Fair Work Action Plan: impact report 2025

7. Support for people to prepare for, access and sustain Fair Work

7.1 Aims

We will work collaboratively to develop resources to support workers to access, remain and progress in Fair Work.

7.2 Delivery overview

Action

4.1: Undertake a review of the Business Gateway website to ensure that it is accessible to disabled people

Status

Complete

Action

4.2: Deliver Fair Start Scotland (n.b. Fair Start Scotland has been superseded by No One Left Behind)

Status

Complete

Action

4.3: Drive forward the actions of the No One Left Behind Strategic Plan 2024-27

Status

In progress

Action

4.4: Review the equality incentives for disabled people in relation to Work Based Learning; review learning from pilot projects for Foundation Apprenticeships for disabled pupils; develop and deliver disability equality-focused continuous professional development

Status

In progress

Action

4.5: Skills Development Scotland to implement Scotland’s Career Review recommendations to ensure meaningful and accessible support for disabled people

Status

In progress

Action

4.6: Public Health Scotland will collaborate with NHS Boards to develop the NHS Scotland contribution to fair and healthy work outcomes

Status

In progress

7.2.1 Delivered to date

• A review of the Business Gateway website found it to have a reasonably high standard of accessibility. This allows more disabled people to access and utilise business support, which helps unlock the potential of disabled entrepreneurs and contributes towards reducing the disability employment gap.
• The No One Left Behind Strategic Plan 2024 to 2027 announced the Scottish and Local Government’s joint commitment to introduce Specialist Employability Support, targeted at disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. A total of £90 million was invested in 2024-25, with services targeted at those facing structural barriers to entering employment, including parents, lone parents (the majority of which are women), disabled people, those with long term health conditions, and racialised minorities. The plan also reinforces our focus on tackling child poverty by increasing parental income from employment. An annual progress report will be published in autumn 2025.
• Official statistics in development for No One Left Behind, published on 23 July 2025, show that 86,427 people have started to receive support from April 2019 to March 2025, with the number of people starting support increasing each year.
• Between April 2020 and March 2025, 25,955 (31%) parents have started to receive support through our No One Left Behind approach. The number of male parents accessing support has generally increased over time, from 18% in 2020-21 to 31% in the most recent full year (2024-25) as has the number of parents reporting a disability, which has increased from 11% to 29% over the same period. This supports the Scottish Government’s priority of eradicating child poverty.
• Specialist Employment Support for disabled people has been introduced from July 2025. This will enhance existing provision and support more disabled people to access and sustain meaningful employment. An uplift in funding of £5 million to Local Employability Partnerships will support delivery.
• Skills Development Scotland worked in partnership with DFN[3] Project Search to produce a modern apprenticeship guide for learning providers and employers to improve pathways for people with a learning disability and/or autism. A series of Continuous Professional Development sessions have been held on supporting mental health in Scoland’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs), for apprentices and the self-employed.
• All 10 recommendations put forward by Scotland’s Career Review relating to accessible support for disabled people are being implemented. These recommendations were co-designed with young people and stakeholders and cover the full career ecosystem. They include creating person-centred career services; developing community-based services; ensuring digital enablement, empowerment and engagement; and providing exposure to Fair Work. The review is underpinned by an Equality Impact Assessment.
• In 2024-25, a total of 1,609 organisations, including 650 SMEs, sought support from Health Board teams, collectively representing 320,484 employees. However, this figure may under-represent total engagement due to changes in reporting requirements.
• The Healthy Working Lives website received 74,894 page views and had 20,983 active users during the year. Key updates included a revised Keeping People in Work section, focusing on absence management, retention, and referral to Working Health Services Scotland (WHSS). Further enhancements are planned for 2025.
• The WHSS service provides free and confidential advice and health support for the self-employed and people working in companies with fewer than 250 employeers. The service has improved accessibility with extended hours, achieving high uptake: 74% of pre-9am slots and 89% of post-5pm slots were filled.
• Public Health Scotland (PHS) has engaged in a project to employ single parents in PHS, in partnership with One Parent Families Scotland and Glasgow City College.

