Scottish Mentoring and Leadership Programme: evaluation - final report
Scottish Mentoring and Leadership Programme (SMLP) supports care-experienced and disadvantaged young people through MCR Pathways mentoring and Columba 1400 leadership. The evaluation found improved confidence, attainment, school retention and post-school outcomes, with MCR providing strong value for money.
Footnotes
1 MCR Pathways Social Bridging Finance Initiative for Educational Outcomes Evaluation Report
3 Columba 1400 Young People's Leadership Academy web page
4 Children's social work statistics 2023-24 - looked after children (This is down 18% from July 2020 when there were 14,458 Looked After children and when plans for the SMLP were first developed: Children's social work statistics 2020-21)
5 SMLP Impact and Value for Money Evaluation page 12, citing Pupil Census, all pupils in secondary school in S4 between 2014/2015 to 2021/2022; care experience defined by Children Looked After Survey (CLAS); Scottish Government collated data on attainment based on official exam results certified by the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA); Scottish Government exclusions from school data.
6 Throughout this report, we use ‘programme’ when referring to the Scottish Mentoring and Leadership Programme as a whole. When referring specifically to either of the two strands (i.e. MCR Pathways and the Columba 1400 Young People’s Leadership Academy) we have referred to these by name, or as the ‘intervention’ or ‘scheme’ where it is already clear which is being discussed.
7 Independent Care Review - the plan
8 Bringing Hope, Building Futures Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2026-2031 p48
9 MCR Pathways Social Bridging Finance Initiative for Educational Outcomes Evaluation Report
10 For MCR Pathways, the original model was to fund 50% of the cost of MCR for each participating school for three years, which would then be ‘matched’ by the local authority or school. After this period, the local authority/school would be expected to fund the intervention in full on the basis of evidence of impact. For Columba 1400, schools received funding to cover two-thirds of the full cost of running a YPLA. Note that in both cases the funding went to MCR and Columba 1400, and not directly to the local authority/school.
12 This may vary when a school first joins the MCR programme. For example, those already in S2 when the school joins will not have had group work in S1 and those in S3 and above may be matched with a mentor without having done the group work. In some cases, pupils are matched with a mentor in S2 if there is a high enough need for support.
13 Columba 1400 Young People's Leadership Academy web page
14 In some cases, we interviewed the mentors of pupils we had interviewed and in other cases we interviewed mentors of other pupils who were not interviewed.
15 See Intervention Overviews Columba 1400 section of this report for a description of the Columba 1400 YPLA and other elements of Columba 1400.
16 The Head Teachers’ Leadership Academy provides values-based leadership experiences for senior education professionals. Like the YPLA, it is delivered in three phases including a residential element.
17 The amount allocated to each school is based on the number of free school meal registrations.
18 Video calls were introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Columba 1400 have returned to face-to-face delivery for all schools.
19 Percentage of pupils living in 20% most deprived areas (according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)), where SIMD status had been added to the MCR reporting system. For more details of SIMD see here: Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020 web page
20 Where free school meal registration had been added to the MCR reporting system. There are likely to be other young people who are entitled but not registered.
21 Where additional support needs had been added to the MCR reporting system.
22 Where relevant data had been added to the MCR reporting system.
23 At the time of writing, there was a Co-ordinator in one college and MCR have plans to expand into another two colleges over the next academic year (2026/27).
24 Note that this particular requirement no longer exists in the MCR model.
25 In these instances, MCR have run ‘mentor prep’ sessions instead - small cluster support sessions for pupils.
26 For more details, see the report on the impact and value for money evaluation.
27 We do not have equivalent quantitative impact findings for non-care experienced pupils on MCR Pathways or for any pupils on Columba 1400 YPLA. As the inclusion criteria for these vary, it was not possible to identify suitable control groups to assess the impact with sufficient robustness.
28 For each outcome measure, the number of pupils estimated to have been affected by MCR Pathways is presented. This range is based off the 95% confidence interval of the effect sizes for the main analytical approach used in the quantitative impact evaluation
29 Based on all care experienced pupils including those who have participated in the MCR Pathways programme, who account for around 6% of all care experienced pupils.
30 MCR have a partnership agreement with DYW and have recently signed a strategic partnership agreement with SDS.
31 Career Ready targets young people from economically impoverished and social mobility challenged backgrounds.