Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, convener, and happy new year to you and to committee members.

As the First Minister outlined on Monday, this budget is rooted in delivery and hope, and it has been drafted in response to the views of a multitude of stakeholders across Scotland and to those of members from across the chamber.

The education and skills budget is no different. Mr Dey, Ms Don-Innes and I have listened intently to the views and asks of teachers, schools, local authorities, early learning and childcare providers, universities, colleges and the wider skills system. The draft budget for my portfolio for 2025-26 reflects those views and seeks to go some way towards addressing the challenges that we face across the education sector, particularly following the pandemic.

I will begin by setting out the resource and capital position for the portfolio. The education and skills resource budget has increased by £158 million, which is equivalent to a 3 per cent real-terms increase. In addition, overall capital and resource has increased by £116 million. For early years, we continue to invest in a high-quality funded early learning and childcare offer and our wider family support offer. Overall, the Scottish Government will invest more than £1 billion in high-quality funded ELC from next year.

The 2025-26 draft budget also provides an investment of £8 million in our six early adopter communities in Dundee, Inverclyde, Clackmannanshire, Glasgow, Fife and Shetland. The draft budget also includes funding to provide local authorities with an additional £9.7 million from 2025-26 to increase pay for early learning and childcare workers delivering funded childcare, so that they earn at least the real living wage from April, as well as ensuring that children’s social care staff employed in the private, voluntary and independent sector will also receive the real living wage.

The budget invests in our schools, teachers and support staff. It includes £186.5 million for councils to maintain teacher numbers, and it speaks to the asks made by local government as part of the biggest recorded settlement made to local government in Scotland.

The budget includes £29 million of additionality for additional support needs, including funding to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce. I know that that issue is of interest to the committee, so I hope that members will welcome the steps that the Government is taking through this budget to provide more support for ASN.

That funding is part of a wider package and deal agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. That deal is predicated on trust and will see the Scottish Government and COSLA working together to restore and maintain teacher numbers at 2023 levels, freeze learning hours and make meaningful progress in reducing teacher class contact time. Importantly, that deal also includes a provision for the creation of an educational assurance board, which will allow local and national Government to collaborate better on educational improvement, noting the legal responsibilities shared by both.

In addition, we continue with our investment of £1 billion in the Scottish attainment challenge over the course of this Parliament to support closing the poverty-related attainment gap, with £130 million in this budget earmarked for the pupil equity fund being allocated directly to head teachers for activities on the ground that will close the poverty-related attainment gap in their schools.

Committee members will note that the most recent statistics, from December, show that we now have the narrowest attainment gap ever recorded between the most and least disadvantaged pupils. That should be welcomed, as should the statistics showing that we have the highest levels of literacy and numeracy since records began.

Lastly, we remain committed to supporting a high-quality post-school education, research and skills system with more than £2 billion of investment in further education, higher education and skills. I am sure that the minister will say more about that. We have listened to the asks of the sector and have responded as best we can and with as much flexibility as possible in the current fiscal circumstances. That has included protecting funding for apprenticeships while, at the same time, increasing our core funding for both higher and further education. We also continue to protect free tuition, which means that, unlike students elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt. We have sought, where possible, to respond to specific asks from the sectors and to provide the flexibility that I mentioned.

Like every cabinet secretary, I have been concerned by the United Kingdom Government’s decision to increase employer national insurance contributions, which will hit ELC providers, colleges and universities hardest within my portfolio. We are also still faced with an incredibly challenging fiscal context. Nonetheless, this is a budget that protects education spending throughout the lifetime of a child’s education.

I will finish there, but I look forward to discussing the budget settlement with the convener and committee members in more detail.

Apologies, convener—I should not have spoken over the member.

This funding is in addition to the £926 million that we already invest in additional support needs. That is record funding. It is not an either/or situation—the £29 million comes on top of that. The member also mentioned the grant-aided specialist schools provision. Since 2019-20, we have provided more than £11 million every year towards that.

