Strategic Equity Funding: national operational guidance 2026-2027

Monitoring & Reporting

Monitoring should be undertaken locally on an ongoing basis, with support and challenge provided across local systems to support progress in closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

A key element of this should be on-going and regular professional dialogue between local authorities and Education Scotland.

In-year monitoring of progress towards local stretch aims and other priorities set out in local plans is important to ensure early support and intervention where required, and should be a key aspect of local approaches to achieving the mission of the Scottish Attainment Challenge.

Reporting on the impact of plans to use education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on reducing the poverty-related attainment gap will be through existing mechanisms within the education system, as outlined in the Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress.

Existing local authority Education Standards and Quality reports (or local equivalent reports) should be used by the local authority to report on the progress being made with the support of Attainment Scotland Funding and provide specific details on:

• local stretch aims and the trajectories for annual progress within them as part of local authority education service improvement plans and the progress made towards them based on the most recent available quantitative and qualitative data;
• the measures described in the local authority education service improvement plan and any additional data to report on the impact on children and young people affected by poverty;
• both qualitative and quantitative evidence of progress should be used to detail whether the expected impact was achieved – with clear quantitative progress against the relevant NIF measures included; and
• examples of interventions, approaches and use of resources which have been effective.

Within these reports local authorities should ensure that there is a clear narrative on the extent to which the ASF (SEF, PEF and CECYP funding) has influenced and supported local approaches to making progress towards identified stretch aims and achieving the mission of the SAC, and that there is evidence of strategic coherence and alignment in the use of these funding streams.

Local authorities should share reporting on progress via their annual NIF reports/Standards and Quality Reports with Scottish Government by the end of September each year.

Quality Improvement

The Quality Improvement Journey is a route map for delivering change in complex systems. It supports teams to develop stretch aims and meaningful measures at every level of an organisation. It ensures we focus on the most relevant issues, supports the development of a change theory to improve a situation and builds an improvement story with robust data and measures; this in turn ensures implementation and sustainability are built-in.

For more information visit: Quality Improvement Zone | Turas | Learn

The Quality Improvement Journey has been used well in Education to reduce variation in and across schools, and leverage better outcomes for children by addressing specific gaps. The National Improving Writing Programme is an example of where 20 local authorities have methodically improved outcomes in P4 writing and beyond. Teachers use the QI Journey to explore what is needed in the context of their classrooms, while being taught data analysis to understand the direct impact their work is having on children’s outcomes daily.

For more information visit: National Improving Writing Programme – CYPIC

The Scottish Approach to Change is a framework for managing quality and change. It supports public services to consider how to plan for quality, maintain quality and improve quality. Using the Scottish Approach to Change gives local authorities and schools a rigorous method to go about change, and achieve sustainable improvement. The more organisations who use this approach the easier it will become to work with partners as we will have shared language and tools for managing quality well.

For more information visit: Scottish Approach to Change – Healthcare Improvement Scotland

Financial Reporting

There will be two draw-down points annually for funding, one within the financial year and one at the end of the financial year (March). Draw down of funds should be based on actual spend aligned to the planning template. Templates for completion of financial reports will be provided to the local authority by Scottish Government in advance of the draw- down dates.

Where local authorities are unable to spend their full allocation during the financial year, any unspent funds can be carried forward to the new financial year. These funds must be invested by the end of the academic year (end of June) in support of existing plans for that year i.e. staff in post / contracts already in place or resources already committed to. Funding to be carried forward should be identified and set out alongside the end of financial year grant claim submitted in March.