Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-35609

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has conducted of the long-term viability of its free university tuition policy, in light of the reported financial pressures being experienced by universities.

The Scottish Government is resolutely committed to free tuition, and the position that access to university should remain based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay. This commitment to free tuition also means that, unlike elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt of up to £27,750 and average student loan debt in Scotland is the lowest in the UK.

The Scottish Government fully appreciates the financial sustainability challenges being faced by many universities across the UK due to a range of factors, including the impact of UK Government immigration policies on international student recruitment, and the increase to employers’ National Insurance Contributions. While universities are autonomous institutions with responsibility for their own strategic and operational decision making, the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council will continue to offer support to individual institutions as they develop their own plans to mitigate financial challenges.

The Scottish Government listened closely to the university sector in the development of this year’s budget, which is why we are investing over £1.1 billion in university teaching and research in 2025-26. Since February we have also announced a further £25 million to support universities facing financial challenges.

Question reference: S6W-35625

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when the revised national outcome on care will be published.

The next iteration of the National Performance Framework (NPF) and National Outcomes will be published following conclusion of the work I announced in the Chamber, on 8 January 2025. The NPF is being substantially overhauled because we want it to work better for people in Scotland, including carers. We are currently at the planning stage for this work and will update Parliament on progress at the appropriate points.

Question reference: S6W-35572

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much the (a) Scottish Funding Council and (b) Student Awards Agency for Scotland has spent on the delivery of (i) Graduate and (ii) Foundation Apprenticeships in each of the last five years, and what that spend delivered.

Funding

The following tables set out how much the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) has spent on the delivery of Graduate Apprenticeships (GAs) and Foundation Apprenticeships (FAs) in each of the last 5 complete financial years.

Accountability for, and funding of, Graduate Apprenticeships and Foundation Apprenticeships (delivered through colleges) was passed to the SFC in Academic Year (AY) 2021-22. In the same year SAAS became responsible for funding tuition fees for new GA enrolments.

In this time period, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) also provided funding for FAs and GAs that resulted in enrolments in addition to those below.

Table 1: Split of GA Funding Across SFC and SAAS from 2019-20 to 2023-24

Academic Year	SFC funding (£m)	SAAS funding (£m)
2019-20	-	-
2020-21	-	-
2021-22	7	2
2022-23	15	3
2023-24	23*	5

*Note: SFC funding for 2023-24 should be treated as notional

Note: Figures are those provided to the Scottish Government by SAAS and SFC and are rounded to the nearest £, million (cash terms)

Table 2: Split of FA Funding Across SFC and SAAS from 2019-20 to 2023-24

Academic Year	SFC funding (£m)	SAAS funding (£m)
2019-20	-	-
2020-21	-	-
2021-22	9	-
2022-23	9	-
2023-24	10	-

*Note: SFC funding for 2023/24 should be treated as notional

Note: Figures are those provided to the Scottish Government by SAAS and SFC and are rounded to the nearest £, million (cash terms)

Enrolments resulting from funding

Table 3 and 4 below show the enrolments for FAs and GAs that this funding has delivered.

Table 3: Number of Graduate Apprenticeship (GA) enrolments by academic year funded by SFC/SAAS

Academic Year	GA Enrolments
2019-20	-
2020-21	-
2021-22	1,165
2022-23	1,140
2023-24	*

Source: HESA Student data, SFC Secondary Analysis

Note: GA Enrolments: The number of new apprentices registered on a GA framework at the beginning of each academic year, regardless of entry point.

Note: These figures will not align with the data published in the SDS Modern Apprenticeship Statistics as SDS stats represent a snapshot of enrolments mid-way through the academic year

*Note: As part of official statistic regulations the Scottish Funding Council are unable to share data prior to publication

Table 4: No. of pupils enrolled on a Foundation Apprenticeship (FA) by academic year funded by SFC/SAAS

Academic Year	FA Enrolments
2019-20	-
2020-21	-
2021-22	2,925
2022-23	2,485
2023-24	*

Source: SFC's Further Education Statistics (FES) return.

Note: FA Enrolments: The number of new apprentices registered on a FA or pilot FA framework at the beginning of each academic year, rounded to the nearest five

*Note: As part of official statistic regulations the Scottish Funding Council are unable to share data prior to publication

Question reference: S6W-35578

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support and improve the mental health and emotional wellbeing of female unpaid carers, in light of a recent report by Carers Scotland, which states that 35% of such carers reported having bad or very bad mental health, and that 58% said that they felt overwhelmed always or often.