The £29 million of funding will not be used for other purposes. It is additional funding in the budget, in recognition of the level of need that exists in our schools in relation to ASN post the pandemic. It will enable us to work with COSLA to help to provide the specialist staff provision that is required. The committee recommended that the Government should look at that, and I think that we have responded to that recommendation.

I do not know whether Mr Dey agrees, but I think that we are ahead of the game on public sector reform. We are already leading programmes of reform across my areas of responsibility, and Mr Dey is introducing legislation later this year. We are already moving forward with reform, which will include looking at our agencies and senior phase qualifications, and, in his bill, Mr Dey will be looking at funding. We are already taking forward a range of measures on public sector reform, and I have engaged with Mr McKee on how to drive better value for money while improving outcomes for our children and young people, which is what reform in the education space has to be about.

One of the changes that I implemented last year was to join up our reform agenda in school education with Mr Dey’s post-school education work. The group that I chair is now looking at both areas, and working across both of our areas of responsibility, Mr Dey and I are pulling together partners in order to take a more holistic approach to reform and to make sure that it is fit for purpose.

I would reflect on some of the points that the minister has made previously. When the funding was first introduced, it was a temporary funding agreement that was to last three years. When the minister and I came into post, we agreed to an extension for a further year to support our colleges, recognising the particular points that the member has made.

More broadly, not just in our colleges but across our education system post-pandemic, mental health will continue to be a challenge for our schools, for staff and for college and university students. We will continue to work with our colleges.

The minister spoke about some of the further work that is being done on the mental health action plan; he may wish to say more on that. Having had sight of his work on getting things into a better place, I know that that has been really important for delivery on the ground and for having a joined-up approach with NHS services. It is not just about education services, and we must have partnership working.

Mr Dey may wish to say more regarding the further education sector.

The cabinet secretary made mention of a number of portfolio areas in response to asks that have come from cabinet secretaries. I made specific asks around additional support needs.

As the committee knows, in recent times, there has been an increase in the number of pupils with additional support needs. The statistics that we published just before Christmas show that, at a national level, that figure now sits at more than 40 per cent. I am aware that, in some schools in Scotland, the figure sits at more than 50 per cent—

We have provided an uplift in the budget to meet the needs of real living wage costs for private, voluntary and independent staff, and I think that that has been welcomed.

Indeed, but that relies on Governments working together, and we need to be mindful of the fiscal context.

As the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, I can say that—

You are right to say that there is no capital allocation for free school meals in next year’s budget—that is because the capital allocation for free school meals roll-out for those in P6 and P7 who are in receipt of the Scottish child payment has been baked into the current year’s financial settlement, so there is no need for that capital in the next financial year. The funding that we have provided in next year’s budget, which we are speaking about today, is for resource, and it is an uplift of £50 million. That is the reason why it does not appear in the budget itself.

The committee will be well aware of the Government’s commitment to universality and to working towards that, and of the financial challenges that we have faced in that regard. We task the Scottish Futures Trust with providing the Government with independent forecasts for what universality might cost. I think that the costings, when I last considered them, were just over £250 million, which I did not have in my budget. We have therefore taken an approach to target free school meals provision at those who are most in need.

It is worth noting that Scotland is the only part of the UK that continues to make some provision for free school meals across the school holidays, which is important. That funding goes directly to local authorities.

The challenges to achieving free school meals universality have largely been financial. I think that the committee knows that—we have certainly discussed it in the chamber at length. It remains our aspiration, subject to financial agreement from elsewhere, that we will continue with our progress on universality.

I should put on record that some parts of the country, such as Inverclyde Council, currently provide universal free school meals. The Government also provides free school meals to those who qualify for them right up to the end of secondary 6. That capital provision is not made in the next financial year because it is not required.

Universality remains our aspiration, and we know that that investment, although it is not currently where we would like it to be, is making a real difference. It is helping to save families, on average, £400 per child per year, so it is a worthwhile investment, and we will continue to work with local authorities on universal roll-out.

Mr Greer and I have had an exchange on that issue in the chamber, and I think that I have agreed to visit the said primary school with him.