Scottish Attainment Challenge 2022 to 2023 - 2025 to 2026: equality impact assessment

SAC Fund

The SAC will not introduce a new policy, but will build on existing policy for the next phase: 2022/2023 – 2025/2026, it comprises of the following elements:

1. Strategic Equity Funding

2. Pupil Equity Funding

3. Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund

4. National Programmes

5. Universal support, including:

• Attainment Advisors
• The National Improvement Hub
• Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative (CYPIC)

1. Strategic Equity Funding

• Initially focusing on improvement activity in primary schools, the reach of the SAC is now far wider, with targeted activity being delivered across both primary and secondary sectors and beyond.
• Recognising that poverty exists in every local authority area in Scotland – and that this has been exacerbated by the pandemic – the significant change due to be carried out in the refresh of SAC is to stop the Challenge Authorities (£43m) and Schools’ Programmes (£7m) and redistribute that funding across all 32 local authorities (£43m) and use £7m to meet the increasing cost of PEF.
• This responds to consistent feedback from the system via extensive stakeholder engagement that all 32 local authorities should have a clear and funded role in the SAC, rather than just the 9 Challenge Authorities. This role for all 32 local authorities is designed to enable all local authorities to:
  • pro-actively support and enable the empowerment of headteachers in the context of SAC;
  • include a clearly defined role for local authorities to work collaboratively with headteachers, providing support and challenge for local progress in tackling the poverty-related attainment gap;
  • create a mechanism for greater national line of sight for the use of all ASF monies and the impact it is having;
  • link clearly with activity across Regional Improvement Collaboratives; and,
  • set a strategic direction to using education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty across each local authority, drawing in other local authority services to create conditions for school leaders to better access those.
• COSLA agreed to this approach, which will see the redistribution of that £43m take place gradually over four of years minimising disruption for the 9 local authorities whose allocations will reduce and supporting the other 23 local authorities to gradually scale up their plans over time. This redistribution will be based on CILIF.

2. Pupil Equity Funding

• PEF was introduced in 2017/18 and having begun at providing £120 million to schools, now provides over £130 million directly to 97% of schools in Scotland based on the number of P1-S3 pupils registered for free school meals, used as a proxy measure for socio-economic disadvantage. Underspends at school level are retained and carried forward to the next year and in exceptional circumstances, with local authority agreement, into the next academic year. In 2021/22, a one-year only £20 million PEF Premium was added to schools’ PEF allocations to provide further resource to schools to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap and support recovery, recognising the additional challenges that schools and their children and young people face due to COVID-19. To help aid planning for the short and medium term – allocations will be fixed for 4 years from 2022/23 and schools are protected from receiving less than 90% of their previous year’s allocations (prior to any top-ups). In addition, recognising the fluctuating demand as a result of the pandemic, there is an uplift of PEF per pupil from £1,200 up to £1,225.
• Schools continue to use PEF in innovative ways to support improvements in children’s literacy, numeracy and improved health and wellbeing. Support through PEF in the pandemic has been integral in helping support the most disadvantaged children and young people in ways such as access digital equipment and connectivity solutions along with additional focussed learning support services.
• Within the guidance for the key funding streams to local authorities and schools via the SAC, SEF, PEF and CECYP is an expectation children and young people (and their families) have the opportunity to influence local decision making on and planning of, approaches to achieving the mission of SAC. The guidance will sign post key support documents, including a bespoke PEF report ‘Pupil Equity Funding: Looking inwards, outwards, forwards – sharing effective practice to maximise support for learners and practitioners’ developed by Education Scotland which guides local leaders through a range of key considerations for such engagement and provides examples of this type of engagement being done effectively in local settings.

3. CECYP Funding

• The CECYP Fund was introduced in 2018/19 with funding allocated to all local authorities based on the number of looked after children they have in their care or schools. The funding benefits a much wider group than those currently ‘looked after’ in a local authority, with CECYP from birth to the age of 26, being eligible for the fund. That means anyone currently in care, or who has been at any stage in their life, no matter how short, is eligible for support.
• Grant allocations are issued across academic rather than financial years and payments drawn down based on actual spend. Over £33 million was made available during the last parliamentary term, with over £11.5m being provided to local authorities over the 21/22 academic year. The voices of CECYP are integral to the use of this funding. Funding is provided directly to local authorities, with spending directed collaboratively by Chief Social Work and Education Officers, in conjunction with key planning partners – including CECYP and their families. This additional funding has helped support young people with their learning and their wellbeing, through mentoring programmes, outdoor learning, play activities and the implementation of a Virtual Head Teacher role in local authorities to ensure a strong continued focus on CECYP.

