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The term additional support needs under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 applies where for whatever reason children or young people are unable to benefit from school education without the provision of additional support. Therefore, the information requested in relation to colleges and universities is not applicable.

In 2021, we published a Whole School Approach Framework to assist in supporting children and young people’s mental health in schools. This complements earlier work to provide a professional learning resource to support school staff.

We also continue to support local authorities with £16 million a year to ensure that every secondary school has access to counselling services, which are now in place across Scotland. School counselling is just one of a range of services that schools may have in place to support the health, emotional and social needs of young people.

All children and young people should receive the support that they need to reach their full potential. Local authorities are under a statutory duty to identify, provide for, and review the support that they provide for pupils with additional support needs. This includes support arising from a neurodivergence.

The Scottish Government funds the National Autism Implementation Team to produce materials to support professional learning and development for those working with children and young people with autism. This includes content for all Initial Teacher Education courses on autism and how to support autistic pupils, the provision of autism and inclusive practice resources and the Autism Toolbox , which is available for all school staff.

The Scottish Government also funds Dyslexia Scotland to produce materials and professional learning opportunities for those working with children and young people with dyslexia. This includes the Addressing Dyslexia Toolkit and free online professional learning modules on dyslexia and inclusive practice and a GTC Scotland accredited professional recognition programme.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the educational experiences of children and young people with additional support needs. Ministers will work with teachers and support staff to provide additional professional learning opportunities while seeking to build on the Additional Support for Learning Action Plan.

In December 2023, we launched our public consultation for the Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill. The consultation runs until 21 April, and we are encouraging as many people and organisations as possible to take part.

On 6 November 2023 I updated Parliament that it is anticipated the Centre for Teaching Excellence will be hosted by a university, learning from the successful model of the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection better known as CELCIS.

The Scottish Government is committed to co-designing the Centre with teachers and practitioners, professional associations, local government, universities and Scotland’s national education bodies, to ensure it meets the needs of its users and stakeholders. The role and remit of the Centre, how it operates, its interaction with teachers, practitioners and stakeholders, performance measures, and associated costs and timescales will be considered as part of that design process.

The Scottish Government has had useful engagement with the Scottish Council of Deans of Education to discuss the overall approach to co-producing the Centre and, in due course, an appropriate process will be taken forward to establish it.

Scottish Government officials met with NHS Scotland Board Chief Executives on 12 December where they discussed agency nurse staffing as one of their priority actions. This follows detailed engagement with Boards regarding the arrangements currently in place for contracting agency staffing, the outputs of which are being used to inform targeted improvement activity in this area.

Scottish Government officials met with NHS Scotland Board Chief Executives on 12 December where they discussed medical locum staffing as one of their priority actions. This follows detailed engagement with Boards regarding the arrangements currently in place for contracting agency staffing, the outputs of which are being used to inform targeted improvement activity in this area.

Table 1 shows funding allocated to each NHS Health Board in 2021-22 for clearance of any backlogs on waiting lists for CAMHS.

Table 1:

We know that many carers experience mental, physical, employment and financial impacts as a result of their caring role. We must ensure adequate support for carers, particularly those most at risk of poorer health, to ensure their wellbeing and sustain them in their role.

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 recognised the valuable role of carers and set out actions to improve carer awareness training for the workforce and access to wellbeing support for carers. Equality Impact Assessments have been published for both the Delivery Plan and Workforce Action Plan.

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 the quality of the delivery 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 recently published 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. We want to support secondary mental health services which enable people to receive the right information, support, care, intervention, or service for their needs

Another key aim of the standards is that they are meaningful and measurable. National data sources will be used to monitor how well the standards are being met. Where areas for improvement are identified, support will be provided to local areas to ensure that safe and quality services are provided. The standards will also aim to ensure services are measuring key outcomes for patients, including carer experience.

It is not possible to report accurately on the number of additional CAMHS cases taken on since 2021 as the current aggregate data set does not allow identification of separate individuals, it only gives a snapshot of the total number of open cases at any one time.

In the NHS Recovery Plan, published in 2021, we committed to provide sufficient funding for around 320 additional staff in CAMHS over the next 5 years, with the potential to increase capacity for CAMHS cases by over 10,000. This estimate was based on the Choice and Partnership Approach (CAPA) capacity model, where each full time clinician can hold around 40 open cases at any one time, and manage around 40 new cases per year.

From March 2021 to September 2023, 295 WTE CAMHS staff have been added to the workforce, significantly increasing capacity to manage CAMHS cases. We see this reflected in numbers waiting - the total number of children and young people waiting for treatment has fallen from 10,499 in December 2021 to 5,344 in September 2023.

Our National Discharge Without Delay Steering Group has representatives from every NHS Board and Health and Social Care Partnership in Scotland. The group leads on improvement and sharing best practice across Scotland on areas related to good hospital to community transfer or discharge planning. The group meets monthly and there is a standing agenda item on support for unpaid carers which has highlighted examples of good practice.

We have funded NHS Education for Scotland to develop three training modules for the health and social care workforce, to help them to identify, include and support unpaid carers which we expect to be launched in January 2024. This will include highlighting carers’ right to involvement in hospital discharge decisions.

We have also funded Healthcare Improvement Scotland to work to improve practice on carer involvement across health, with a focus on carer involvement in hospital discharge.

As part of this, in September 2023, we brought together Health and Social Care Partnership carer lead officers and Carer Centre Managers to focus on this issue and share good practice.

We are approaching the end of the first year of implementing the National Carers Strategy (published in December 2022). The implementation of the strategy is monitored by the Carers Rights and Support Steering Group (CRSSG), made up of representatives from national and local carer organisations, statutory sector representatives and unpaid carers - so that carers are directly involved in measuring and monitoring the impact of the strategy during its lifespan.

The CRSSG agreed 43 actions to be prioritised for Year 1. The actions cover a broad range of topics including COVID-19 and cost of living as well as outlining employment, financial and mental health support. Examples of actions that have been progressed this year include:

• We distributed £560,000 to carer centres in 2022-2023 to improve local capacity for carer support.
• We funded the Carers Parliament and the Young Carers Festival in 2023, with record numbers attending the Young Carers Festival this year. We will continue to fund events which enable carers to engage directly with decisionmakers.
• We have engaged with carers in 2023 to produce the National Dementia Strategy, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and we have involved carers in the review of the National Outcomes and the National Care Service co-design. We will continue to engage with carers to ensure their voices are heard and reflected in policy across the Scottish Government.
• We are continuing to fund and promote increased uptake of the Carer Positive employer accreditation scheme, with 264 employers now signed up who are responsible for 493,000 employees (as of November 2023).
• Social Security Scotland successfully launched the initial pilot for Carer Support Payment in November 2023, with the benefit to be available nationally by autumn 2024. The benefit is a key milestone in improving support for unpaid carers and will be available to many carers in full-time education who cannot currently get Carer’s Allowance.
• Through the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund, we invested £15 million in 2022-23 in community-based initiatives to promote good health and wellbeing and tackle the mental health issues for people, including unpaid carers.

The Strategy is kept under review so that we are able to respond to changing circumstances and ensure progress towards meeting the actions contained within it.