Wellbeing Economy Monitor we will publish a data toolkit containing national and local data and a short report summarising wellbeing economy policy approaches in Scotland and internationally.

Our palliative care strategy – Palliative Care Matters for All – which is due to be published later this summer, focuses on resources to support programmes of work such as data collection, staff education and future care planning, to support organisations responsible for delivering palliative care services across Scotland. The palliative care strategy is supported by a budget of £2.05 million for 2025-26. This will support Integration Joint Boards, Health Boards, and third sector organisations such as independent hospices and care homes, to deliver high quality palliative care.

The Scottish Government expects employers to meet their legal obligations regarding employment costs arising from statutory duties to workers, including in relation to parental leave, sick leave and redundancy. As part of our Fair Work approach, we also encourage employers to adopt practices which foster inclusive, equitable, and sustainable workplaces. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-38593 on 24 June 2025 regarding employment costs in grant agreements.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Scottish Government Grants are subject to legally binding agreements. A model offer template is in place which includes terms and standard conditions and schedules covering claims and payments. The exclusion of employment costs forms part of clause 2.7 of the grant offer letter template and is a standard term for all discretionary grants. Employment arrangements of an organisation are a matter for that organisation.

Internal SG guidance requires that all costs must be specific to the delivery of the grant’s purpose therefore employment costs related to the job role of grant delivery are expected. Specifically excluded costs as noted in this clause relate to those which are reclaimable from HMRC. It is for the business area to make local decisions for their grant, the Scottish Government does not store these grant agreements centrally therefore the recording and retention of grant agreements is the responsibility of local business areas.

The Scottish Government have 880 live contracts and frameworks of which 42 are with voluntary organisations with details of these publicly available on the Public Contracts Scotland contract register. The Scottish Government requires suppliers to account for employment-related costs in its procurement processes, ensuring compliance with employment law and fair workforce practices and none have identified employment exclusions in the costs.