Education Maintenance Allowances: 2017-18

Statistics on Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) recipients and payments made in 2017-2018.


Appendix A – Summary of policy changes

The following table shows the main policy changes which have happened since the launch of the EMA in Scotland.

Time of policy change Description of policy
August 2004 EMA introduced across Scotland for 16 year olds, initially consisting of weekly payments of £10, £20 and £30 categories dependent on household income. Following satisfactory attendance and learning agreement completion, bonus payments of £150 each were payable in January and June.
Academic year 2005-06 Eligibility extended to all 17 year olds.
Academic year 2006-07 Eligibility extended to all 18 year olds.
Academic year 2007-08 Eligibility extended to all 19 year olds.
Academic year 2009-10 £10 and £20 payments were removed, and income threshold for £30 payment was set to £20,351. Additional higher income threshold of £22,403 was introduced for families with more than one dependent child.
Academic year 2010-11 Bonus payments removed from all recipients.
January 2016 EMA programme extended to include part-time, non-advanced college courses. Income thresholds increased to £24,421 for families with one dependent child and £26,884 for families with more than one dependent child in the household.

Contact

Email: FHEstatistics@gov.scot

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