Additional Support For Learning review action plan: final update

Theme 4: Resources

Completed Actions

ASL Review Recommendation 4.1

Audit Scotland

Actions 4.1.1

Audit Scotland must use the key themes in this report and the associated findings from Audit Scotland’s audit of educational outcomes to inform the scope of their national performance audit on outcomes for children and young people with additional support needs.

Status of Action

Completed

In February 2025 Audit Scotland published their briefing on additional support for learning, following which it was considered by Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee on 19 March 2025. The key recommendations from this briefing were centred around improving the quality of data. The Scottish Government and COSLA accepted the recommendations that came out of the briefing.

An ASL Data Summit was held with all 32 LA’s invited, alongside colleagues from: COSLA, ADES, Education Scotland, HMIE, SEEMiS and Audit Scotland to discuss how data on ASL is reported and recorded in Scotland.

The aim of this initial summit was to build a shared understanding of the nationally available ASL data, including how it is recorded and reported, as well as to identify current limitations and gaps. As this work progresses, the Scottish Government and COSLA continue to liaise with Audit Scotland, and will engage more widely with stakeholders across the sector.

ASL Review Recommendation 4.1.2

This must include assessing spend on additional support for learning across services, its impact on attainment and outcomes for children and young people at all stages; highlighting good practice and gaps.

Actions

See action 4.1.1 progress update.

Ongoing Actions

ASL Review Recommendation 4.2

Role of Grant Aided Special Schools

Actions 4.2.1

The Grant Aided Special Schools and three national centres must use the opportunities that arise from the commissioning strand of the Doran Review to consider how their specialist expertise (including in prevention and de-escalation) can be developed to be complementary to statutory mainstream and specialist provision in order to support improvement in the experiences and outcome of children and young people with additional support needs.

Status of Action

Ongoing

Progress Update

The implementation of the Doran review is ongoing and will complete in 2029.

Education Scotland have developed a proposal which would see a placement pilot provide an opportunity for up to five school leaders from mainstream primary and secondary settings, to explore and reflect on a range of focus areas when supporting children and young people with complex needs.

The evaluation of the trial will inform future decisions regarding the inclusion of a special school placement element to existing teacher leadership programmes and the potential for the opportunity to be made available to a broader range of the education workforce.

Whilst the 2023 research provided evidence of challenges within the system, it does not, on its own, provide sufficient evidence of national service needs to inform advice on new service priorities. The National Strategic Commissioning Group agreed that further research should be undertaken to provide comprehensive evidence of complex needs services and priorities across all 32 Local Authorities.

The aim of the research is to assist with the development of spending options for the commissioning of new national services for children and young people with complex additional support needs ahead of the 2028-29 transition away from current funding arrangements. The research will consider the services currently in place in all 32 local authorities, and identify where there is need for additional national services to benefit the learning outcomes of pupils with complex additional support needs in local authority mainstream, enhanced and specialist provision. This builds on the 2015 needs analysis and 2023 research, in which just 7 local authorities were surveyed.

Following consultation with the strategic National Complex Needs Network, Education Scotland has updated their mandatory Into-Headship module content to improve the content on additional support for learning policy, legislation, ASN including complex needs . This will now be used for the cohort of Into-Headship programme participants in Summer 2025.

In 2025/26 the three National Centres (CALL Scotland, Enquire and the Scottish Sensory Centre) received additional funding to enhance the delivery of their complex needs services.

Scotland Excel Frameworks are used by all Local Authorities, these include consideration of impacts on all protected characteristics. All Local Authorities commission services locally, and they all have Commissioning Strategies. The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 will also ensure children’s rights are upheld.

The Progress Report published alongside this updated Action Plan provides detail on how this action will be progressed on Pages 21-24.