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Spending on additional support for learning by local authorities reached a record high of over £1bn in 2023-24

We have continued to invest £15m per year since 2019-20 and provide over £11m of funding, to directly support pupils with complex additional support needs and services to children and families.

The 2025-26 budget sets out a further £29m of additional investment, specifically for ASN for local and national programmes to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce.

We are also providing £186.5m to councils this year to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels and maximise the number of teaching posts available.

Scottish Government and COSLA work in partnership on additional support needs through the Additional Support for Learning Project Board. The new Education and Childcare Assurance Board provides a further opportunity for jointly agreeing priorities and joint working in this context.

It is a matter for individual Health Boards to consider the implementation of any new medicine to meet the needs of their local population, and they are responsible for funding new medicines from their local medicines budgets. However, the Scottish Government has committed to investing rebates from the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines, Pricing Access and Growth (VPAG) to fund the New Medicines Fund (NMF), which provides additional top-up funding to territorial Health Boards to support the cost of introducing new medicines. Since 2014-15, £906 million has been made available to Health Boards through this fund. In addition, a national process is in place, administered by National Services Scotland National Procurement (NP), to review early access programmes on a ‘once for Scotland’ basis on behalf of Scottish Health Boards.

In partnership with NHS Scotland colleagues, the Scottish Government are developing tools to support GP practices to proactively identify people on topical steroids so that their treatment can be reviewed.

The Scottish Government collects and publishes data on the total number of diversion from prosecution cases commenced for people aged under 18, this is published in the Justice Social Work Statistics in Scotland: 2023-24 - Part 1.

Over the past five years a total of 3,444 diversion from prosecution cases were started for individuals under 18. However, information on the specific alleged offence in each case is not available.

Scottish Government recognises that diagnosing brain cancer can be challenging as symptoms are wide-ranging and often vague, contributing to presentations in emergency settings. We continue to work with primary care to improve the earlier diagnosis of brain cancers.

A clinical review of the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer has just concluded to help ensure the right person is on the right pathway at the right time. For the first time, the review has ensured the inclusion of a nationally agreed non-specific symptoms referral guideline, as well as an update to the guidance for urgent referral for suspected brain tumours. Publication of the reviewed guidelines is expected this month.

A new primary care cancer education platform, Gateway C, was launched in April 2024. Gateway C provides tailored information to support earlier cancer diagnosis and enable effective decision-making. This platform is accessible to all primary care clinicians and includes a brain tumour course specifically aimed at assisting the effective assessment and management of patients with a potential brain tumour.

A new National Headache Pathway has also been published by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery. This pathway, based on presentation at General Practice, clearly lists red flag symptoms that indicate the need for urgent and/or emergency assessment to exclude a secondary cause, such as a brain tumour.

NHS Boards continue to undertake improvement work to ensure that women diagnosed with ovarian cancer can access surgery. The Scottish Government continues to seek regular updates on progress and to work with them to improve overall care for patients with ovarian cancer regardless of where they live.

Further to this, Scottish Government has provided £106 million planned care funding in 2025/26 across NHS Scotland, with £14.23 million of this directed towards Cancer Waiting Times.

This is all part of our programme to drive up productivity and tackle waiting lists, supported by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD). Together, our actions will further enable NHS Scotland to maximise capacity, build greater resilience and deliver year-on-year reductions in the number of patients who have waited too long for treatment.

Statistics on the class sizes of P1 to P3 pupils are published in the pupil census supplementary statistics, available on the Scottish Government website at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/pupil-census-supplementary-statistics/

Whilst the Scottish Government sets the strategic policy direction for the NHS in Scotland, operational matters including staffing are in the first instance the responsibility of the relevant NHS board working alongside General Practices. The model for General Practice will depend on local population health needs as well as local service planning priorities.

NHS Boards are required to undertake workforce planning to ensure a full range of services are provided, including working with independent contractors in primary care. These plans should align with the National Workforce Strategy.

The Scottish Government is aware of an increasing gap between the GP Registered Population and Scotland’s population as estimated by the census. A working group has been established to look at the disparity between the two in more detail.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any recent review by Scottish Borders Council of its additional needs assistant allocation process for secondary schools.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that parents and carers are central to shaping the development of Additional Support for Learning (ASL) policy. As part of a wider review of ASL, Ministers will consider this publication and its recommendations in addition to other recent reports, which identify areas for improvement.

I have committed to a cross party roundtable with local government to discuss a wider review of the delivery and support for Additional Support Needs in Scotland’s schools. The scope and detail of the review will be informed by the outcome of the roundtable.

Our inclusive approach to education in Scotland is supported by a broad consensus that all children and young people should receive the support they need to thrive. Since the 2020 Morgan Review of ASL, we have delivered over 50 actions to improve educational experiences for children and young people with additional support needs (ASN), empowering them to become directly involved in decision making, increasing learning opportunities for educators and creating parent support groups.

We will continue to work at pace to deliver the remaining actions by the end of this Parliamentary term, including ensuring that parental voice informs the development of ASL policy.