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We welcome the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s report which provides an independent assessment of how much the Scottish Government’s policies are likely to raise and cost. The Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecasts are used to set the Scottish Budget, and Scottish Government officials work closely with the Scottish Fiscal Commission to provide the data necessary to inform its forecasts.

As noted within the Operational Improvement Plan, the Government will report against it publicly and to Parliament within 2025-26. Statistics relating to a number of its commitments will also continue to be published meantime.

Our announcement of £900,000 for local authorities to aid training of support staff was made in direct response to the findings of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research, which indicated that it is school support staff who have the most challenging experiences in dealing with negative behaviours, and that support staff themselves would welcome more training to support them in their roles.

Allocation and use of the funding was agreed at the meeting of COSLA Leaders on 26 January 2024. Each local authority received a minimum of £10,000 of funding, with the remaining funding distributed on the basis of pupil numbers. A letter was issued to local authorities on 7 February 2024 advising them of their funding allocation, and that this funding was intended to be used as a contribution towards procuring and providing training for the support staff workforce. The funding could be used flexibly by local authorities to meet the needs of their workforce, but it was intended that the funding would support the provision of training for school support staff in aid of improved relationships and behaviour, including: provision of training from external sources, costs associated with provision of training including securing training provision, venue and staff costs, including backfill of posts to allow staff to attend, and other appropriate costs. In line with the current funding arrangement with local authorities, it was a matter for local authorities to decide how best to use their allocated funding to help the support staff in their area.

In August 2024, I published the national relationships and behaviour in schools action plan as part of our response to the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research report published in November 2023. The plan is jointly owned with COSLA, given the statutory responsibility for the delivery of education rests with our councils.

The first progress report on the action plan, setting out the range of activity that has been taken forward between November 2023 and March 2025, was published on 28 March 2024. During the first phase of the plan, progress has been made against all 20 actions set out within it, including relationships and behaviour in schools. Outputs include new guidance on addressing gender-based violence in schools, updated guidance on mobile phones, and updated anti-bullying guidance.

Theme 7 of the action plan relates to tracking impact and progress, with an action to continue to update and maintain the evidence base on relationships and behaviour in schools. As noted within the Progress Report, the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools has begun its considerations on the scope of the sixth wave of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research, which will be commissioned during phase 2, with fieldwork expected in early 2026. We also continue to reflect on other sources of evidence, including information brought to us by our professional teaching unions.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6O-03953 on 10 October 2024. All answers to Oral Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at Official Report: search what was said in Parliament | Scottish Parliament Website

The Scottish Government has no role in the design or regulation of electricity infrastructure, aside from its statutory planning and consenting processes.

The electricity network in Scotland is physically and economically integrated with the rest of Great Britain. Supply and demand across the network needs to be carefully balanced.

Independent analysis commissioned by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) indicates that by 2035 their recommendations for a decarbonised electricity system could add up to £15 billion each year to the UK economy and support an average of 20,000 jobs each year. It is estimated that a third of these benefits are likely to be in Scotland, contributing £5.2 billion to our economy and supporting over 6,000 jobs per year.

The report can be viewed here – https://www.neso.energy/publications/beyond-2030

Where new energy developments come forward, applications are subject to site-specific assessments by the decision maker. Our Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) policy 11 (energy) requires that project design and mitigation demonstrate how impacts on communities, landscape, biodiversity and other receptors, including cumulative impacts, are addressed. It also encourages development to maximise net economic impact, including local and community socio-economic benefits.

When an application is ready to be determined, the Scottish Ministers will consider all relevant material available to them before making any decision on an application. The merits of each proposal are considered on a case-by-case basis, and a careful balance must be struck between the potential impacts of the proposed development and the associated environmental, economic, renewable energy and climate change benefits.

I have asked Alison Byrne, Chief Executive of NRS to respond. Her response is the National Population Projections (NPPs) for Scotland are produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on behalf of National Records of Scotland (NRS). They are based on assumptions about future levels of fertility, mortality and migration. The latest set are 2022-based and were published on 28 January. Projections are typically produced every 2 years.

The assumptions are developed by analysing trends in past and current data and taking into account advice from NPP Expert Advisory Panels, devolved administrations and, in the case of mortality assumptions, the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD).

The ONS produce a principal projection and a number of variant projections based on alternative assumptions. The information referred to below relates to the principal projection. Equivalent information for variant projections is also available from the ONS website.

The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is the average number of children that a group of women would expect to have if they experienced the observed age specific fertility rates in each of their childbearing years. Projected total fertility rates (TFR) can be found in Table 1 of the Scotland summary tables. Between 2025 and 2075 these are projected to vary between 1.26 and 1.29. This compares to a TFR of 1.30 in 2023.

The same table also provides figures for Expectation of Life at Birth (EOLB) which are based on assumed projected mortality rates. EOLB is projected to rise to 83.3 years for males and 86.6 years for females by 2075. The more detailed information on the projected mortality rates on which these are based can be found in the mortality assumptions sheet within the machine readable dataset.

Projected mortality rates are based on an assumed long-term rate of annual mortality improvement in 2047 of 1.1% for ages 0 to 90 years. Mortality rates are assumed to converge to this long-term level of improvement over the first 25 years of the projection.

Although Local Authorities, as the employers of teachers, hold the legal responsibility to provide appropriate health and wellbeing support which meets their employee’s needs, the Scottish Government understands the importance of providing additional, national support, for our teaching workforce.

Since October 2020 we have invested more than £2 million specifically in supporting the wellbeing of our education workforce.

In the last financial year, we invested over £120,000 in a free national wellbeing coaching program for all teaching staff and educational professionals in Scottish schools and early learning facilities aiming to address issues such as workplace stress.

We have also worked with the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland to consider how we can continue to support the wellbeing of teachers, nationally, through measures such as the sharing of best practice and resources across Local Authorities.

The Scottish Government has no powers to influence grid management in Scotland as legislation and regulations relating to gas and electricity networks are reserved to the UK Government. The independent system operator, National Energy System Operator (NESO), is responsible for strategic planning and the day-to-day operation to balance the supply and demand of the electricity network, working with all network companies across Great Britain.