Scotland's Devolved Employment Services: Fair Start Scotland Statistical Summary July 2025
Official statistics for Fair Start Scotland (FSS) from April 2018 to March 2025.
About this publication
This report presents statistics for Scotland’s Devolved Employment Services: Fair Start Scotland.
FSS is an employability support service, launched in April 2018, which aims to help unemployed people into sustainable employment. FSS closed to new referrals on the 31st March 2024. Official statistics with updates to the employment outcomes are presented to the most recent quarter of January to March 2025.
Important Update on Future Publication Cycle
Since FSS closed to new referrals in March 2024, the number of participants moving into employment has slowed down and overall numbers and percentages are less subject to change quarter on quarter. Therefore, quarterly publications will be paused and the next update will be in 2026. A date will be announced on our forthcoming publications page when available (Forthcoming Publications – opens in a new window). By this point most participants that started in the last start quarter (January – March 2024) will have been able to reach a 12 month outcome.
Following the end of referrals to FSS, Scottish Government funded employability provision is now commissioned through Local Employability Partnerships, under the No One Left Behind approach (Scotland's Devolved Employment Services statistics - opens in a new window).
Further detailed statistics are published in accompanying tables alongside the report. Please refer to the supplementary Background and Methodology Report for more details on FSS data.
Official Statistics
Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics (Access the Code of Practice – opens in a new window) that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. The statistics presented for FSS are Official Statistics.
You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards by emailing: employabilitydata@gov.scot. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing: regulation@statistics.gov.uk.