Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is providing £23.4 million of funding, in 2025-26 to the Regional Transport Partnerships and their local authority partners through the Active Travel People and Place programme. One of the key areas of investment in this programme is Schools and Young People, which targets investment in behaviour change initiatives to encourage more children and young people to use active travel as a way of travelling to school. The aim of this programme is to make sustainable travel choices the most desirable way to travel for young people and families by providing the necessary interventions and adaptations that make active travel more attractive.

The Scottish Government welcomes the work done by Carers Scotland and IPPR Scotland on a Minimum Income Guarantee pilot for unpaid carers.

We recognise the importance of unpaid care, which is why we made a Programme for Government commitment to work with the independent Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group to model a Minimum Income Guarantee for unpaid carers.

The Scottish Government will carefully consider how this and wider work on a Minimum Income Guarantee for unpaid carers is incorporated into the independent Expert Group’s report and recommendations that we expect to see shortly.

Sustrans’ Children’s Walking and Cycling Index Scotland was itself funded by Transport Scotland, and serves as good example of the Scottish Government’s continued commitment to proactively listening to young people’s voices in transport decision making.

I have welcomed the report, which demonstrates the overwhelming support for safer walking, wheeling and cycling paths that children in Scotland are asking for. When we build active travel infrastructure, we are doing so not just for today, but for tomorrow, ensuring our young people can build and then maintain sustainable transport options into later life.

Beyond active travel, the Scottish Government has completed and published Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments (CRWIAs) since 2015, to ensure children’s rights are taken into account in all legislation, policies, and strategic decisions. CRWIAs guidance provides advice on when and how decision makers must consult or engage with children and young people where decision will impact them.

This guidance applies to Transport Scotland in the exercise of its responsibilities in transport decision making, and it’s CRWIAs are included in the list of published child rights and wellbeing impact assessments available on gov.scot under the ‘transport’ theme.

An example of this was the development of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review in 2020-21, during which Transport Scotland actively engaged with a sample of primary and secondary schools across Scotland as part of a programme to understand young people’s views on transport. In total 30 schools and 655 pupils were involved, and their feedback was included in the development and appraisal of transport options considered during the review. The experience gained from this engagement programme will help inform future transport reviews of this type.

Another example of this in practice is our recent announcement of two new concessionary schemes for under-22 year old islanders, providing unlimited free travel on inter-island ferries within Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles from 1 April 2025, and expanding the scheme providing 4 free journeys per year to/from the Scottish mainland to 16–21 year olds from 23 June 2025.

Eradicating child poverty is the single greatest priority of this Government and we are committed to giving all of our children and young people the very best chance to succeed in life. These commitments from the Islands Connectivity Plan will help to ensure public transport is available, accessible and affordable for children and young people, and will them to travel more often, improving their access to education, employment, training, health and social activities and much more.

There are no school streets or school safety zones on the trunk road network under the responsibility of Transport Scotland. In addition, there are currently no plans to increase the number of school streets and school safety zones on trunk roads in Scotland.

With regard to local roads, local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads in their area and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic.

Each local authority would be able to advise how many school streets and school safety zones they have on their road network.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-37086 on 6 May 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

More than £1bn will be provided through the Attainment Scotland Fund (ASF) to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap during this parliamentary term. This funding can be used to provide additional tutoring support, if headteachers and education authorities want to deploy this support in a way that targets those who will most benefit from this kind of intervention.

The Scottish Government has provided multi-year funding for mentoring programmes, which has been shown to support confidence building and attainment in care-experienced children and young people and those affected by poverty. In March 2021, the Scottish Government announced a £19.4 million fund over five years for mentoring programmes to support young people as part of the Scottish Mentoring and Leadership Programme (SMLP), including funding for MCR Pathways to further rollout provision across Scotland to a much larger cohort of young people.

An interim evaluation report on the SMLP programme published in December 2024 found that mentoring had increased participant’s academic confidence, attainment/achievement, social confidence, and confidence in doing well at a job in the future. A Value for Money and Impact Evaluation report is due to be published in 2025. Previous independent evaluation of the MCR Pathways mentoring programme showed that there were statistically significant positive differences between the outcomes of care-experienced young people who were mentored and care-experienced young people who were not mentored, in staying on rates, attainment, and positive destinations.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-37086 on 6 May 2025.

Responsibility for any decisions on whether to publish the results of their investigation conducted in relation to the sharing of annotated materials is a matter for the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

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

Myself and the previous Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills have supported the annual Vision Schools Scotland Awards ceremony by attending and contributing to the ceremonies where achievement of schools and pupils in Holocaust Education are recognised.

Since 2021, Scottish Government has provided £126,247 in funding to the Vision Schools Scotland programme to further support Holocaust education in schools. This includes funding up to £36,352 for the 2024-25 financial year.

Under the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 every young carer has a right to a personalised support plan, called a young carer statement. The process of producing the statement must include identifying the young person’s needs, such as support to pursue further or higher education and secure employment.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of young carers being identified in schools so that they can be supported in achieving their educational and wider goals. This is why we fund an Education Officer post at Carers Trust Scotland to work with Education Scotland, the General Teaching Council for Scotland, and the Scottish Qualification Authority on improving young carer awareness, identification, and support in education. This has led to an accredited e-training module to help education staff understand, identify, and support young carers. This e-training module has recently been refreshed to add information about supporting young carers in their transition into further or higher education or employment.

Additionally, we have funded Young Scot to provide information for young carers facing transition periods in their life, including moving into further or higher education and employment Young Carers Transitions – Young Scot. Skills Development Scotland also highlight to career advisers the additional support young carers may need at this pivotal time.

The Scottish Government recognises the significant barriers faced by unpaid carers, including young carers, in accessing employment and fair work in the labour market. This is why unpaid carers have been identified as one of our key cohorts for support and why we have made a Programme for Government commitment to provide employability support to meet the needs of all parents or carers on a demand-led basis.

Our National carers strategy sets out the importance of all employers being flexible and supportive of carers in the workforce and outlines our commitment to fund and promote the Carer Positive employer accreditation scheme. There are now more than half a million employees working in 290 Carer Positive organisations across Scotland.

We are working to ensure holistic wrap-around support is available throughout our support services. No One Left Behind is our approach to delivering an all-age, place-based, person-centred model of employability support in Scotland. Services are voluntary, aiming to support individuals (including paid and unpaid carers) towards the right job at the right time. The No One Left Behind: employability strategic plan 2024 to 2027, published September 2024, outlines our priorities for devolved employability services moving forward, and reaffirms our commitment to continuous improvement and expanding reach of our services, including young carers.

The Scottish Government invested in battery reprocessing and recycling facilities through the Recycling Improvement Fund, but these were delivered prior to the 2024-25 financial year.