Main Points

This report presents statistics for Scotland’s Devolved Employment Services: Fair Start Scotland. Fair Start Scotland (FSS) closed to new referrals on the 31st March 2024, however participants can continue to achieve job outcomes. Statistics with updates to the employment outcomes are presented to the most recent quarter of January to March 2025.

Please note that since new FSS referrals stopped and only small changes in the FSS data can be expected, the quarterly FSS publications will now be paused. The next update will be in late 2026 once most participants from the final intake (January–March 2024) have had the opportunity to reach a 12-month outcome. A date for this will be announced on our forthcoming publications page when available (Forthcoming Publications – opens in a new window).

• There have been 104,208 referrals on Fair Start Scotland (FSS) since April 2018 up to March 2024.

• There have been 70,513 starts to FSS since April 2018, including 6,999 re-joins which was possible from April 2021. As FSS closed to new referrals on the 31st March 2024, there are no new additional starts reported in this publication.

• Overall, there have been 26,886 job starts since FSS launched. For job starts where enough time has passed in pre-employment support and for outcomes to be achieved, 38% have entered employment, 28% have sustained employment for 3 months, 23% have sustained employment for 6 months and 18% have sustained employment for 12 months.

• Of the starts sustaining employment for 6 months, 79% went on to reach at least 12 months employment (10,494 of 13,326 job starts up to March 2023 – 12 months support plus 12 months job outcome). 

• Of the 70,513 starts to FSS  since April 2018, 15,429 (22%, including 1,460 re-joins) were parents. Where enough time has passed in pre-employment support and for outcomes to be achieved there have been 5,978 job starts who are parents, since FSS launched.