7.3 Related actions across the Scottish Government

• The New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy: Delivery Plan 2024-2026 has been shaped by responses from community consultations held across Scotland. It includes actions to ensure employability and entrepreneurship support is accessible to New Scots, supporting them to access, remain and progress in Fair Work. The Scottish Government has worked with Skills Development Scotland to enable greater promotion of Modern Apprenticeships to New Scots through a new enhancement to the Ethnicity Intersectionality Incentive which launched in July 2025.
• The Scottish Tech Ecosystem Review (STER) has completed. Techscaler is a £42 million national programme for creating, developing, and scaling tech startups. From pre-start to scaleup, Techscaler education courses help people at every stage of starting and scaling a tech business. The Techscaler programme aims to increase the number of founders and mentors who are female or from ethnic minority backgrounds. The second Techscaler annual report, Techscaler Annual Report 2024 was published in 2025.
• A total of 39 two-year grant funded digital inclusion projects (device libraries, social housing projects and place-based projects) have been initiated with support from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations as part of the latest iteration of Connecting Scotland. An interim Minimum Digital Living Standard report was published in March 2025.
• The Early Learning and Childcare Expansion Interim Evaluation report has been published. It suggests that there are promising signs from research with parents that the ELC expansion is supporting some parents back/into work, study or training. However, it is too early to draw conclusions on the impact of the expansion as the Scottish Study of ELC is still underway. The final evaluation report will be published in late 2025.
• The School Age Childcare Delivery Framework was published in October 2023. The First Minister has announced £16 million of investment to expand access to childcare services to tackle poverty and improve outcomes for children. 600 child places are being delivered through Access to Childcare projects across Scotland. Early evaluation of these projects shows that subsidising or funding childcare within local communities can enable parents to take up or stop them falling out of sustainable employment.
• Increased funding of £5.5 million in 2025-26 has been allocated to the Scottish Football Association Extra Time Programme to fund 53 local football clubs and trusts to provide free before and after school and holiday clubs for targeted families in their communities, supporting over 5,000 children each week. The first Extra Time annual impact report evidences how the programme supports parents and carers to increase their working hours, and has been especially successful in supporting lone parent families, contributing to the Scottish Government priority of eradicating child poverty.
• Investment of £3 million in Bright Start Breakfasts provides free breakfasts to children across Scotland, giving access to a healthy breakfast for children and enabling early drop off for working parents.
• The National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy for young disabled people was published in June 2025. It aims to ensure that every young disabled person in Scotland feels confident in their transition to adulthood and is empowered and supported to control their own path to success. The strategy was developed in partnership with young disabled people, their parents, carers and families, the professionals who support them, and our National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy Strategic Working Group.
• An updated Social Security Charter was published in February 2025 in line with the equality and non-discrimination principles of the Social Security (Scotland) Act.
• The Scottish Government will invest at least £15 million in debt, welfare and income maximisation advice services in 2025-26. This will support a range of organisations such as Citizens Advice Scotland, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), One Parent Families Scotland and Advice Direct Scotland. It channels support to the organisations who are best placed to offer personally tailored expert advice for individual clients, to ensure that Scottish households are supported to access the benefits they are entitled to, challenge benefit decisions and maximise their incomes.
• In 2023, Transport Scotland published a report on Women and Girls’ Personal Safety on Public Transport, which highlighted a number of issues and concerns facing women and girls accessing public transport. Building on one of the recommendations, a subsequent study was undertaken and published in May 2024 on the availability and functions of apps and mobile technologies designed to support women and girls’ safety when navigating public transport and public spaces. Safer transport links are crucial in supporting women in accessing Fair Work.
• All members of the workforce can access free, evidence-based trauma training and implementation support through the National Trauma Transformation Programme (NTTP). The resources have been developed by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and informed by experts by experience. A Roadmap for Creating Trauma-Informed and Responsive Change resource has been designed to help organisations consider how to embed a trauma-informed approach across their policy and practice.
• The NTTP is underpinned by a host of learning opportunities and over 500 people attended an online webinar focusing on the Roadmap in January 2025. NES estimates that there have been around 2 million views of the short and accessible animations Opening Doors and Sowing Seeds and nearly 100,000 views of the four trauma-skilled e-modules.

7.4 Progress indicators - overview

• The gender pay gap in Scotland for full-time employees has been narrowing over time. Data on pay gaps by ethnicity and disability are currently not available.
• The disability employment gap has reduced over time. The trend is less clear for the ethnicity employment gap due to greater variability in the estimates.
• The proportion of females, minority ethnic people and disabled people being supported through No One Left Behind has increased over time.
• Entering employment is the most common progression outcome for females, minority ethnic people and disabled people supported through No One Left Behind, but lower proportions have entered employment than their comparator groups (men, white people and people who are not disabled respectively).
• Employment outcomes for Fair Start Scotland highlighted that higher proportions of minority ethnic participants secured a job start than white participants and higher proportions sustained employment.
• Similar proportions of male and female participants secured a job, but larger proportions of females sustained employment. Lower proportions of disabled participants secured a job and sustained employment than participants who are not disabled.