4. National Programmes

The ASF invests in a suite of national programmes delivered through third sector and other partner organisations. These are:

Young Scot

• In light of the refreshed SAC, Young Scot will build and expand on the highly successful outcomes of the #YSAttain ‘Attainment Challenge: National Strategic Partnership’ between the Scottish Government and Young Scot to continue to tackle child poverty, improve attainment and have a positive impact on health and wellbeing of young people in a non-stigmatising way.
• In 2018, Young Scot launched the ‘Attainment Challenge: National Strategic Partnership’ alongside Scottish Government, Transport Scotland, Improvement Service, local authorities, and the National Entitlement Card Programme Office (NECPO) to help close the poverty-related attainment gap and to tackle food insecurity and rural poverty.
• Across local authorities, young people have been able to access a range of entitlements aimed at supporting their health and wellbeing. Local authorities chose which entitlements to offer based on local needs, with the views of young people at the heart of decision-making.

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG)

• The Cost of the School Day (COSD) programme was developed by the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland (CPAG). The aim of the programme is to mitigate the impacts of poverty on school children and contribute to equity in education, by reducing or removing financial barriers to full participation in school and poverty-related stigma that some children may experience. It achieves this by encouraging school level action, following research/engagement with parents, children and young people and staff within individual schools.

YouthLink Scotland

• YouthLink Scotland operates a Youth Work and Schools Partnerships Programme - a national capacity-building programme supported through ASF funding of two posts within YouthLink Scotland. It aims to strengthen collaboration between youth work and schools in closing the attainment gap and to provide capacity to measure and communicate impact.

CELCIS

• CELCIS convene a network of colleagues from local authorities who are using the Virtual School Head Teacher (VSHT) model or similar. This network has expanded to over half of the 32 local authorities in Scotland choosing to allocate funding from the CECYP fund towards the establishment and development of a VSHT role, or a Care Experienced Team to ensure a strong continued focus on CECYP.

Hunter Foundation Partnership

• The Scottish Government, partly funded through the ASF, support’s MCR Pathways in order to roll out its Young Scottish Talent mentoring programme in local authorities who wish to participate. Columba 1400 are also being supported through this programme.

5. Universal Support

Universal support is available to all local authorities and schools across Scotland to increase the educational attainment levels of the most disadvantaged young people. Universal support includes:

Attainment Advisors

• All local authorities have direct access to a named Attainment Advisor employed by Education Scotland, who works collaboratively alongside local authority staff on agreed priorities which support the SAC. Over time, the reach and impact of the Attainment Advisors has been extended, through regional alignment to promote collaboration and joint delivery across local authorities. The Attainment Advisor team works directly with schools where they can make the biggest difference to accelerate efforts to close the gap.

The National Improvement Hub

• The National Improvement Hub is a virtual centre of educational expertise that supports the SAC. It plays a key role in moving the knowledge to action around the education system. It provides practitioners examples to support a self-improving education system. It includes specific learning and teaching tools and strategies which are proven to help close the poverty-related attainment gap.
• Further developments, moving forward, will be shared through the National Equity toolkit housed on the Education Scotland National Improvement Hub. Local authorities are also encouraged to share good practice on capturing children and young people’s views and opinions and place these in the (currently under development by Education Scotland) National Equity toolkit as we progress.

Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative

• The Scottish Government established the Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative (CYPIC), which joined up the Early Years Collaborative and the Raising Attainment for All Programme (a precursor to the SAC) to bring focus, connection and method where it is most needed to improve the wellbeing and life chances of children in Scotland. With reach across all children’s services, CYPIC focuses on evidence-based priorities, connecting people and sharing learning to accelerate improvement. CYPIC supports the systematic use of the quality improvement journey to accelerate improvement in outcomes and help close the poverty-related attainment gap.