Publication - FOI/EIR release

Cost of services for the young: FOI release

Published: 3 January 2024
Directorate: Children and Families Directorate
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: 202300353548
Date received: 25 April 2023
Date responded: 19 May 2023

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Information requested

In the last 3 tax years, how much money is spent split by the services and benefits detailed below for the children and young adults of parents paying tax broken down by the Scottish tax bands:

	Starter	Basic.	intermediate.	Higher.	Top Rate
Baby Boxes
Nursery costs
Free School meals
Free youth bus pass
Free tuition university
Job start payment

If we did not hold this information in this format you requested the statistical information that we do hold which would fully demonstrate which socio economic groups benefit the most from these provisions, based on their tax band or relative income.

You also asked for the number of graduates who receive a free university education in Scotland and never pay tax in Scotland, specifically as a result of migration and for the cash cost of this education provision broken down by this and the last 10 tax years.

Response

The answer to your question is provided below in the attached table.

Policy	2020/21					2021/22					2022/23
	S	B	I	H	TR	S	B	I	H	TR	S	B	I	H	TR
Baby Box	This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Baby Box is a universal policy for all families regardless of socio-economic group – contract cost in 2020/21 and 2021/22 was £8.8 million										This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Baby Box is a universal policy for all families regardless of socio-economic group – contract cost in 2022/23 was £9.04 million
Nursery Costs	This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have information requested, however we would point out the following published information: Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics: Supporting documents - Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics 2021-22 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) Scottish Household Survey publishes information on use of childcare by SIMD: Supporting documents - Scottish Household Survey 2021 - telephone survey: key findings - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Free School Meals	This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not the information requested. The following publicly available information may be of interest: Local authority spend on school meals is reported through the Scottish local government finance statistics. The most recent statistics (for 2021-22) are available here: Scottish local government finance statistics (SLGFS) 2021-22: workbooks - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) Information on school meal spend is included in the table titled ‘2021-22 LFR 01 -Education’. The equivalent statistics for 2020-21 are available here: Scottish local government finance statistics (SLGFS) 2020-21: workbooks - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) The eligibility criteria for free school meals, including income thresholds, is available on the Scottish Government website: School meals - mygov.scot The number of pupils registered for free school meals is available through the pupil census supplementary statistics 2022: Pupil census supplementary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) The School Healthy Living Survey Statistics 2022 provides information on the uptake of school meals: School Healthy Living Survey statistics 2022 6th September 2022 (www.gov.scot)
Free Youth Bus pass	This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested, in the format stated. However, we can provide the following figures: · financial year 2021/22 a total of £8.6m was provided as reimbursement to bus operators for under 22’s travel, financial year 2022/23 a total of £108.7m was provided as reimbursement to bus operators for under 22’s travel, caveat: operators have up to 3 years to claim for reimbursement - however, in general, data has usually flowed through to us within 6 weeks of the journey transaction.
Free Tuition University	This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested: Data is not held on the tax bands of those benefiting from free tuition at university in Scotland. However data on the number of students that benefit from free tuition each academic year is collected and published by the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) here: https://www.saas.gov.uk/about-saas/statistics.
Job start payment	This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested, however we would point out the following published information: statistics publications page: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotlandstatistics- publications Latest JSP publication: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/reporting/publications/job-start-payment-high-levelstatistics- to-31-december-2022 A more up-to-date JSP publication will be release on 30 May 2023, available at the stats website above. Our Client Survey - https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/reporting/publications/client-survey-2021-2022 Note in particular the supplementary tables, e.g. table 2.13 (page 13), where some breakdown of household income is provided.

Regarding your request for ‘for the number of graduates who receive a free university education in Scotland and never pay tax in Scotland, specifically as a result of migration and for the cash cost of this education provision broken down by this and the last 10 tax years’.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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