Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 144 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-15730

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to ensure that an independently facilitated joint review of the bargaining agreement takes place, in light of the recommendation of the Lessons Learned exercise carried out by Strathesk Resolutions throughout 2021-22.

Question reference: S6W-15726

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learned exercise carried out by Strathesk Resolutions throughout 2021-22.

Question reference: S6W-15724

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to the role that the Scottish Funding Council should play in ensuring that any information used in the negotiation process is accepted by all parties as accurate, in light of the recommendation of the Lessons Learned exercise carried out by Strathesk Resolutions throughout 2021-22.

Question reference: S6W-15729

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to facilitate discussion between parties involved in collective bargaining, including management and trade unions, which would lead to a planning statement indicating the needs of the college sector, and to discuss any such statement with the Scottish Funding Council in advance of future budgets being set, in light of the recommendations of the Lessons Learned exercise carried out by Strathesk Resolutions throughout 2021-22.

Question reference: S6W-15728

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to re-establish the authority of the national collective bargaining process, in light of the recommendations of the Lessons Learned exercise carried out by Strathesk Resolutions throughout 2021-22.

Question reference: S6W-15727

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what financial resource it is allocating to support the implementation of the recommendations of the Lessons Learned exercise carried out by Strathesk Resolutions throughout 2021-22.

Question reference: S6W-15725

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 March 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the final recommendations of the Lessons Learned exercise carried out by Strathesk Resolutions throughout 2021-22.

Following industrial action within the college sector in 2019, the then Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science committed to undertaking a further lessons learned exercise to break the cycle of annual disputes within the sector.

The Scottish Government commissioned Strathesk Resolutions in 2021 to take forward a lessons learned exercise. The purpose of the exercise was to attempt to reduce the likelihood of future industrial dispute and industrial action, with a view to identifying factors that have led to dispute in recent years and to create an environment for more productive dialogue in future negotiations.

The final report compiled by Strathesk Resolutions, dated 25 March 2022, provides the findings and recommendations to the Scottish Government from the lessons learned exercise. At present, the Scottish Government is awaiting formal responses to the recommendations from partners in the Collective Bargaining process and will use these to inform the next steps regarding the implementation of the recommendations.

Critically, and as made clear by the Lessons Learned report, the Scottish Government will maintain its position of not intervening directly in the national collective bargaining process.

Question reference: S6O-02022

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made in STEM teacher recruitment.

Question reference: S6W-15187

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 17 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-01165 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 28 July 2021, whether it will provide the complete figures for (a) 2020-21, (b) 2021-22 and (c) 2022-23.

Table 1 provides information on average gross revenue expenditure in Scotland per pre-school registration, and primary and secondary pupil along with information on allocations (accounting for teaching and tuition fees funding) per college and university place.

Table 1: Average expenditure per place for each education level in cash terms
Education level	2012-13 1	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16 2	2016-17 3	2017-18 4	2018-19 4,5	2019-20 4,6	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23 8
Pre-School	£3,194	£3,102	£3,411	£3,957	£4,344	£4,561	£5,190	£6,916	£9,366	£10,435	-
Primary School	£4,899	£4,880	£4,819	£4,877	£4,980	£5,169	£5,444	£5,791	£6,130	£6,550	-
Secondary School	£6,629	£6,714	£6,795	£6,920	£7,046	£7,127	£7,454	£7,789	£7,906	£8,174	-
College	£4,012	£4,043	£4,029	£4,024	£4,092	£4,196	£4,539	£4,665	£4,878	£4,952	£5,054
University	£7,139	£7,175	£7,240	£7,237	£7,005	£7,013	£7,182	£7,187	£7,316	£7,433	£7,558

Table 2 provides the same information in 2022-23 prices. Real terms conversions are based on HM Treasury’s GDP Deflator series, January 2023.

Table 2: Average expenditure per place for each education level in real terms (2022-23 prices)
Education level	2012-13 1	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16 2	2016-17 3	2017-18 4	2018-19 4,5	2019-20 4,6	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23 8
Pre-School	£3,983	£3,790	£4,121	£4,743	£5,103	£5,269	£5,891	£7,651	£9,750	£10,942	-
Primary School	£6,108	£5,961	£5,823	£5,846	£5,849	£5,972	£6,179	£6,406	£6,382	£6,869	-
Secondary School	£8,265	£8,201	£8,210	£8,295	£8,276	£8,234	£8,460	£8,617	£8,230	£8,572	-
College	£5,003	£4,939	£4,868	£4,824	£4,806	£4,848	£5,152	£5,161	£5,078	£5,193	£5,054
University	£8,902	£8,765	£8,747	£8,675	£8,228	£8,102	£8,152	£7,951	£7,616	£7,794	£7,558

Methodologies and key policy changes

The methodologies used to determine the average expenditure per place for each education level are provided in more detail below. This section will also explain the methodology and policy changes, and why some of the figures provided in this answer differ from those provided the last time this question (PQ S6W-01165) was answered in July 2021.

