Education secretary Jenny Gilruth has described the 2025-26 Scottish Budget as a “good settlement” and urged councils to spend £29 million earmarked for additional support needs (ASN) on specialist staff.
Ms Gilruth - who was speaking at the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee - was “sympathetic” to the concerns about the fall in ASN teachers at a time when the number of children with additional needs has risen sharply, from 5.7 per cent of all pupils in 2008 to 40.5 per cent in 2024.
The cash boost could help address that reduction in specialist teachers, she suggested, as well as pay for more educational psychologists and speech and language therapists.
She said: “Now, that’s a decision for them [councils] but that opportunity within that funding package is there.”
Gilruth on private schools and VAT policy
Ms Gilruth also said:
- State schools had the capacity to “absorb” pupils moving from the private sector because of the introduction of VAT on fees this month. She said the government’s “analysis and engagement” with councils - including Edinburgh, where a large number of pupils attend private schools - had found “capacity within the system to absorb those potentially additional pupils that may come into the system”.
- The Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) needs to remain in place beyond the 2026 Scottish Parliament election, irrespective of the party in power, Ms Gilruth said. She said the SAC funding - which includes the Pupil Equity Fund that goes directly to schools - had been intended as additional money, but had become “absolutely essential” and currently paid for over 3,000 extra staff, including around 1,000 teachers. She said: “That additionality in Scotland’s schools as a result of this funding stream has been hugely important, so my view is that it needs to remain in place.”
When the Scottish government announced its Budget in December, finance secretary Shona Robison said she was funding a £29 million ASN plan to deliver “measures like training so that more of our teachers can become ASN teachers”.
Today, it was made clear by Neil Rennick - the government’s director-general education and justice, who also addressed the education committee - that £28 million of that funding would go to councils, while £1 million had been earmarked for “national level programmes that will apply over all local authority areas”.
In the wake of the Budget, Ms Gilruth announced an additional £41 million for councils to return teacher numbers to 2023 levels after teacher numbers fell for the third year in a row.
Contact time and learning hours
She said she now expected the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers to move “at pace” to agree the 90 minutes of additional class-contact time per week for teachers promised by the SNP in its 2021 Scottish Parliament election manifesto.
She also said that councils had agreed to freeze learning hours and an ”education assurance board” had been established.
Today, Ms Gilruth said that the board would ensure government and councils worked “hand in glove” on issues such as teacher workforce planning.
On free school meals, Ms Gilruth came under fire for failing to secure funding in the Budget for the rollout of universal free school meals for primary pupils.
Committee convener Douglas Ross, the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, accused the government of “ignoring” Parliament after it voted in September for the policy to be delivered in full.
Ms Gilruth said full rollout to all primary pupils - free school meals are currently available to all P1-5 pupils - would have cost an additional £250 million, which was unaffordable.
Meanwhile, Mr Rennick said that expanding the policy next year to P6-7 pupils in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment would benefit 25,000 children and their families.
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