The accounts are published and available for download on the Scottish Government website for the financial years 2015-16 to 2023-24:

2023-24 (page 89) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-year-ended-31-march-2024/

2022-23 (page 109) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-year-ended-31-march-2023/

2021-22 (page 100) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-year-ended-31-march-2022/

2020-21 (page 95) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-year-ended-31-march-2021/

2019-20 (page 63) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-2019-2020/

2018-19 (page 55) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-year-ended-31-march-2019/

2017-18 (page 44) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-year-ended-31-march-2018/

2016-17 (page 41) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-year-ended-31-march-2017/

2015-16 (page 46) https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-government-consolidated-accounts-2015-16/

The accounts prior to 2015-16 are not published online, with information back to 2004-05 held within Scottish Government electronic records. Years prior to 2004-05 are not held.

Tables showing staff numbers by portfolio, in line with the published accounts, for the years 2004-05 to 2014-15 have been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 65408).

Scotland is the only part of the UK that already offers 30 hours per week, in term time, of funded ELC to all 3 and 4-year-olds regardless of whether their parents are working or not. We also make 1140 hours available to around a quarter of 2 year olds and to all children whose entry to primary school is deferred.

It is far from clear that a universal system of government funded childcare would deliver either value for money for the Scottish taxpayer or the best outcomes for our children and young people.

Before turning to the detail, I think it is important to recognise the financial context that the Scottish Government is currently having to work within. As the Cabinet Secretary for Finance outlined in the fiscal statement on 3 September, we cannot shy away from the fact that Scotland continues to face one of the most difficult public spending environments that this devolved Parliament has ever seen.

That is why we have committed in this year’s Programme for Government to work with local authorities to maximise uptake of funded early learning and childcare for eligible two-year-olds, with a particular focus on families most at risk of poverty and areas with some of the lowest uptake rates.

Over the next two years we are also investing £16 million within six early adopter communities to continue our work to understand what it takes to design and deliver local childcare systems that support those families most at risk of living in poverty.

The engagement and targeted delivery that takes place for younger children in our six EACs will be a key element of our developing evidence base to inform future delivery.

We are continuing to support the ‘Extra Time’ Programme, investing £4 million in a partnership with the Scottish Football Association to deliver before, after school and breakfast clubs, providing 3,000 targeted free places each week for children and their families. We have also invested close to £1 million to deliver free or subsidised school age childcare services through our Access to Childcare projects. These projects consider specific challenges for families, including remote and rural childcare provision, and specialist provision for children with disabilities or complex additional support needs.

We remain committed to expanding funded ELC to reach more young children and to building a system of School Age Childcare, and we are going as far and as fast as budgets allow to deliver that.

Allowing sufficient time to support the meaningful engagement and participation of those the Strategy will affect, including robust analysis of their views, and ensuring that it can be published alongside a range of accessible formats to meet the needs of those it aims to support has remained of central importance to the Scottish Government throughout the Strategy’s development.

This was reiterated during a recent meeting of the External Strategic Working Group who reviewed the aim of publishing the Strategy by the end of 2024 and concluded that publication in Spring 2025 presents a more favourable timeline to achieving this.

The Scottish Government published an Action Plan in June 2023 to deliver improvements to the Scottish Welfare Fund. The actions committed to are being progressed in conjunction with stakeholders through our Practitioners’ Forum and Statutory Guidance Review Committee.

As well as stakeholders on these forums, officials have met with organisations including Engender to discuss the work that is being progressed on the back of the independent review recommendations and action plan and have discussed clarifying the Scottish Welfare Fund statutory guidance to support marginalised women.

In the Ending Destitution Together strategy, published in 2021, the strategy is clear that there are limits on the action that can be taken by the Scottish Government to support women with the condition of No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF). This is because immigration and nationality, including the NRPF policy, are reserved to the UK Parliament. There is an ask of the UK Government to remove the Scottish Welfare Fund from the list of restricted public funds set out under paragraph 6 of the immigration rules. If successful, this would enable Crisis and Community Care Grants to be provided from the Scottish Welfare Fund to people subject to NRPF, where they are eligible, on the same basis as anyone else.

We are 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.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail and Network Rail who manage railway stations in Scotland. ScotRail advises there are currently 18 stations with ticket gates.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6O-03714 on 12 September 2024. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website Meeting of the Parliament: 12/09/2024 | Scottish Parliament Website.

The Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland series now includes attendance on an annual basis. Headline statistics on school attendance for the 2023-24 school year will be published in December 2024. Detailed statistics on school attendance, including a measure of pupils with an absence rate of 50% or more, will be published in March 2025.

If passed by the Scottish Parliament, the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill will prohibit certain sales of over 1,000 hectares, until Ministers can consider the impact on the local community. Ministerial consideration of a lotting decision and what factors may be expected to make a community more sustainable will be based on the individual circumstances of the landholding and the particular communities in question.

While this assessment will depend on these individual factors, it is anticipated that the assessment of potential contributions to the sustainability of communities would include having regard to high level objectives such as economic development, repopulation, maintenance of populations, regeneration, public health, social wellbeing and environmental wellbeing.

Further information can also be found in my letter to the Convener of Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee: cabsecralriproviding-further-information-following-informal-briefing-on-the-land-reform-bill-14-may.pdf (parliament.scot)

The review of the community rights to buy will look at legislative and procedural changes that can help make those rights more accessible to communities. How, and for what purposes, communities choose to exercise those rights to buy, is a matter for each community to decide. The review will make sure that those rights can be exercised more easily when communities need them.

The latest SQA data shows that the total number of entries into STEM National Qualifications at Higher have increased every year since 2019, with entries in 2024 being 3.4% higher than 2023.

Work has been ongoing since 2017 to implement the STEM Training and Education Strategy, which is designed to ensure ongoing take up of STEM subjects. This includes providing funding to organisations and programmes such as SSERC and the Raising Aspirations in Science Education (RAiSE) Programme, to equip practitioners with the skills, knowledge and confidence to create inspiring STEM learning experiences.

In addition, the Scottish Government funds the Young STEM Leader Programme which inspires young people to take up STEM subjects, as well as initiatives such as Maths Week Scotland which promotes numeracy as an essential life skill.