Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally. Headteachers know their learners best and they decide how to invest their Pupil Equity Funding, based on their local context. Pupil Equity Funding must enable schools to deliver activities, approaches or resources which are clearly additional to universal local improvement plans.

Scottish Attainment Challenge funding, which includes annual Pupil Equity Funding of £130 million to 97% of schools, supports up to 3,000 additional staff, including up to 700 FTE teachers.

Spending on additional support for learning by local authorities reached a record high of over £1 billion in 2023-24 – the latest figure available – an increase from £540m in 2012-13. The 2025/26 budget sets out that a further £29m of additional investment will enhance support for children with additional support needs in our schools. This will include an allocation for local and national programmes to support the recruitment and retention of the Additional Support Needs workforce and enable us to build on the work being delivered through our Additional Support for Learning Action Plan. Details of the national programme of work will be set out in due course.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving care for people with chronic pain, by delivering the actions in the Pain Management Service Delivery Framework Implementation Plan at pace.

The Implementation Plan outlines actions to expand skills and knowledge on chronic pain across local services and scaling-up new ways of working to improve the consistency and resilience of local pain services.

The Scottish Government’s budget for the coming year has now been passed by Parliament and will invest a record £21.7 billion in Scotland’s health and social care services, including £200 million to reduce waiting lists and improve capacity.

By March 2026, we expect no-one to wait longer than 12 months for a new outpatient appointment, inpatient treatment or day case treatment with more than 150,000 extra patients seen as a result.

I have discussed this issue a number of times with the SPFL and directly with some football clubs. More recently, the round table on enhancing Scottish football which has representatives from the footballing governing bodies and supporter groups, has discussed the reintroduction of alcohol in football stadia alongside other issues pertinent to Scottish football. We plan to publish the minutes of these meetings on the Scottish Government website in due course.

The latest data showing the number of school leavers in each initial destination (three months after the end of the school year) by local authority and nationally for each year since 2009-10 can be found in Table L2.1a in the supplementary tables published alongside the Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations, No. 7: 2025 edition. The supplementary tables with data on initial destinations are available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/summary-statistics-for-attainment-and-initial-leaver-destinations-no-7-2025-edition/documents/.

The latest data showing the number of school leavers in each follow-up destination (nine months after the end of the school year) by local authority and nationally for each year since 2009-10 can be found in Table L2.2 in the supplementary tables published alongside the Summary statistics for Follow-Up Leaver Destinations, No. 6: 2024 Edition. The supplementary tables with data on follow-up destinations are available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/summary-statistics-follow-up-leaver-destinations-no-6-2024-edition/documents/.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail. The Member may wish to contact ScotRail directly.

Health Improvement Scotland (HIS) does not currently regularly inspect children and young people’s mental health services and did not visit Skye House between 2017 and 2024. The Mental Welfare Commission have visited Skye House seven times since 2016, using a mix of pre-announced and unannounced inspections to provide assurance.

Given the concerning issues raised in the BBC Disclosure Documentary, we have asked HIS and the Mental Welfare Commission to start joint inspections of the four units providing inpatient care to children and young people as a matter of priority.

These joint inspections will provide assurance of the safety and quality of the care provided in Scotland’s Child and Adolescent mental health (CAMHS) inpatient units as well as highlight any national recommendations to strengthen the quality and safety of CAMHS care.

Since the publication of the 2020 report by the RSE Scotland's artificial intelligence strategy - Royal Society of Edinburgh : Royal Society of Edinburgh I have commissioned an independent review into the opportunities for AI which was published last year AI+Independent+Review+-+Call+for+Views+-+Initial+Report+-+Advancing+AI+for+Scotland+-+Reformatted+-+January+2024.pdf.

We have been continuously engaging with the UK Government to advocate that their approach to the regulation of AI considers the interests of the citizens and businesses of Scotland. We continue to provide AI support to business through our enterprise agencies and the AI Alliance, our delivery body for Scotland’s AI Strategy. They have recently relaunched the AI Playbook Guidance on AI Adoption Including Information on AI Policies — Scottish AI Playbook which is a one-stop shop for supporting businesses with AI adoption. The playbook also includes information on legal and regulatory provisions relating to the development and use of AI systems.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-35767 on 1 April 2025. 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

The latest data showing the number of school leavers in each initial destination (three months after the end of the school year) by local authority and nationally for each year since 2009-10 can be found in Table L2.1a in the supplementary tables published alongside the Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations, No. 7: 2025 edition. The supplementary tables with data on initial destinations are available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/summary-statistics-for-attainment-and-initial-leaver-destinations-no-7-2025-edition/documents/.

The latest data showing the number of school leavers in each follow-up destination (nine months after the end of the school year) by local authority and nationally for each year since 2009-10 can be found in Table L2.2 in the supplementary tables published alongside the Summary statistics for Follow-Up Leaver Destinations, No. 6: 2024 Edition. The supplementary tables with data on follow-up destinations are available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/summary-statistics-follow-up-leaver-destinations-no-6-2024-edition/documents/.

Freight capacity is usually measured in the number of available paths, i.e. the number of freight trains it is possible for infrastructure to accommodate alongside passenger trains. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-35073 on 4 March 2025. 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