Education, teachers and Qualifications Scotland and student visa impacts: FOI release

Information requested

1. Could you provide all the actions undertaken by the Scottish Government after it lost the Scottish Parliament vote on standing up for teaching on May 15 2025?
2. Could you supply the full costs of creating a centre for teaching excellence so far, with a breakdown of these costs?
3. How much has been spent on consultants to create Qualifications Scotland, with a breakdown of these costs?
4. Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, about the impact on universities of the immigration changes to student visas, from the last three months?
5. Jenny Gilruth promised in 2024 a A new Scottish Parent Panel offering a “wider range of voices." Could you provide the current progress on this?
6. Could you provide all the latest statistics on how many school pupils leave schools for low paid work in each of the last three years?
   -Is this included as a positive destination in the government's official stats?

Response

1. Could you provide all the actions undertaken by the Scottish Government after it lost the Scottish Parliament vote on standing up for teaching on May 15 2025?

Scottish Government (SG) actions since teaching workforce debate of 15 May 2024:

• The SG budget for 2025-26 provides local government with record funding of over £15.1 billion, an increase of over £1 billion or 5.5% in real terms compared to 2024-25 allowing them to spend more on local need and priorities.
• The total local government finance settlement has increased by £5 billion or 49.9% between 2013-14 and 2025-26.
• In December 2024, the SG agreed with COSLA that, in 2025, Local Authorities would restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels, as well as freezing learning hours and making meaningful progress on reducing class contact time for teachers.
• The SG provided an additional £186.5m to Local Government in 2025-26 for this, which is an increase of £41m on the previous year. The SG is also investing a further £29 million this year to support the Additional Support Needs workforce, with £28m going directly to local government. Working with COSLA, and other partners, the joint Education and Childcare Board was established and is developing an Education Workforce Strategy.
• Annual teacher workforce planning uses statistical modelling to estimate the number of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students required to maintain teacher numbers, and makes recommendations to the Scottish Funding Council for ITE intake targets.
• The SG is encouraging more students to take up a career in teaching.

-The SG provides a Teaching Bursary Scheme, which offers a £15,000 payment to career changers undertaking graduate teacher training in hard-to-fill subjects.
- The Scheme is being reviewed to ensure the most students are supported for key subjects. Over the last two years, 191 bursaries have been awarded to applicants. This has resulted in more teachers being recruited into the hardest-to-fill subjects, including those who might not have contemplated a teaching career without the incentive of a bursary.
- A two-year pilot, with £140,000 funding from the SG, has been launched by Aberdeen University for HND students with relevant backgrounds to convert to teaching computing.  -- The SG is engaging with the University of Glasgow on their innovative pilot with Skyscanner, which provides a unique opportunity for participants to work in industry, whilst also training to become computing science teachers.

• The recent pay deal for Scotland’s teachers ensures they continue to be paid higher than the rest of the UK.
• Due to SG’s additional investment in the last budget, and the efforts of education authorities, last week’s census data (published 9 Dec) shows an increase in the number of teachers in schools and an improvement in the pupil-teacher ratio.

- Teacher numbers increased by 63 between 2024 and 2025.
- The pupil teacher ratio, which gives a measure of the size of the teaching workforce relative to the pupil population, improved slightly from 13.3 in 2024 to 13.2 in 2025.
- There was an increase in Teacher Induction Scheme probationers securing a teaching post (permanent or temporary) in the year following their probation, up to 69% compared to 65% in 2024.​​​​​​
- The overall average class size in primary schools was lower at 23.1, down from 23.3 in 2024.

• The SG will launch a teacher recruitment campaign in the new year, aimed at encouraging more people to consider becoming a secondary school teacher with a particular focus on hard-to-fill subjects and vacancies outside the central belt.
• The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills will be hosting a roundtable with key stakeholders in the new year, looking at key issues supporting teacher education, recruitment and retention.
• Scottish Attainment Challenge funding continues to support Local Authorities and Headteachers to close the poverty-related attainment gap, with the funding estimated to supporting an additional 3,000 staffing in our schools, including almost 700 FTE Teachers. This SG investment continues to support our schools/local authorities. Pupil Equity Funding and Strategic Equity Funding Allocations were published over four years, including in 2024/25 and 2025/26, to aid longer term planning. In 2025/26 Scottish Attainment Challenge Strategic Equity Funding investment of almost £43m supported all 32 Local Authorities to invest in strategic approaches to close the gap, including investment in additional staffing. In the same year Pupil Funding Allocations of just over £130million supported 97% schools empowered headteachers to take the best approaches to support the needs of the children in their schools.

