Educational support and programmes: FOI release

Information requested

1. Whether a £200 per year payment, paid for up to 10 years eligible for 18-25 year-olds with care experience has been developed in Scotland this year as per the Programme for government?
2. Have additional digital devices been delivered to school-aged learner in the 2023-24 school year? If so how many?
3. What preparatory work has been done to ensure every school-aged learner has access to a digital device by the end of this parliament?
4. The total investment in student support in 2022-23 financial year?
5. Is student support in line with the real living wage?

Response

Each of your questions are answered below:

• Whether a £200 per year payment, paid for up to 10 years eligible for 18-25 yearolds with care experience has been developed in Scotland this year as per the Programme for government?

Work is underway to develop a payment which will provide financial support young people leaving care. Engagement and consultation will be undertaken in due course to ensure the views and experiences of those with lived and living experience of the care system, and those who provide support to young people with care experience, sufficiently inform the development of this financial support

• Have additional digital de vices been delivered to school-aged learner in the 2023-24 school year? If so how many?

No Scottish Government funding has been distributed for devices in the 2023-24 academic year.

Whilst our aim is to information wherever possible, this is a formal notice under section 17 (1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you requested, specifically relating digital devices provided to learners by local authorities in the 2023-24 school year. Local authorities invest in and distribute devices in line with their own digital inclusion strategies and funding models. As above, we do not hold information on individual authorities and schools' digital inclusion strategies. For further information, you may wish to contact local authorities directly. Contact details for all local authorities can be found on the COSLA website – Councils | COSLA.

• What preparatory work has been done to ensure every school-aged learner has access to a digital device by the end of this parliament?

Scottish Government undertook a discovery project which aimed to improve our understanding of the current digital landscape in schools. As part of this project, we engaged with 17 local authorities to learn from their experiences of planning and implementing digital learning offers.

Exploratory work completed in December 2022 and demonstrated the variation in how local authorities have planned, managed and implemented digital learning offers across Scotland to date. The learning from this work highlights the complexity involved to "ensure every child has access to a device" by the end of this Parliament.

We are actively working with COSLA and local authority partners to address these challenges and inform next steps.

• The total investment in student support in 2022-23 financial year?

The Student Award Agency Scotland invested £333M in student support in the 2022/23 Financial Year.

• Is student support in line with the real living wage?

It is not possible to do a direct comparison between real living wage for those in employment and the support received by students. In order to compare student support with the real living wage, Scottish Government analysts have calculated the latest (as of September 2022) student Real Living Wage rate to be at £10,355 per academic year. This is based on a methodology provided in the 2017 independent student support review (see page 25), outlined below and which takes cognisance of differences with
regards to hours of study per week and duration of study within a calendar year:

UK Hourly Real Living Wage x Notional hours of study per week x Weeks per academic session

Components:

• UK Hourly Real Living Wage (2022-23): £10.90
• Notional hours of study per week: 25 hours
• Weeks per academic session: 38 weeks

Calculation: £10.90 x 25 hours x 38 weeks = £10,355

The maximum means-tested Higher Education student support package (comprising of a bursary and loan) available in Scotland in Academic Year (AY) 2023/24 is £9,000.

Source: Undergrad Funding - SAAS - Higher Education - Student Loan - Bursary

The maximum Further Education student support package (bursary only) available in Scotland in AY 2023/24 is £5,398.65.

Source: National Policy for Further Education Bursaries AY 2023-24 (sfc.ac.uk)

The student support offer in Scotland is therefore currently not in line with the student equivalent of the real Living Wage, however, the 2021 Programme for Government committed to expanding Scotland’s total support package to reach this equivalent and this will be considered for future academic years.

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.