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Information on the total number of incidents in schools attended by Police Scotland is not held centrally.

Information is available from the Accredited Official Statistics on the number of police recorded crimes of weapon possession in a school. This is available within Table A8 of the Recorded Crime in Scotland 2023-24 publication, back to 2017-18 (the first year data was collected separately for school settings).

The Scottish Government expects all incidents of violent and abusive behaviour towards staff to be recorded.

In Scotland our local councils employ education staff and we expect all local authorities to be ensuring that their schools have policies in place which determine clearly what action should be taken to address challenging behaviour and to best protect their staff in the workplace. This would include having processes in place to record violent and abusive incidents towards teachers and staff.

The joint relationships and behaviour in schools action plan includes an action to review all current processes for recording incidents, to identify potential means of streamlining processes and improving consistency. An update on the plan will publish in the coming weeks.

The Scottish Government’s 2024 Addressing Depopulation Action Plan sets out our strategic approach to supporting communities facing population decline. We have established an Addressing Depopulation Fund and, as part of this, provided five local authorities with £60,000 each in 2024-25 to trial locally-identified measures to support population retention in affected communities. These are focused on key issues such as childcare, housing and skills. We have also continued to offer part-funding this year for three Community Settlement Officer roles in rural and island local authorities, to support people currently living in, or moving to these areas.

The Scottish Government has additionally awarded £125,500 in 2024-25 to the Rural Youth Action Network, which is delivered in partnership between Scottish Rural Action and Youth Scotland. The network mobilises and networks with young people across mainland rural Scotland, and works closely with youth-led groups such as the Young Islanders Network, Scottish Rural & Islands Youth Parliament, and Youth Local Action Groups.

In the absence of powers over employment legislation, through our flagship Fair Work First approach, the Scottish Government is applying Fair Work First criteria to public sector grants, other funding, and contracts where relevant and proportionate to do so, driving up minimum standards in fair work practices across the labour market. It is for individual funders and buyers to monitor delivery of Fair Work First criteria through their funding and contracting arrangements.

No specific assessment has been undertaken of the uptake of the Fair Work Framework in Scotland’s (a) offshore oil and gas, (b) offshore wind, and (c) maritime industries.

The Scottish Government has committed to undertake an evaluation of Fair Work First in 2025-26, working with the Fair Work Convention and engaging key stakeholders, including the STUC, to understand how effectively this policy is being delivered and what more can be done to strengthen the approach.

We will invest £2 million next year financial year to help local authorities unlock barriers, develop a targeted approach and embed empty homes work across their services to bring more privately owned empty homes back into use through the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership project. This builds on our track record of bringing more than 11,000 privately owned homes back into use as warm, safe and secure housing since 2010.

The initial, industry-led, phase of the development of the Energy Skills Passport has been supported by £3.7 million of Scottish Government Just Transition funding over financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24. This funding has helped to lay the groundwork for a successful Passport, including both cross-sectoral working and the development of a digital solution, leading to the pilot version of the passport launched in January 2025.

We are now looking forward to seeing the Passport develop further, providing more options and pathways for workers to transition between sectors. Success going forward will require the Passport to be fully supported from a range of bodies, including UK Government. The Scottish Government will also remain closely involved as a supportive project partner.

The Energy Transition Skills Hub is supported by £4.5 million in Just Transition Fund capital support. The construction phase of the project is expected to conclude later in 2025.

The Energy Skills Passport is an industry-led initiative supported by RenewableUK and Offshore Energies UK, with Scottish Government funding also contributing to its development. The initial version, launched in January 2025, is designed to support individual oil and gas workers by helping them identify transferable skills and training needs to transition into key offshore wind roles. The Passport is focused on workforce mobility between sectors and we will continue to engage with industry and other stakeholders, including trade unions, on its potential roles across Scotland's energy sectors.

We understand that the provision of tailored mental health support remains challenging in some areas of respiratory care. We continue to work closely with health psychologists and other key stakeholders to determine how better support can be provided to people living with respiratory and other long-term conditions.

We have invested £51 million in our Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults since 2021, with approximately 3300 grants made to local projects across Scotland in the first two years alone.

A further £15 million was announced on 25 March 2024 for Fourth year of the Fund which means the Scottish Government has made £66 million available since 2021, the funding supports people facing socio-economic disadvantage, people- living with a long-term health condition or disability, older people and people disadvantaged by geographical location.

We also continue to provide a range of resources and raise awareness of how to support mental wellbeing through expanding the range of practical mental wellbeing resources available on our Mind to Mind, Parent Club and Young Scots mental wellbeing websites to complement other supports available in person and by phone.

The number of vaccinations and percentage of uptake for each of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) priority groups is available via the Public Health Scotland (PHS) Surveillance website PHS Vaccination Surveillance.

This information is correct as of 26 January 2025.

The PHS surveillance dashboard is updated monthly.

Local authorities are responsible for the management of their school estate including decisions about the closure of schools. Scottish Ministers do not receive requests for school closures from local authorities.

Local authorities are however required by the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”) to submit school closure decisions for Ministerial review. Ministers can then “call-in” the decision for review by an independent school closure review panel if it appears to Scottish Ministers that the local authority may have failed, in a significant regard, to comply with the requirements imposed on it by the 2010 Act, or to take proper account of a material consideration relevant to its decision.

The following table sets out the number of school closure decisions for rural schools only, received by Scottish Ministers for their review from each local authority over the last four years.