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Through the Colleges Tripartite Alignment Group, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), along with Colleges Scotland, regularly discuss issues in the sector, such as the college funding model.

The changes implemented by the SFC aim to deliver a fair and flexible distribution model, and as advised by the SFC at the Education, Children and Young People Committee on 1 October, they are engaging with Colleges Scotland and the wider college sector on the fundamental review of the funding allocation model.

Individual colleges are responsible for their own operational decisions, including course provision, as they are best placed to respond flexibly to emerging trends at local and regional level.

It is appropriate that course provision is reviewed by colleges on a regular basis, and there are many factors that can cause changes beyond the requirement to make savings. For example, this could include to refresh and update course content or to retire courses that no longer have student demand or support employer needs.

In response to a challenging fiscal environment, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) are seeing colleges take a variety of approaches. These include reviewing teaching provision, with a view to consolidating or rationalising curriculum, and the closure of courses that are not core to their strategic plan and are no longer financially sustainable.

Analysis of data from 2021-22 to 2022-23 by SFC showed, in the majority of cases, courses that are withdrawn tended to have low levels of uptake.

The SFC engages with institutions and other stakeholders, including employers, in line with their Outcomes Framework and Assurance Model - Scottish Funding Council (OF&AM). If any common themes are identified across the sector that suggest course provision is being negatively impacted, this will be further investigated.

The Scottish Government commissioned the report: Pupil projections and implications for teacher resourcing needs: education workforce modelling and research - gov.scot, 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 modelling allowed for a range of scenarios based on various assumptions which indicates that phased implementation could begin provided teacher numbers were restored to 2023 levels.

The budget agreement reached with COSLA will therefore provided funding to Local Government to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels, to allow meaningful progress on reducing class contact time for teachers to be made. We remain committed to working with the teacher unions, and COSLA, through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, to agree our approach to delivering a reduction in class contact time.

In recognition that Scotland’s colleges are a vital part of our economy and wider society, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) allocations provide a 2.6% sector increase in teaching funding for 2025-26 compared to last year, with an increase of almost 5% in capital maintenance funding over the same period.

The Scottish Government is engaging very closely with Colleges Scotland on issues affecting the sector, while the SFC robustly monitors the position of the sector and the challenges faced, and considers appropriate forms of support, including to address short-term cash flow challenges.

Since ScotAccount’s launch in February 2023, over 540,000 unique accounts have been created with more than 2,200,000 total sign-ins to ScotAccount made.

ScotAccount has been used to access the following services online:

Study leave for resident doctors is managed centrally by NHS Education for Scotland. All resident doctors in training, irrespective of board location, have access to the study leave budget. This includes regional or nationally provided courses, and individual training programme budgets. For further information, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41661 on 13 November 2025. 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 remains committed to delivering the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant - that serving personnel and their families should face no disadvantage in accessing support and services in comparison to the civilian population as a result of their service.

Government officials have engaged with representatives of service families to understand their experience of living and working in Scotland, including access to childcare. At a local authority level, there has been particular engagement with Moray Council, to understand availability of childcare in the rural area around RAF Lossiemouth, and the impact this has on the ability to attract and retain service personnel.

This year, SG and MOD have participated in a short life working group convened by the local authority, which focuses on the school age childcare needs of all communities across Moray, identifying priorities for growth and development, test of change projects and community engagement. This has provided opportunity for the specific needs of service families to be heard and addressed.

More broadly, local authorities have statutory duties to consult and plan childcare provision locally in order to help them ensure the provision within their area reflects local needs, which would include the particular needs of service families. Scottish Government will be contacting local authorities in due course to set out planned changes to the Armed Forces Covenant and policies which will be impacted, including childcare.

The figures of 1,020 to 1,200 residential buildings with a height of 11 to 18m are drawn from estimates developed by the Scottish Government and published in June 2025. These were estimates of the approximate numbers of buildings in this category that might require work to alleviate cladding risk.

In parallel, however, the Scottish Government has been identifying specific buildings which may be at risk from cladding, through the series of information-gathering exercises set out in the ‘Next Phase Plan of Action’ published in August. We are using the outputs of these exercises to seek assurance from building owners that appropriate action is being taken, including through the Scottish Government’s Single Open Call scheme which offers financial support for assessment and any mitigation and remediation work found to be necessary.

Information on the number of veterans assisted to secure accommodation is not held by Scottish Government. Local authorities have the legal duty to provide housing assistance to veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, and this includes offering temporary or permanent accommodation.

The Scottish Government collects statistics from local authorities on homelessness applications and assessments and outcomes, including information on veterans. The most recent annual homelessness statistics on veterans’ homelessness were published on 24 September 2025 and can be found on the Scottish Government website using the following link: Homelessness in Scotland: veteran homelessness - gov.scot.

Statistical analysis of accommodation outcomes in 2024-25 show that 75% of homeless veteran households secured settled accommodation in 2024-25. Achieving a settled outcome has been consistently between 75% and 79% over the last seven years.

GP Sustainability Loans are made by agreement between Health Boards and individual GP surgeries: the Scottish Government does not oversee an application process.

The following table shows how many loans have been agreed between Health Boards and individual GP surgeries in each year since 2018 and how much has been allocated to Health Boards by the Scottish Government for disbursement.