Scottish Budget 2022 to 2023

Chapter 7 Education & Skills Portfolio

Portfolio Responsibilities

Improving the life chances of our children, young people and learners of all ages through excellence and equity in education continues to be a key priority for this government. The Education and Skills portfolio invests in changing lives for the better and underpins key government priorities, in particular, promoting population wellbeing, tackling child poverty, and building sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

This budget, including funding delivered through the local government settlement, will:

• deliver a statutory financial redress scheme for survivors of child abuse in care;
• keep The Promise to implement the findings of the independent Care Review;
• deliver 1140 hours of high quality early learning and childcare to all three and four year olds and eligible two year olds and extend the piloting of access to funded ELC for all children who defer school start;
• implement the refreshed Scottish Attainment Challenge in order to increase the pace of progress on closing the poverty-related attainment gap;
• invest in our colleges and universities and their students to support the development of well-educated, highly skilled people and securing world-class research and cutting edge innovation; and
• continue to offer apprenticeship opportunities that are open to all.

In 2022-23 we will:

• provide £145.5 million for local authorities to ensure the sustained employment of additional teachers and classroom assistants recruited during the pandemic – as part of our commitment to support the recruitment of at least 3,500 teachers and 500 classroom assistants over this Parliament – and to help councils make these posts permanent. Our investment includes the biggest increase in funding to support teacher recruitment since 2007;
• provide over £40 million of funding to deliver free school lunches to all children in Primary 4 and 5 and in special schools and £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children later in the Parliamentary term;
• invest £15 million in the infrastructure required to provide a digital device to every school-aged child by 2026;
• tackle the digital divide in further and higher education by investing £5 million for universities, colleges and community learning providers to purchase digital equipment;
• support the Scottish Funding Council and our college and university sectors in implementing the agreed recommendations from the SFC’s Review of Tertiary Education and Research in Scotland;
• invest a further £5 million to renew play parks in Scotland as part of a £60 million programme over the course of this Parliament to ensure children have access to high quality outdoor play in their own communities; and
• deliver a £10 million summer holiday childcare programme for low income families and start the early phasing of community-based systems of wraparound childcare.

Education and Skills

Presentational Adjustments for Scottish Parliament Approval

* Includes £5m to be apportioned between the college, university and CLD sectors

** As in previous years, a portion of the raising attainment budget line will be used to top-up Pupil Equity Funding above £120m, to meet the increasing costs of the programme. 2021-22 figures include £20 million Pupil Equity Funding premium to support immediate COVID-19 recovery priorities for children and young people most impacted by poverty.

Education and Skills contributions to the National Outcomes

Primary National Outcomes

• Education
• Children and Young People

Secondary National Outcomes

• Communities
• Human Rights
• Fair Work and Business
• International
• Culture
• Economy
• Poverty

For further information on the purpose of the portfolio budget, and contributions to national outcomes (including impacts of spend on equality of outcome) please refer to the relevant portfolio annex in the published Equality and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement.