Question reference: S6W-09384
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
- Date lodged: 28 June 2022
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Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 29 August 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6T-00784 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 14 June 2022, whether it will provide a breakdown, by local authority, of the types of projects in schools involving Police Scotland.
Answer
The information requested is not held centrally. Pupil Equity Funding of over £520 million over the next four years is providing additional support to 97% of schools across Scotland, empowering our head teachers and teachers who know their children best. As outlined in the answer to parliamentary question S6T-00784, the majority of the £634 million in PEF distributed to schools is invested in approaches to improving literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing through the recruitment of additional teaching and support staff, family link workers and partnerships with third sector organisations.
Where there are projects involving Police Scotland in place, schools find those to be of great benefit. They are highly engaged in proactive and preventative work in communities with families, working alongside social work and third sector organisations. They are not policing in schools.
To be clear, the £2 million described is a very small proportion—just 0.3 per cent—of the pupil equity funding that has been distributed to schools across the 32 councils since 2017-18.