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Officials have met with education leads in the local authorities expecting to be most affected to understand their assessment of the potential move of pupils to the state sector. We have also sought assurance from local authorities that they have the capacity to support pupils in the event of an independent school closing. I have met with the Scottish Council for Independent Schools and officials will continue to engage with them directly, following this policy change from the UK Government.

The legal powers to mandate the reporting of pay gaps is largely reserved to the UK Parliament and is currently limited to the reporting of gender pay gaps under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. There is no requirement for data to be disaggregated or collected to the level of parental status and Scottish Ministers have no plans to expand pay gap reporting in this way.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Decisions on Local Government budget allocations for future years are subject to the outcome of negotiations with COSLA, the results of which will be confirmed in future Scottish Budgets.

Furthermore, although it is the statutory responsibility of local authorities to manage and maintain their school estate, East Dunbartonshire Council will receive significant funding support from the Scottish Government - through the £2bn Learning Estate Investment Programme - for their Lenzie Academy project.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to implementing the recommendations of the Pathways Review: Pathways: A new approach for women in entrepreneurship - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). Record levels of funding have been allocated to support women’s enterprise, including the £1.3m Pathways Fund in 2023 and a further £2.6m of funding in 2024-25 for the Pathways Fund and Pre-Start regional pilot.

The successful applicants of the Pathways Fund have been notified and will be announced shortly. The funded projects addressing the challenges faced by women and other under-represented groups while promoting the key Pathways themes of access to support, education, finance and investment.

These interventions are foundational to the full implementation of the Pathways Review and the Scottish Government remains determined to unlock the full potential of Scotland’s female business leaders.

The independent Pathways review and recommendations were developed through extensive consultation and engagement with entrepreneurs and analysis of data on women in entrepreneurship.

Activity within the South of Scotland Enterprise Pilot pre-start programme and projects funded through the Pathways Fund will be evaluated to determine effectiveness and to support the development of further implementation of the Pathways recommendations.

To address inactivity, it is essential to support those who are currently inactive – not in paid work and not actively looking for work – through employability and other interventions that seek to support a return to the labour market, and also provide preventative in-work support, for instance through occupational health services and retraining/upskilling, which reduces the likelihood of people becoming economically inactive.

No One Left Behind is our shared approach to delivering an all-age, place-based, person-centred model of employability support in Scotland. Our Employability Strategic Plan, published in September, sets out our vision to deliver an employability system that tackles inequalities in Scotland’s labour market, creating a responsive and aligned approach that helps people of all ages who face the greatest barriers to progress towards, into and to sustain work.

Drivers of inactivity are diverse, with evidence indicating a rise in physical and mental health conditions in all inactive people in recent years. Our Programme for Government commits to support those already in work, help more people back into work by improving access to health and work services by April 2025 and introducing enhanced specialist support for disabled people across all 32 local authorities by Summer 2025. The Programme for Government also ensures access to funded early learning and childcare, demand-led employability support to parents and carers, and improves careers support for carers.

We are also considering what additional actions can be taken across employability, health and local service delivery through the development of a health and work action plan, in partnership with Public Health Scotland (PHS) and employers.

The Scottish Government is clear that there is no place for racism in our schools. Discrimination or prejudice of any kind is unacceptable and must be addressed quickly whenever it arises. All staff are expected to be proactive in promoting positive relationships and behaviour in the classroom, playground and the wider school community.

The Racism and Racist Incidents sub-group of the Anti-racism in Education Programme (AREP) is focussed on the support to schools and school staff to improve understanding of racism and to ensure that these issues are properly identified and addressed. It is currently developing guidance on a whole-school approach to preventing and responding to racism and racist incidents in schools. Further information about the workstream, including minutes from their meetings can be accessed here: Racism and Racist Incidents subgroup - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The RRI workstream is currently developing practical guidance for schools to support them to respond to racism and racist incidents, including strengthening approaches to recording and monitoring.

It is anticipated this guidance will be published in Spring 2025.

The Scottish Government has been progressing a number of areas of work in relation to articulating and embedding anti-racism in the curriculum. This has included the introduction of anti-racism curriculum principles Breaking the Mould, published in June 2023 which were co-designed with young people, educators and organisations with anti-racism expertise.

To support the education sector in designing and delivering an anti-racist curriculum we have also funded a range of programmes including: funding for diversifying texts and projects in school libraries; professional learning programmes for history teachers on the role of the British Empire in world history and its legacy today, and the impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade; and small grants for young people-led anti-racist clubs to deliver school-based activities highlighting the importance of an anti-racist learning environment.

In particular, we have partnered with the Development Education Centres to support early years practitioners and teachers to effectively deliver age appropriate curriculum content aligned with the Breaking the Mould principles. This work has culminated in the development of a suite of new online resources that cover health and wellbeing and personal and social education, which were published in 2024. The online resources include workshop plans, activities and animations to support classroom learning on issues such as discrimination, bias, stereotyping and identity as well as the causes and impacts of racism. The roll out of these resources is supported by funded online and in-person professional learning.

We are also currently working with the Children’s Parliament to create a new resource for children on racism and rights in education.

The Education Leadership and Professional Learning workstream of the Scottish Government’s Anti-Racism in Education Programme includes a wide range of stakeholders who bring their expertise and experience to inform strategic actions. Facilitated by Education Scotland, this workstream contributes to the ongoing review of what anti-racist professional learning is available to all school staff, from the national anti-racist professional learning programme, Building Racial Literacy, to more local offers and self-directed professional learning resources.

Children and young people should feel happy, safe, respected and included in the learning environment and all staff should be proactive in promoting positive relationships and behaviour in the classroom, playground, and wider learning community.

It is for teachers, head teachers and other professional educational practitioners to decide the development and implementation of the curriculum within the overall framework. Schools are encouraged to work closely with parents and carers on the development and delivery of learning and teaching.

Guidance is, however, made available on health and wellbeing, such as relationships, sexual health and parenthood education, and is updated regularly. The Racism and Racist Incidents Sub-group of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme is currently developing guidance on a whole-school approach to preventing and responding to racism and racist incidents in schools, including how to engage with children and young people.

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to embedding the Breaking the Mould anti-racism curriculum principles, we have funded development of new online anti-racism in education resources, antiracisted.scot published last month. Personal and Social Education was identified as the priority for curriculum development by children and young people that were part of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme and this was selected as the first topic for focus. The resources were created by the Development Education Centres in collaboration with a range of different voices and perspectives. The voices of learners from St Euan’s Primary School in Clydebank and Drumchapel Hight School in Glasgow are reflected in the animations as well as other areas of the resource.