Chamber and committees

Information on assaults on teachers is not held centrally as, under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, education is the responsibility of local authorities.

The biennial Attendance, Absence and Exclusions data collection gathers data on the number and reasons recorded for temporary or permanent exclusions from schools. These data show that there were 1,281 cases of exclusion (temporary or permanent) from publicly funded schools in Scotland during 2022-23 where the reason recorded was either ‘physical assault using improvised weapon against staff’, ‘physical assault using weapon against staff’ or ‘physical assault with no weapon against staff’.

Over the last three years, the Scottish Government has provided the Scottish Assembly with £425,136 to build capacity via our leadership and engagement framework and £316,349 of core funding via our Inspiring Inclusion charity portfolio over the last 4 years. Both of these funds are managed and distributed by fund manager, Inspiring Scotland.

Inspiring Scotland offer management consultancy services to the Scottish Assembly’s executive team and Board and provide intensive support where needed. This includes support to explore alternative funding and income streams aimed at long term sustainability of the organisation.

NHS Boards have duties under the Carers Act to involve unpaid carers in decision making and planning the return from hospital of the person they care for (or will care for). More specifically, the Core Mental Health Quality Standards state that a person’s support network should be involved in their care if they wish. Progress on implementing the standards is measured by Healthcare Improvement Scotland. Local assessments were circulated in 2024 and responses are currently being analysed.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) regularly monitors individual institution’s financial sustainability and considers appropriate forms of support. The indicative allocations published by the SFC on 10 April will enable colleges to move forward with planning for academic year 2025-26. The SFC allocations include a 2.6% increase in teaching funding compared with last year; an additional £4.5 million for lecturer's pay and £8.3 million for pensions; and an increase of almost 5% in capital maintenance funding to help colleges further invest in student’s learning experiences. The student support budget has also been maintained at the same level as last year, despite pressures on the public purse.

It is for Health Boards to ensure that they are consistently following good practice in risk assessment and discharge planning, however Scottish Government regularly engages with Boards at official level to ensure they are providing a safe, high-quality service to patients. In addition to this, the Mental Welfare Commission follows up with Boards/HSCPs to ensure they implement any recommendations made in their reports.

The Scottish Government provide funding to NHS Education for Scotland (NES) who are responsible for developing and delivering healthcare education and training for NHS, the health and social care sector and other public bodies. We provided NES £30 million in 2024-25 to deliver multidisciplinary mental health education, training and workforce expansion for staff supporting adult and children mental health and psychological wellbeing.

This includes mental health training resources on risks relating to suicide, substance use, non-engagement and offending behaviour, as well as our trauma-informed and trauma responsive programme. These resources support implementation of the Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards and Core Quality Standards for Mental Health.

The Scottish Government continues to engage with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) regularly on a range of issues. This has included SFC’s plans to implement changes to the Council’s approach to college funding allocations in response to requests from the sector, and their discussions with the sector on these changes. In my recent letter of guidance, I made it clear that we expect the SFC to consider the financial sustainability of individual institutions, and needs of learners, as part of any decisions around funding allocations.

Through the Colleges: Tripartite Alignment Group (comprising of Scottish Government, the SFC and Colleges Scotland) collaboration continues to work on identifying and implementing workable flexibilities to ease colleges’ financial pressures while ensuring accountability for public funds. For example, a revised process for the disposal of college assets has recently been implemented, where colleges can retain a higher amount of the sale proceeds.

A fresh set of priorities for the Group was agreed last year, and work is underway across those areas, namely diversification of funding into the sector, establishment of a new way to flexibly fund investment in Curriculum Transformation, and exploration of the breadth of delivery via colleges.

It is the Scottish Funding Council’s (SFC) responsibility to ensure the fair and equitable distribution of the funding across the college sector. SFC have confirmed no college will see a funding reduction in Academic Year 2025-26 when compared with 2024-25 and are engaging with affected colleges around mitigations that will help them adjust as changes in the funding allocation approach are implemented.

The Scottish Government is not currently looking into developing such a portal.

We make decisions about channels to best meet our communications objectives and to reach target audiences with important public messages. We regularly review the accessibility and availability of those channels to help inform our communications mix. Key announcements are published across a variety of communications channels, and there is no reliance on any one platform.

The Scottish Government does not collect specific information on temporary accommodation placements within hotels and guest houses. These are both captured under a broader ‘other’ category (via HL3 data collection).

Information is captured on Bed & Breakfast (B&B) temporary accommodation placements. The following table shows the number of children and young people that were placed in Bed & Breakfast (B&B) temporary accommodation at some point during each year from 2017-18 to 2023-24.

Data on temporary accommodation placements (HL3) is only available from 2017-18.

Children and young people are defined as when a household member is aged 24 and under.