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The Scottish Government regularly meets with representatives of teacher trade unions, including the Educational Institute of Scotland.

The 2021 SNP manifesto included a commitment to give teachers more time out of the classroom to prepare lessons, undertake professional development and tackle the challenges of closing the attainment gap.

We remain committed to delivering a reduction in teacher class contact time of 90 minutes per week, which we believe will create the conditions to achieve these improvements.

That is why we are working with teacher unions and COSLA through the SNCT to make meaningful progress towards delivering the reduction.

Teacher numbers increased by 12 between 2021 (2020 census baseline) and 2024. Teacher numbers for 2025 will be published with the teacher census statistics in December 2025.

The Scottish Government commissioned the report: Pupil projections and implications for teacher resourcing needs: education workforce modelling and research, which was published on 7 May 2024. This independent research has informed our engagement with partners on the commitment to reduce class contact time for teachers.

The Scottish Government has engaged with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Association of British Credit Unions Limited (ABCUL) to understand the implications of the withdrawal and the support being provided to current policyholders. We will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure that those affected receive clear information about their options.

The estimated economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 in Scotland was 22.7% in June to August 2025. This was lower than the estimated economic inactivity rates for Northern Ireland (26.9%) and Wales (25.0%), but higher than the estimated rate for England (20.5%). ONS publish OECD economic inactivity rate statistics covering the 38 OECD countries. The most recent data were published on 14 October 2025, covering the period to Q2 2025 (April – June).

The estimated economic inactivity rate for Scotland in April – June 2025 was 21.9%. Comparison with ONS’s published international data suggests that Scotland’s economic inactivity rate in Q2 2025 was lower than the estimated OECD average rate (25.9%).

In June 2025, we published our five-year Breastfeeding and Infant feeding framework 2025-2030, which incorporates recommendations from the Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly (BBF) 2019 report, our longer term aims and sets out our detailed delivery plan over the next year.

This framework sets out our ongoing commitment to the Unicef UK Babyfriendly accreditation, and we continue to fund Achieving Sustainability Assessments, foundational training, and the Scottish Lead post.

In 2023-24 the Scottish Government permanently transferred funding to Health Boards for Maternal and Infant Nutrition as part of the Outcomes Framework funding, which covers a wider range of outcomes. The published Scottish Budget for 2025-2026 includes £72.2m within the NHS Boards budget for the Outcomes Framework. It is up to Health Boards to decide how much of this funding to allocate to each outcome. In 2025-26 territorial Health Boards received an overall cash uplift of 3%.

From 2025-26 the Scottish Government is permanently transferring over £0.8 million further investment into the baseline budgets of NHS Boards to provide a sustainable basis for funding for interventions to support breastfeeding, which can include peer support, following an additional investment of over £11 million since 2018.

The press release on 26 September 2024 reflected the Programme for Government long-term commitment to provide £100 million over a number of financial years to grow with institutional investment, to at least £500 million supporting the construction of around 2,800 mid-market rent homes. Since then, a market testing exercise has been commissioned and concluded – that will help inform the next steps to commission a fund manager.

Mid-market rent development continues to progress through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme. The latest statistics are available at Housing statistics - gov.scot. The Scottish Government does not hold information on proposed housing developments which have only progressed to the point of receiving planning permission.

The Scottish Government supports a range of activity to encourage organisations to buy from social enterprises.

Through funding for Social Enterprise Scotland, we support the Buy Social Scotland initiative which promotes responsible procurement and connects buyers with social enterprise suppliers. Over 48 organisations have signed the Buy Social Pledge, including local authorities and private sector firms. A national Supplier Catalogue, developed and regularly updated as part of the initiative, helps buyers identify and engage with social enterprise suppliers.

We also published the first SME and Third Sector Procurement Action Plan in April 2024 to reduce barriers and improve access to public procurement. A review of the impact of this plan was published in August 2025. Through Scottish Government funding, Public Contracts Scotland was updated to allow third sector organisations to self-identify, enabling contracting authorities to take a more targeted approach to procurement opportunities such as Quick Quotes. These changes have been promoted across the third sector and the wider Scottish public sector to encourage utilisation.

The Scottish Government recognises that the ongoing cost of living crisis and the impact of inflationary pressures on food and high energy costs are causing difficulties for many individuals and families in Scotland.

Scotland’s classroom teachers are currently the best paid in the UK. The top of the main grade scale for classroom teachers has increased from £37,575 in April 2018 to £50,589 in August 2024.

Between April 2018 and implementation of the previous pay award in August 2024, average teachers’ pay increased by more than 37% in cash terms, and by 7.7% in real terms compared with CPI inflation.

We recognise that there are teachers who aspire to permanency or continuity of employment but who are unable to secure a position. It is for this reason we are providing £186.5 million to local authorities in 2025-26 to restore overall teacher numbers across the country to 2023 levels and maximise the number of teaching posts available.

In 2023-24 the Scottish Government permanently transferred funding to Health Boards for Maternal and Infant Nutrition as part of the Outcomes Framework funding, which covers a wider range of outcomes. The published Scottish Budget for 2025-2026 includes £72.2m within the NHS Boards budget for the Outcomes Framework. It is up to Health Boards to decide how much of this funding to allocate to each outcome. In 2025-26 territorial Health Boards received an overall cash uplift of 3%.

From 2025-26 the Scottish Government is permanently transferring over £0.8 million further investment into the baseline budgets of NHS Boards to provide a sustainable basis for funding for interventions to support breastfeeding, which can include peer support, following an additional investment of over £11 million since 2018.

The scale and stability of breastfeeding peer support has been strengthened as a result of targeted multi-year funding, optimising breastfeeding peer support in communities through locally driven decision making, strong partnership working and collaborations. In particular localised approaches which are effective in addressing breastfeeding inequalities and accessibility of support, as well as the growth of coverage across the volunteer and peer support landscape to include multiple Third sector organisations and in-house NHS volunteers.