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The Student Finance and Wellbeing Study (academic year 2023-24) will gather data from college and university students in Scotland on their level of study, the number of hours they have worked in the last week, the sector that their job(s) is/are in, and whether the paid work they are doing is supporting the development of skills related to their course. It will not collect information on where the paid work is carried out (on location/ employer). The extent to which the Study will be able to report on the experiences of work of postgraduate students will depend on sample sizes being large enough to report on.

The findings from the Student Finance and Wellbeing Study are due to be published in a Scottish Government Social Research report in late summer 2024.

It is for local authorities to hold information on the type or condition of those devices that have been distributed across primary and secondary settings within individual local authorities.

The £46 million funding was intended to support strategic change in the college and university sectors and was not part of the core teaching funding allocations. Despite a very challenging financial climate, the Scottish Government committed nearly £2 billion to Scotland’s universities and colleges in 2023-24. Part of the reason for withdrawing the £46 million funding was to allow the Scottish Government to fund public sector pay deals. Strategic change remains necessary and we will be taking this forward with the Scottish Funding Council, colleges and universities in the context of reform, building on the purpose and principles for post-school education published in June 2023. This can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/post-school-education-research-skills-purpose-principles/

The Scottish Funding Council’s “College Infrastructure Strategy: The Approach to Delivering Scotland’s College Infrastructure”, was published in November 2022. Following on from publication of the strategy, the Infrastructure Investment Plan for colleges, due to be published by autumn 2024, will identify future infrastructure investment needed for a sustainable college estate. The work on delivering the plan has begun and will include baselining the condition of the college estate.

At her recent appearance at the Education Committee, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills outlined the rationale for developing a new funding model and that the Scottish Government was at an early stage in its deliberations. The Skills Delivery Landscape Review outlined that there was significant funding within the system that could be better utilised that this commitment is looking to address.

The Scottish Government will update on wider reform including progress on the funding model in the coming months.

Further to the response to S6W-21420, we continue to develop delivery plans including consideration of the funding and reporting procedures.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21921 on‎ 27 October 2023. 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

The Scottish Government has provided £145.5 million in this year’s budget on the condition that local authorities:

• Maintain teacher numbers at 2022 census levels, as published in the Summary School Statistics in December 2022.
• Maintain pupil support staff numbers at 2022 census levels, as published on 21 March 2023 based on the data collected from local authorities in September 2022.

£100 million of this funding is distributed to local authorities as part of the 2023-24 General Revenue Grant. The remaining £45.5 million will also be distributed to local authorities following confirmation that these conditions have been met.

In assessing whether these conditions have been met, we will consider any mitigating circumstances individual councils may wish to put forward.

The “Provision of Education Workforce Modelling and Analysis” is an external exercise I am commissioning to help inform decisions on education workforce planning for future years. This work will bring together a range of factors including current teacher numbers, pupil teacher ratios and the projected decline in the number of school-aged children.

We need to consider all of these issues holistically and ensure we will have an education workforce in place that enables us to progress our commitments to reducing teachers’ class contact time, raising attainment overall, closing the poverty related attainment gap and improving additional support for learning, while delivering maximum value for money.

The Invitation to Tender was published on 15 September and I anticipate the successful bidder being appointed later this month, with a view to reporting by the end of December 2023.

An update will be provided once this work has concluded and been fully considered.