We know that many carers experience mental, physical, employment and financial impacts as a result of their caring role. We recognise that a highly effective mental health system must address all levels of need. It means recognising and responding to the many underlying social determinants, circumstances and inequalities that can affect people's mental health and wellbeing.

The Scottish Government’s National Carers Strategy (https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-carers-strategy/) published in December 2022 sets out our cross-government approach to carer support and recognition, and sets out the importance of carers, including young carers, and their mental health.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Delivery Plan and the Workforce Action Plan were published jointly with COSLA in November 2023. Actions in the Delivery Plan cover a wide spectrum, from maintaining good mental wellbeing, to support in communities, to ensuring specialist services are available whenever needed.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan recognises the valuable role of carers and sets out our ambition to both improve carer awareness training for the mental health and wellbeing workforce and also improve access to wellbeing support for carers.

Our National Wellbeing Hub provides advice for unpaid carers, with information and resources to support carers to look after their mental health and wellbeing.

The National Specification for Psychological Therapies and Interventions was published in September 2023. It aims to improve access to and the quality of psychological therapies and interventions so that people accessing help, including unpaid carers, have positive experiences.

Support for carers is one of the aims of the Core Mental Health Standards, which includes signposting to support and resources when needed. These standards were developed with the input of individuals with lived experience, including carers and set out clear expectations for what services will provide and to let individuals, their families and carers know what they can expect from a secondary mental health service. They emphasise the involvement of carers in care planning and decision-making, as well as the importance of gathering and acting on carer feedback.

Question reference: S6W-35585

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce child poverty in South Lanarkshire.

Eradicating child poverty in Scotland is a national mission and the top priority for this Government.

The Scottish Budget for 2025-26 outlines wide-ranging investment to deliver progress on our national mission to eradicate child poverty. This includes investment in breakfast clubs, to expand the provision of free school meals to around 25,000 more children and to develop the systems to mitigate the two-child limit.

We are continuing to invest in direct support through social security, including the ‘game-changing’ Scottish Child Payment. Recently published statistics show that the Scottish Child Payment has provided over £1 billion of payments to eligible families since its launch in February 2021 to the end of December 2024, of which £62 million was issued to eligible families in South Lanarkshire. As of the end of December 2024 the families of more than 326,000 under 16’s across Scotland were actively benefiting from Scottish Child Payment, with over 19,600 of these within the South Lanarkshire local authority area.

Through our Child Poverty Practice Accelerator Fund, we awarded South Lanarkshire Council a total of £79,897 over 2023-24 and 2024-25 to support its ‘Pathways out of Poverty’ project. This project is working with families with a disabled child to test a holistic, person-centred model of support.

We are also supporting the Wise Group to deliver its relational mentoring programme, and in 2025-26 will make nearly £2.2 million available to allow ongoing delivery across six local authority areas, including South Lanarkshire. This investment will allow Wise Group to provide wraparound support to around 2,000 households in these areas.

In 2025-26, the Scottish Government continues to allocate over £3 billion a year to policies which tackle poverty and the cost of living for households.

The Scottish Government will continue to do all we can within our powers and will leave no stone unturned across government as we seek to eradicate child poverty.

Question reference: S6W-35581

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what funding is available to support third sector organisations in the (a) Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, (b) East Kilbride and (c) Uddingston and Bellshill constituency in 2025-26.

Scottish Government grant making is allocated across portfolios to various parts of the third sector to improve a wide range of outcomes. Some Scottish Government funding will be issued through third sector intermediary organisations. Spending is not specifically classified as allocated to geographical areas for third-sector organisations to deliver local services. Consequently the information requested is not available.

Details on region specific funding can be sourced from the regions Third Sector Interface (TSI) or via SCVO's funding tracker - https://funding.scot/

Question reference: S6T-02446

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider an independent external evaluation of the pilot scheme that provides victims in rape and serious assault cases with access to transcripts, in light of reports of some waiting a year for transcripts of their court cases.

Question reference: S6T-02448

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 24 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what practical steps it is taking to review the funding model for Scottish universities, in light of recent reports that the number of international students enrolled at Scottish universities fell by more than 10% between 2023 and 2024.

Question reference: S6T-02447

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 24 March 2025
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it considers that the reported £203 million it spent on external advisers to help administer agricultural support payments to be good value for money.

Question reference: S6F-03968

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 March 2025

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to prevent instances of water scarcity in 2025.

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