Pre-school: average gross revenue expenditure per child in pre-primary education is arrived at by taking the total gross revenue expenditure on pre-primary education, adjusted for inter-authority transfers, as reported by local authorities to the local financial return. These figures are then divided by the number of pupils in funded early learning and childcare as per the statistics reported in the early learning and childcare census.

The per child expenditure for early learning and childcare has risen over the period of these figures. This is due to the expansion in the number of funded hours of early learning and childcare which children are eligible for. The Children and Young People Act (Scotland) 2014 made 600 hours of funded ELC per year available for all 3 and 4 year olds, and extended the entitlement to eligible 2 year olds. This entitlement was expanded to 1140 hours per eligible child from August 2021. This recent expansion, from 600 hours to 1140, has contributed to the increasing expenditure per child from 2018-19 onwards.

Primary and Secondary school: average gross revenue expenditure per pupil in primary and secondary education respectively is arrived at by taking the total gross revenue expenditure adjusted for inter-authority transfers, reported by local authorities on primary and secondary education to the local financial return, divided by the number of pupils in primary and secondary education as per the statistics reported in the pupil census.

Figures for 2019-20 are slightly different from those in the response to PQ S6W-01165 because of subsequent revisions to 2019-20 local government financial return data. The earlier figures provided here for pre-primary, primary and secondary education expenditure have been calculated on a consistent basis and have been updated to take into account any methodological changes and revisions to the calculation of expenditure figures from the Local Government Financial returns.

Colleges: the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) have supplied detail of the cost of a College place (expenditure per full-time equivalent (FTE)). This is calculated by taking funding provided to Colleges for core teaching and assumed tuition fee income and dividing this by the number of student places.

Universities: the cost of a University place, also provided by the SFC, is estimated by taking the total teaching grant awarded to Universities (excluding teaching grant associated with rUK students studying expensive strategically important subjects, who are not eligible for funding) and assumed tuition fee income associated with those places and dividing this by the total number of SFC funded places for Scottish and EU domiciled FTEs. Expenditure figures exclude funding for student support, and SFC’s research and strategic funds. Total FTE figures are SFC/SG funded places and do not include fees only and international places.

In answering an earlier similar PQ S6W-01165 on 28 July 2021, the methodology for Universities and Colleges excluded any external fees element, and for Universities only it included expensive strategically important subjects. However, SFC, who hold the data and provided estimates to Scottish Government, have advised the methodology should include a fees element for Universities and Colleges as fees are considered inherent to teaching provision, and expensive strategically important subjects should be removed for Universities as the additional funding for these courses are only for rest of the UK students who are not associated to funded places. Therefore, estimates will be different compared to those provided in the last version of this question.

Supplementary notes

1. Rest of the UK university places were removed from 2012-13 on a phased basis (new students in 2012-13 and each new cohort thereafter over a 5 year period).

2. In AY 2015-16 SFC moved college funding to a credits based system, rather than WSUMS. It is assumed that 15 credits = 1 FTE.

3. In AY 2016-17 there was a 2.9% reduction in University gross teaching prices.

4. In 2018-19, additional places at St Andrew’s University for rUK Calman students clinical training were funded separately by the SFC however are not included for continuance.

5. For 2020-21 the university allocation includes funded places and funding for childcare that were announced after the publication of the final funding announcement, to ensure consistency with other years.

6. The funded places/weighted SUMS/credits figures used are taken from the final published main grant letters or outcome agreements, and do not take account of any subsequent adjustments.

7. Assumed fees include income from SAAS, SDS, employers and students paying their own tuition fees for SFC funded programmes.

8. A “-“ symbol indicates no available data for this year.

Question reference: S6W-15296

Asked by: Michael Marra, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 7 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many STEM teacher education bursaries were available in each academic year since 2018-19.

Year	Number of bursaries
2018	100
2019	100
2020	150
2021	150
2022	150