​​​​​​​2. Could you supply the full costs of creating a centre for teaching excellence so far, with a breakdown of these costs?

​​​​​​​The total costs for creating a Centre for Teaching Excellence from January to September 2025 so far is £1,360,839.37.
Costs are broken down as follows:

Staffing	£445,365.88
IT	£58,963.46
Marketing	£855.82
Accommodation	£505.20
Catering	£997.25
Estate/central costs	£811,722.90
Design/build online platform	£3,690
Travel	£186.35
Printing/publication	£9,882
Gaelic Translation	£49.08
Stationery and office supplies	£1,878
Audio visual supplies	£3,282.48
Running costs – Sabhal Mor Ostaig	£17,847
Domestic equipment maintenance	£1,079.95
Sub-contracted labour - Sabhal Mor Ostaig	£4,534

3. How much has been spent on consultants to create Qualifications Scotland, with a breakdown of these costs?

The creation of Qualifications Scotland is part of the wider Education Reform programme. Unfortunately, we cannot provide a breakdown of costs to the level requested as the consultants used by the Scottish Government have worked across the whole of the Education Reform programme, and were not limited to the creation of Qualifications Scotland. This is a formal notice under section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold some of the information you have requested.
From September 2021 to date, the Scottish Government has spent £1,699,287 on consultants across the Education Reform programme. This does not include any costs that Scottish Qualifications Authority may have incurred as it is responsible for the management of its own contracts. In accordance with the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, all public bodies authorities must keep and maintain a register of contracts (a 'contracts register'). The Scottish Qualifications Authority has therefore made available a 'contract register' of all live contracts available to view on the Public Contracts Scotland website. All contracts listed are a result of a regulated procurement above the value of £50,000.

4. Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, about the impact on universities of the immigration changes to student visas, from the last three months?

​​​​​​​*Documentation attached

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​5. Jenny Gilruth promised in 2024 a A new Scottish Parent Panel offering a “wider range of voices." Could you provide the current progress on this?

The Scottish Government recognises and values the vital role that parents and carers play in their children’s lives.
For this reason we announced funding for the organisation Connect to host the Scottish Assembly of Parents and Carers (SAPC) which formed in September 2024. We will continue to fund Connect in 2025/26 for the SAPC to continue to advise, challenge and inform national education policy on behalf of parents and carers.
Over 350 parents and carers representing all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities submitted an interest in joining the Assembly, with further recruitment currently taking place. A project co-ordinator, funded by the Scottish Government, oversees this cohort to ensure it has broad geographic reach and is both diverse and inclusive, representing a range of interests, including Gaelic. Assembly members include those from underrepresented groups, such as people from minority ethnic backgrounds and those who have children with Additional Support Needs.
At this critical juncture for Education Reform, we are committed to meaningful engagement with parents and carers to draw on a wide range of perspectives and experiences from all parts of Scotland. These partnerships are crucial in tackling some of the challenges we are facing such as attendance, behaviour, and mobile phone use in schools, and we are confident that the SAPC will continue to provide valuable insight in helping us address these issues.

6. Could you provide all the latest statistics on how many school pupils leave schools for low paid work in each of the last three years?
-Is this included as a positive destination in the government's official stats?

Statistics on school leaver destinations are published annually and are available on the Scottish Government website here: Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations, No. 7: 2025 edition - gov.scot
Tables 1a and 1b contain figures on the number and percentages of leavers in each destination category.
​​​​​​​Employment is one of the destination categories, but we do not collect information on the type of employment and the levels of pay involved in each case.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500496590 - Information Released - Annex

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